The COVID-19 pandemic isn’t over yet as countries like China and South Korea are currently experiencing a sudden surge in the Omicron variant of the disease. In Israel, a new version of the COVID-19 virus called BA.2 has been detected and it is a mutated version of the Omicron variant. Since SARs-COV-2 was detected back in 2020, it has evolved into Alpha, Beta, the deadly Delta variant, Omicron variant, and now BA.2.
The Times Of India reported that Japanese researchers tested the BA.2 subvariant and found that not only is it more transmissible than the original Omicron strain, BA.1, but it also causes a more severe disease. However, on Sunday, the World Health Organization technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said, “We don’t see any difference in terms of severity between BA.2 compared to BA.1. … That’s important.” She also added that the Omicron variant isn’t ‘mild’ but rather it is less severe than Delta variant.
.@DrMikeRyan discusses how variants are created. Antigenic drift is a natural process whereby mutations occur during replication. Antigenic shift is the process by which two or more different strains of a virus combine to form a new subtype. pic.twitter.com/6mtr7bw2k6
— Cleavon MD 💉 💉 💉 (@Cleavon_MD) March 19, 2022
With these data, we find that reinfection with #Omicron BA.2 can occur in patients previously infected with BA.1, as early as 20 days after initial infection. 85% had symptoms during the Omicron BA.2 reinfection, though mainly mild disease and similar duration of 4 days 5/n pic.twitter.com/QrUOrvmjC8
— Marc Stegger (@MarcStegger) February 22, 2022
Omicron BA.2 symptoms
Common symptoms like headache, sore/scratchy throat, sneezing, runny nose and body pain continue to remain the most dominant among those infected. But according to a new report by KREM 2 News, the U.S. Library of Medicine has discovered two additional symptoms of Omicron BA.2 subvariant: dizziness and fatigue. Further, the new BA.2 subvariant spreads 30% easier than the original omicron variant. Furthermore, people who have previously been infected with the Omicron variant will not be immune to the BA.2 subvariant.