Another variant of COVID raising interest

DES MOINES — The World Health Organization has identified the omicron subvariant E-G-5 as a COVID variant of interest.

Nancy Wilde, the manager of infection prevention at UnityPoint Health, says however, the variant doesn’t appear to cause more severe illness. “It seems to be more contagious than some of the initial earlier variants that we saw. But it doesn’t appear to be showing a change in or an increase in severity of symptoms,” she says.

Wilde says you will still want to take precautions to avoid getting sick. “Even though when we look at severity, and we say it’s not as severe, you can still feel pretty puny for a few days, even if you’re a healthy individual. So if you can avoid that it’s better,” Wilde says.

She says you should check with your doctor for advice and to make sure you are up to date on your COVID vaccinations.