It's that virus again

Back to the basics: Mask up, sanitise, maintain distance and get vaccinated.

The coronavirus pandemic has been playing hide-and-seek with the global population for more than two and a half years, and it does not seem to tire. The moment we think we have won over the virus, it appears in a new avatar, as if it was a djinn. After a months-long lull, the virus is back again, this time in the form of an Omicron offshoot named BA.5 . Considered a highly transmissible variant owing to three key mutations in its spike protein, the new variant is now a familiar name in testing labs across the world. In the United States, two-thirds of the coronavirus patients were found to have been infected by the new variant, with experts already calling it a new wave altogether; and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying the pandemic is "nowhere near over" .