USA Today A new, “highly mutated” COVID strain is quickly gaining ground in the United States, according to new data.
Variant BA.3.2, nicknamed “Cicada,” first drew the attention of health officials earlier this year when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization noted it had appeared in at least 23 countries and accounted for up to 30% of cases in some Eastern European locales.
The United States may be following suit, according to new wastewater data. While Cicada accounted for a very small number of U.S. cases (less than 4%) when the CDC first released a report in mid-March, information gathered by WasteWaterSCAN, a Stanford University-led tool for tracking the spread of disease, found that it now accounts for more than 20% of tested COVID infections as of early April.