Stealth omicron variant: should you care about BA.2?

What’s next: Scientists are keeping an eye on the BA.2 variant. Per CBS News, health officials hope to find out if it evades COVID-19 vaccines more or causes more severe COVID-19 symptoms.

State of play: Last weekend, scientists started to note that the BA.2 subvariant — which has 32 mutations in common with the BA.1 variant — was accounting for more cases of COVID-19, as I reported for the Deseret News. What they’re saying: “I don’t think it’s going to cause the degree of chaos and disruption, morbidity and mortality that BA.1 did,” Dr. Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told USA Today. “I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re going to continue to move to a better place and, hopefully, one where each new variant on the horizon isn’t news.”

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There’s also a BA.3 subvariant, which has additional changes to the BA.1 variant, according to the World Health Organization.
Denmark, the United Kingdom, Singapore and India have seen a number of cases linked to BA.2 and BA.3 subvariants, per Insider. Yes, but: Experts told USA Today that there’s no reason to be overly concerned for the BA.2 variant.

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