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The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), have released a variant analyses of Omicron sub-lineage BA.2.
Prof John Edmunds, Professor in the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:
“BA.2 appears to be even more transmissible than the original Omicron strain (BA.1). It is starting to increase in relative frequency and we might expect it to become dominant in the UK in the next few weeks, as it has done in Denmark recently. It is difficult to say what the implications of this will be. It may well extend this wave of infection, or even lead to another peak. The good news is that at present there is no evidence to suggest that it is more severe than Omicron and as the UKHSA analysis shows, the vaccines appear to be as effective against it as they are against BA.1.”
Prof Jonathan Ball, Professor of Molecular Virology, University of Nottingham, said:
“It’s still early days, but the evidence so far suggests that BA.2 may be more transmissible than its close relative Omicron. However, the key issues are whether this variant is associated with more severe disease and if it can escape immunity delivered by vaccines. Early indicators suggest that the vaccines will provide similar levels of protection as we have seen for Omicron, so this is good news. Whether or not it causes more severe disease will become apparent as more data is collected.
“Of course, it is important to keep monitoring the situation and try to gain a better understanding of how this variant behaves, but so far there is nothing in these early analyses to worry us unduly.”
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/covid-19-variants-identified-in-the-uk
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