{"id":11771,"date":"2026-04-01T16:00:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T21:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11771"},"modified":"2026-04-01T16:00:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T21:00:49","slug":"covid-19-variant-ba-3-2-is-spreading-quickly-across-us-a-doctor-explains-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/04\/01\/covid-19-variant-ba-3-2-is-spreading-quickly-across-us-a-doctor-explains-what-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID\u201119 variant BA.3.2 is spreading quickly across US \u2013 a doctor explains what you need to\u00a0know"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Conversation<\/a> A variant of COVID-19 called BA.3.2<\/a>, which has circulated under the radar since late 2024, is now spreading quickly across the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a pulmonary and critical care doctor<\/a>, I see many patients who are at high risk for severe COVID-19 due to chronic lung disease<\/a>, as well as patients living with long COVID<\/a>. All of them ask me how worried they should be about new variants of the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no sign so far that BA.3.2, nicknamed Cicada, is any more dangerous or causes more severe disease than the variants that were circulating in the winter of 2025-26. But because it\u2019s significantly different from them<\/a>, the current COVID-19 vaccine may not be as effective against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where did the BA.3.2 variant come from?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BA.3.2 is descended from the omicron variant<\/a>, which emerged in late 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compared to the current predominant strains of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, BA.3.2 carries\u00a070 to 75 genetic changes<\/a>\u00a0in its\u00a0spike protein<\/a>, the part of the virus that\u00a0helps it get into cells<\/a>. The spike protein is also the\u00a0part of the virus that vaccines rely on<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0coax people\u2019s immune systems<\/a>\u00a0into\u00a0recognizing the virus<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Conversation A variant of COVID-19 called BA.3.2, which has circulated under the radar since late 2024, is now spreading quickly across the United States. As a pulmonary and critical care doctor, I see many patients who are at high risk for severe COVID-19 due to chronic lung disease, as well as patients living with long COVID. All of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11772,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11771\/revisions\/11772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}