The new variant was first found in South Africa in November 2024 and has since spread to at least 23 countries; it accounts for 30% of current COVID-19 cases in certain parts of Europe.
BA.3.2 was first identified in the United States in January 2026 and currently makes up less than 1% of cases in the country, according to Dr. Abraar Karan, an instructor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.
“In the U.S., it has been detected in wastewater across multiple states which suggests low-level spread, but it has not emerged as the dominant variant,” Dr. Syra Madad, an epidemiologist and author of the Substack Critical Health Voices, told HuffPost via email. (The current dominant variant in the U.S. is XFG, according to CDC data.)
While COVID-19 levels are low throughout most of the country, this variant is capturing researchers’ attention for a reason. Here’s what to know:
“BA.3.2 is a newer SARS-CoV-2 variant that public health officials are watching closely because it has a large number of spike protein mutations, which may help it partially evade immunity from prior infection or vaccination,” said Madad.
“It does have more mutations than some other variants ... in the spike protein, which is particularly relevant for various proxies of whether this could cause more problems to humans,” Karan said.
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