- Danish scientists confirmed this week that the new subvariant can reinfect people who’ve previously had omicron, although it doesn’t appear to be all that common.
- They also agree that it’s more contagious than the original version of omicron, BA.1, which is still widely circulating around the world.
- But it’s surprisingly not driving a second wave of omicron infections. Globally, Covid cases have plunged 21% over the past week.
A more contagious subvariant of omicron, known as BA.2, is spreading across the globe and could soon become the dominant version of Covid-19. It’s now the top variant in at least 18 countries and rapidly spreading, representing 35% of all new cases that have been genetically sequenced worldwide, up from 10 countries and 21% of cases the week before, according to new data from the World Health Organization. In the U.S, BA.2 currently makes up 3.8% of genetically sequenced Covid cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A pandemic-weary public wants to know two main things: Will BA.2 cause a second surge of omicron cases, and will it put even more people in the hospital with severe infections? So far, scientists say the answer to both questions is probably no. However, Danish scientists confirmed this week that the new subvariant can reinfect people who’ve previously had omicron, although it doesn’t appear to be all that common. They also agree that it’s more contagious than the original version of omicron, BA.1, which is still widely circulating around the world. But it’s surprisingly not driving a second wave of omicron infections. Globally, Covid cases have plunged 21% over the past week — subsiding in every region except the Western Pacific — while deaths have fallen 8% over the past week, according to data from the WHO. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, said the global health agency is closely monitoring countries that have detected BA.2, but so far the subvariant hasn’t caused a fresh surge in cases. “As we’re seeing that decline in cases in countries, we’re not seeing an increase again with BA.2,” Van Kerkhove said during a question-and-answer session livestreamed on the WHO’s social media platforms Tuesday. Here’s what’s known about the subvariant so far. Danish researchers have found that BA.2 is about 30% more transmissible than BA.1. Denmark was one of the first countries where BA.2 became dominant, and public health authorities around the world have paid close attention to the situation there to gather insight on what the subvariant might mean for the future course of the pandemic.
“We conclude that Omicron BA.2 is inherently substantially more transmissible than BA.1,” a team of scientists affiliated with Danish public health authorities and the University of Copenhagen wrote in a study last month, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.
The U.K. Health Security Agency found in late January that BA.2 had a substantial advantage over BA.1 in England. “We now know that BA.2 has an increased growth rate which can be seen in all regions in England,” said Dr. Susan Hopkins, the agency’s chief medical advisor. “If what is being reported is true that BA.2 is slightly more transmissible, then my strong inclination is to say that BA.2 will likely take over wherever BA.1 was,” said Mehul Suthar, a virologist at Emory University. However, Suthar said this doesn’t necessarily mean that BA.2 will cause a surge of infection. BA.2′s ability to cause another wave depends, in part, on whether it can reinfect people who have already caught and recovered from omicron, he said. Danish scientists confirmed Tuesday that the BA.2 subvariant can reinfect people who previously had its omicron predecessor, BA.1, though the risk of catching the virus again appears low. The Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen analyzed a randomly selected sample of 263 reinfection cases. Forty-seven people caught BA.2 less than two months after infection with BA.1, according to the study. The majority of the people reinfected with BA.2 after BA.1 were younger than 20 years old and unvaccinated. “The reinfection rate appears to be low given the high number of positive SARS-CoV-2 tests during the study period but still highlights the need for continuous assessment of length of vaccine-induced and/or natural immunity,” the study’s authors wrote. The people reinfected had mild symptoms and none of them were hospitalized or died. The study also found that people reinfected with a BA.2 infection had a reduced viral load, indicating some crossover immunity from the first infection. The U.K. Health Security Agency, in a separate study, found 69 cases of people reinfected with BA.2 no more than 90 days after their first infection with Covid. However, no instances of people reinfected by BA.2 after first catching BA.1 were found among the 51 cases where enough information was available. The timing of the first infections and sequencing indicated their original Covid cases were the delta variant. Neither study has been peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard in academic publishing. Scientists have been publishing their research as quickly as possible due to the urgency of the pandemic. NN: By fall the 5th wave will be upon us. And by that time will mutate into the deadest form yet. And it will evade our present vaccine and acquired immunity. It is crazy they are opening the door wide open to this fast spreading highly courageous mutation. Have we not learned anything these past two years?