Omicron COVID Variant BA.2 Is Becoming More Widespread Than BA.1

In comparison to the BA.1 variant, which has been the dominant Omicron variant as of now, BA.2 has received a lot of emphasis in current days since it 's been accountable for steep rise in the number of Omicron infections.

The sub-variant has been acquiring prominence in countries such as Denmark and Norway, with over half of all COVID instances in the former as of January 20, indicating a dramatic spike in recent weeks.There is still much to learn about BA.2, according to virologists, but somehow it indicates that the sub-variant has a transmission advantage above BA.1.

According to a news release published last Friday by the UK's Health Security Agency (HSA), BA.2 has been designated as a variant awaiting investigation (VUI) owing to international and domestic cases, and relying on preliminary data, BA.2 seems to have a faster growth rate than BA.1.The HSA, on the other hand, claimed that the proportion of BA.2 instances in the country compared to BA.1 was currently minimal, and that more research was needed to understand the sub-importance variant's and alterations.

Dr Meera Chand, HSA COVID-19 Incident Director said that there is lack of information to identify whether BA.2 causes greater severe illness than Omicron BA.1, however data is restricted and UKHSA continued to examine.

As per a news statement issued previous week by Denmark's Statens Serum Institut (SSI) infectious disease research facility, immunizations are predicted to continue to have an influence on severe sickness caused by BA.2

The HSA explained that from November 17, a maximum of 40 countries have uploaded BA.2 sequences to the virus sequencing database GISAID. As of Monday, Outbreak.info, an online application that shows COVID statistics based on GISAID data, had that level at 49.

Research mentioned one distinguishing feature of BA.2 is that it lacks a genetic trait that researchers earlier used to detect Omicron cases, lending credence to the moniker 'stealth Omicron.'

While on last week, Cornelius Roemer, a computational biologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, stated that BA.2 is still detectable on PCR tests, calling news reporting to the contrary 'completely false.'He added that it may or may not appear to be BA.1 based on the PCR test used. However, it will still produce a favourable outcome.

Meanwhile, on Monday morning, GISAID reported that a total of 12,842 BA.2 sequences from around the world had been submitted to its database. The United States was responsible for 67 of them.