Scientists and health officials around the world are keeping their eyes on a descendant of the omicron variant that has been found in at least 40 countries, including the United States.
This version of the coronavirus, which scientists call BA.2, is widely considered stealthier than the original version of omicron because particular genetic traits make it somewhat harder to detect. Some scientists worry it could also be more contagious.
But they say there’s a lot they still don’t know about it, including whether it evades vaccines better or causes more severe disease.
WHERE HAS IT SPREAD?
Since mid-November, more than three dozen countries have uploaded nearly 15,000 genetic sequences of BA.2 to GISAID, a global platform for sharing coronavirus data. As of Tuesday morning, 96 of those sequenced cases came from the U.S.
“Thus far, we haven’t seen it start to gain ground” in the U.S., said Dr. Wesley Long, a pathologist at Houston Methodist in Texas, which has identified three cases of BA.2.
The mutant appears much more common in Asia and Europe. In Denmark, it made up 45% of all COVID-19 cases in mid-January, up from 20% two weeks earlier, according to Statens Serum Institut, which falls under the Danish Ministry of Health.
WHAT’S KNOWN ABOUT THIS VERSION?
BA.2 has lots of mutations. About 20 of them in the spike protein that studs the outside of the virus are shared with the original omicron. But it also has additional genetic changes not seen in the initial version.
It’s unclear how significant those mutations are, especially in a population that has encountered the original omicron, said Dr. Jeremy Luban, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
For now, the original version, known as BA.1, and BA.2 are considered subsets of omicron. But global health leaders could give it its own Greek letter name if it is deemed a globally significant “variant of concern.”
The quick spread of BA.2 in some places raises concerns it could take off.
“We have some indications that it just may be as contagious or perhaps slightly more contagious than (original) omicron since it’s able to compete with it in some areas,” Long said. “But we don’t necessarily know why that is.”
An initial analysis by scientists in Denmark shows no differences in hospitalizations for BA.2 compared with the original omicron. Scientists there are still looking into this version’s infectiousness and how well current vaccines work against it. It’s also unclear how well treatments will work against it.
Doctors also don’t yet know for sure if someone who’s already had COVID-19 caused by omicron can be sickened again by BA.2. But they’re hopeful, especially that a prior omicron infection might lessen the severity of disease if someone later contracts BA.2.
The two versions of omicron have enough in common that it’s possible that infection with the original mutant “will give you cross-protection against BA.2,” said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, an infectious diseases expert at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Scientists will be conducting tests to see if antibodies from an infection with the original omicron “are able to neutralize BA.2 in the laboratory and then extrapolate from there,” he said.
HOW CONCERNED ARE HEALTH AGENCIES?
The World Health Organization classifies omicron overall as a variant of concern, its most serious designation of a coronavirus mutant, but it doesn’t single out BA.2 with a designation of its own. Given its rise in some countries, however, the agency says investigations of BA.2 “should be prioritized.”
The UK Health Security Agency, meanwhile, has designated BA.2 a “variant under investigation,” citing the rising numbers found in the U.K. and internationally. Still, the original version of omicron remains dominant in the U.K.
WHY IS IT HARDER TO DETECT?
The original version of omicron had specific genetic features that allowed health officials to rapidly differentiate it from delta using a certain PCR test because of what’s known as “S gene target failure.”
BA.2 doesn’t have this same genetic quirk. So on the test, Long said, BA.2 looks like delta.
“It’s not that the test doesn’t detect it; it’s just that it doesn’t look like omicron,” he said. “Don’t get the impression that ‘stealth omicron’ means we can’t detect it. All of our PCR tests can still detect it.”
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO TO PROTECT YOURSELF?
Doctors advise the same precautions they have all along: Get vaccinated and follow public health guidance about wearing masks, avoiding crowds and staying home when you’re sick.
“The vaccines are still providing good defense against severe disease, hospitalization and death,” Long said. “Even if you’ve had COVID 19 before — you’ve had a natural infection — the protection from the vaccine is still stronger, longer lasting and actually … does well for people who’ve been previously infected.”
The latest version is another reminder that the pandemic hasn’t ended.
“We all wish that it was over,” Long said, ”but until we get the world vaccinated, we’re going to be at risk of having new variants emerge.”
https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/heres ... f-omicron/
The World Health Organization has said the appearance of the subtype, called BA.2, is increasing in many countries. Two cases have also been found in Santa Clara County, Northern California’s most populous county.
“We don’t really know what that means yet. We’ll be learning that in the days and weeks to come,” said Dr. Sara Cody, the county’s health officer and public health director. “So far, we don’t really know how it behaves.”
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco infectious-disease expert, said Wednesday that there’s nothing in the early data right now that makes him worried about BA.2.
“And the reason why I’m not worried is because I’m confident that, if you get boosted ... you wouldn’t go to the hospital,” Chin-Hong said. “I’m not worried about it as being more deadly,” he said, based on early data out of Denmark, but added that he’s “keeping an open mind. You never know what’s going to happen. It has a few more mutations. But I’ll be shocked if it makes you sicker.”
BA.2 will still be a risk for infecting people who haven’t been vaccinated and haven’t had prior exposure to Omicron. “I think our vaccines and our boosters will still work,” Chin-Hong said.
Cody said she thinks more coronavirus waves are yet to come, but it’s unclear what the next one will look like — whether it will be something little or another huge mountain.
“The road ahead still has a lot of uncertainty. We don’t know what’s going to come next,” Cody said at a town hall Tuesday night. “The greatest challenge for all of us is that we can’t quite see around every corner.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical advisor, said this week that he doesn’t expect that the pattern of huge challenging variants emerging twice a year will last forever.
“What likely happens when you have waves of this is that, after a while, there is enough background immunity — either from infection-plus-boost, or vaccine-plus-boost, or just plain infection-and-recover-from-infection — when you put it all together, you can have a degree of immunity in the community such that, even if new variants emerge, they don’t take that surge effect that we’ve seen with the … five surges that we’ve seen since early 2020,” Fauci said on MSNBC on Tuesday.
“So I don’t believe we’re going to be seeing that indefinitely,” Fauci said. “I think it’s going to come down and down. And quite frankly, the more people that we get vaccinated and the more people we get boosted, the less the likelihood that we’ll be seeing these return of variants that keep challenging us.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... -questions
State numbers released for my county show over 25% of the population has had COVID since the pandemic started and over 6,000 are no longer with us and others are still hospitalized.
The state is saying that we've peaked but infections are still going up in my county. County infection rates:
https://www.kron4.com/health/coronaviru ... alifornia/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan