England's public health body investigates new offshoot of Omicron

[brooklynite]

Source: Financial Times

An offshoot of the Omicron coronavirus variant, known as BA.2, is being investigated by England’s public health body over concerns that it may be even faster spreading than the original version.

The UK Health Security Agency said it was designating the Omicron offshoot a ‘variant under investigation’ because of “increasing numbers of BA.2 sequences identified both domestically and internationally”.

Early analysis suggests the BA.2 sub-variant may have an “increased growth rate” over the earlier form of Omicron, officially designated as BA.1, according to UKHSA, which stressed that there is a “low level of certainty early in the emergence of a variant”. Moreover, BA.2 has not been named a ‘variant of concern’ — the highest risk ranking for new strains.

About 426 cases of the Omicron offshoot have been sequenced in the UK, with the first found in early December. Only 0.26 per cent of Covid-19 cases sequenced in the UK in the week ending January 16 were BA.2.

Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/34fef135-7408-47d1-83b2-61a6a59bc943

[Traildogbob]

1. Wow

The cockroach of viruses.

[IronLionZion]

2. Hoping it's milder

can't read it because of the paywall

[Warpy]

3. Here

Money quote: "Initial analysis shows no differences in hospitalisations for BA.2 compared to BA.1. Analyses regarding infectiousness and vaccine efficiency etc. are ongoing, including attempts to cultivate BA.2 in order to perform antibody neutralization studies. It is expected that vaccines also have an effect against severe illness upon BA.2 infection."

https://en.ssi.dk/news/news/2022/omicron-variant-ba2-accounts-for-almost-half-of-all-danish-omicron-cases