Taiwan reported 61 new infections of the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 among inbound travelers on Monday. The highly infectious subvariants are spreading rapidly in the United States and Europe.
Health authorities say that of the 61 passengers who tested positive, eight cases of BA.4 were detected, along with 53 cases of BA.5. All of the cases were intercepted at the border.
BA.4 was first identified in January in cases sequenced in South Africa, and BA.5 surfaced a month later. While the newcomers cause relatively little severe disease, they have a remarkable ability to evade antibodies from earlier infection and vaccination. That ability is already causing new COVID waves in several countries.