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BA.2 Omicron Could Just Be the Most Contagious COVID Yet


Just a few weeks ago, it seemed like the worst was behind us and the wave of COVID-19 infections caused by new Omicron variant are starting to lower prices in many of the hardest hit places.

But epidemiologists warn that some new variations will eventually replace Omicron, likely to spur a new surge in cases. They were right.

This week, cases began to increase again in some countries. And some experts think an elusive form of Omicron, the so-called BA.2 subline, may be responsible.

If that’s the case and BA.2 is even easier to transmit than the base Omicron — the BA.1 subline — then we should be prepared for a rough spring. BA.2 has entered the United States. It could slow or even reverse our recovery from the first wave of Omicrons.

Do not panic. But don’t let your guard down. And if you’re unvaccinated or unvaccinated, you know it. Yesterday is the best time to get your shot.

Scientists have known about BA.2 for weeks now. They first detected it in early December in samples from South Africa, Australia and Canada. It was just weeks after officials from South Africa announced the first BA.1 cases.

BA.1 – again, it was the basal Omicron strain, which had dozens of unique mutations compared to previous SARS-CoV-2 strains – quickly became dominant worldwide, all but wiped out. Delta line previously dominated in many countries.

Omicron has reshaped the pandemic. This is the strain that is most contagious – although it often leads to less serious infections than Delta, in part because it tends to stay in the throat rather than attack the lungs.

Omicron sets a record for daily new infections, but in countries where the majority of the population is vaccinated, the death rate is lower than the case rate – a so-called “To separate” Infections and deaths represent the silver lining in Omicron’s storm clouds.

While BA.1 does its dirty work, BA.2 lurks in the background. It should be noted that BA.2 can be difficult to distinguish from BA.1 in many polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. Distinguishing the two sublines sometimes requires sequencing the genes in the lab, which can slow down efforts to track the two lines separately.

In any case, now that BA.1 is fading in many countries, BA.2 seems to be dominating. “Recent trends from India, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Denmark suggest that BA.2 is increasing proportionally,” said World Health Organization announced on Friday.

Keith Jerome, a University of Washington virologist, told The Daily Beast, “Sublineage BA.2 has been seen here, and experience from other parts of the world suggests that it may still be infectious. more than BA.1, and seems to be surpassing it. “

That could be because BA.2 is actually quite different from BA.1 on a genetic level — and those differences could make BA.2 easier to transmit.

Both sublines have about 50 unique mutations compared to Delta. But they do not have the same 50 unique mutations. In fact, no less than 16 mutations of BA.2 is the only one to the subline. Those changes primarily affect the virus’s mutant protein, which helps it attach to and infect our cells. A mutant protein is associated with higher transduction capacity. In other words, BA.2 can find transmissions that BA.1 cannot.

Consider what is happening in Denmark. New cases daily peak at 47,000 on January 21, then dropped to 36,000 the next day – a sharp drop in line with BA.1’s rapid spread and equally rapid attrition.

But at the same time BA.1 has run out of routes of infection, BA.2 is finding new ones. By the second week of January, BA.2 half of daily cases–Up from just one-fifth of cases two weeks earlier.

Not surprisingly, BA.2 increased the number of daily new infections in Denmark to 47,000 on Tuesday. The next day, Health Minister Magnus Heunicke claims that rapid spread means “it must be more contagious” than BA.1.

Meanwhile, the same thing happened in UK Daily new cases peaked at 219,000 on 4 January then dropped to 70,000 two weeks later as BA.1 disappeared.

Then BA.2 started taking over. Rate of new infections that UK scientists think is BA.2 doubled every four days since the first week of January, bringing the sublinear to the dominant form of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK next month.

Unsurprisingly, the UK filing rate rose again, from 70,000 a day to a steady 100,000 or so for a week in a row. On Friday, the government Labeling BA.2 a “variant under investigation” but encourages calm. “More analysis is needed.”

The Danish and British experiences are not isolated. Greece has also seen cases increase as BA.2 becomes dominant. And experts warn the same could happen in the United States. Rob Knight, head of the genetic computing lab at the University of California, San Diego, detected BA.2 in test samples. He said the second wave of Omicron increases was “reasonable.” “I’m waiting for more information to draw my own conclusions.”

Edwin Michael, an epidemiologist at the Center for Global Health Infectious Disease Research at the University of South Florida, is more pessimistic. “We could see a resurgence in cases,” he told The Daily Beast.

If there’s good news in this seemingly never-ending pandemic of fatigue, it’s that BA.2 may be more transmissible than BA.1 and any other strain of SARS-CoV-2, but it doesn’t appear to reduce its effectiveness. Vaccine. At least, not more than BA.1.

So even if cases bend up again, severe cases – those that lead to hospitalization or death – may not. “Outbreaks may not be a problem for hospitals,” says Michael.

But BA.2 is another reminder. As long as billions of people are too young to be vaccinated, not have access to shots, or refuse vaccines for ideological reasons, it will not be possible to eradicate SARS-CoV-2.

Viruses are here to stay. And each new infection is an opportunity for pathogens. Niema Moshiri, a geneticist at the University of California, San Diego, told The Daily Beast: “The virus mutates. “That’s simply what they do.”

Any mutation can produce a new lineage or subline. We were fortunate that the latest mutations gave us BA.1 and BA.2 — sublines that are highly transmissible but often lead to mild disease.

Our luck may not hold. Anything that happens after BA.2 can be less transmitted and even lighter. Or it can spread faster and kill more often. Add to that the fact that no immunity – whether natural or vaccine-induced – is permanent and the future is going to get worse.

“Given that immunity is not permanent, and with variants that will continue to emerge, we may need to consider a multi-pronged approach to addressing repeat outbreaks that will inevitably occur,” said Michael. happen.

It is not without reason that the doctors beg Drugs for COVID People can do it at home to treat mild infections. And the vaccine developers are working really hard to make it Vaccine “pan-COVID” can be more efficient and durable than the drills we currently have.





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