The Omicron variant of COVID has made the daily numbers of infections across the world rise at unprecedented levels. Countries such as the United States, the UK, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and others had been dealing with a more massive COVID surge than ever before. Information brought by worldometer.info confirms the dreadful scenarios.
But there’s a newfound COVID variant that raises even greater concerns than Omicron. To be more precise, it’s a subvariant of Omicron that’s known as BA.2. Omicron is also known as BA.1. While scientists didn’t know much about the new BA.2 variant, it was only a matter of time until they brought some information to the public.
Danish scientists discover that BA.2 is 1.5 times more infectious than Omicron
According to CNBC.com, Danish scientists discovered that BA.2 is 1.5 times more contagious than Omicron. Of course, this can also make us worry more about the near future of the ongoing pandemic.
What’s perhaps even worse is that BA.2 has also been spreading to half of the states of America, as the same source reveals. There’s a minimum of at least 127 cases of infection across the country.
Scientists still have plenty to learn about the new COVID variant. However, Kristen Nordlun, a spokesperson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), brings some good news, as CNBC.com quotes:
Currently there is no evidence that the BA.2 lineage is more severe than the BA.1 lineage.
Troels Lillebaek, who’s the chairman of Denmark’s committee that conducts surveillance for COVID variants, tried to explain for CNBC.com how it is possible for BA.2 to be more transmissible than the main BA.1 variant. He says that BA.2 has five unique mutations on an essential part of the spike protein that helps the virus enter human cells. Mutations on that specific place are frequently associated with higher transmissibility.
