Don’t look now, but Omicron BA2 — AKA “Omicron Part 2” — is on the way!
Current Events
Just when we all thought COVID was beginning to wane and that (since most of us got Omicron over the past few months) the threat of Omicron was now past us, here comes one of the variant’s pesky siblings. It’s known as Omicron BA2, it is beginning to spread throughout Europe and Asia, and it has already been detected in California, Texas, and Washington.
In case you’re confused, the variant that took much of the country down during the holidays was Omicron BA1. Now, scientists say the latest version beginning to circulate is Omicron BA2. Oh, and in case you were wondering, there’s also the Omicron BA3.
FYI: BA.2 and BA.3 are each much more powerful and more contagious than the BA.1 version we all just witnessed.
“It could be that BA.2 does have some small advantage,” said Dr. Emma Hodcroft, an epidemiologist at the University of Bern who has actively tracked variants throughout the pandemic via the Nextstrain project. “BA.2 might well be, like, 1% to 3% more transmissible, or something like that.”
She added that when BA.1 took off rapidly and spread throughout the US and around the world, it initially looked as if BA2 and BA.3 were weaker and less able to keep up with BA.1.
“We thought, ‘OK, BA.2 is just not as fit as its sibling BA.1, and it will kind of peter out,’ ” Hodcroft said.
However, that’s not what happened at all.
Over the past several weeks, Omicron BA2 has begun to surprise scientists and appears to have the ability to outcompete BA.1. Additionally, with BA.2 spreading rapidly in England and Germany (where it’s causing at least 5% of cases in both places), scientists are concerned it will cause another surge in those locations as well as the United States.
Available data indicates that BA.2 is not BA.1’s weaker sibling, but a variant that seems to be quite strong and possibly more contagious than what we’ve already seen. Or, in other words, although we may be tired of COVID, COVID is not yet tired of or done with us!
Stay tuned…
Just like I said yesterday I am going to keep wearing my mask regardless. This thing is not over yet and we need to stop pretending like it is.