Infectious disease experts are watching an omicron subvariant, BA.2, which, though it has not caused a considerable spike in cases, is circulating quickly in New York City just as virus-related safety measures are lifted.
The omicron variant offshoot has been on scientists’ radar since November, when it was discovered in South Africa. BA.2, also dubbed the “stealth omicron” strain due to a lack of certain genetic changes that make it distinguishable in PCR test results, has driven up cases in Denmark, India, and the United Kingdom in recent months. In New York, BA.2 is doubling in proportion statewide every two weeks. Wastewater surveillance in New York City also shows that BA.2 is finding a foothold there, Gothamist reported.
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“At a global level, the proportion of reported sequences designated BA.2 has been increasing relative to [other omicron subvariant] BA.1 in recent weeks. However, the global circulation of all variants is reportedly declining,” the World Health Organization said in a statement last month.
Its arrival in the U.S. comes at a time when the vast majority of COVID-19 mitigation efforts, such as mask mandates, are rescinded due to plummeting cases and hospitalizations. BA.2 now accounts for about 11.6% of cases in the U.S., up from 6.6% at the end of February, according to federal tracking.
The BA.2 subvariant has not yet taken a firm hold in the U.S., which is still emerging from the omicron strain’s onslaught. Still, BA.2 has a record of spreading quickly — perhaps significantly more quickly than omicron. Danish scientists at the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen posit that BA.2 could be as much as 30% more transmissible than the original omicron strain. It does not look like the subvariant causes more severe illness than the original omicron strain, which has been shown to be less virulent than the delta variant.
“At this point, there’s no grounds for panic, though we need to keep an eye on it,” Dr. Thomas Russo, an infectious disease expert at the University of Buffalo, told the Miami Herald.
The subvariant’s “stealth” quality makes other means of surveillance apart from testing particularly important. The CDC has ramped up its wastewater surveillance infrastructure in recent months with an online tool to monitor the presence of new variants circulating in the community. Many states and municipalities, such as New York City, had already used the sewer system as a bellwether for viral load among the public.
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Vaccines appear to be effective against BA.2, though less so without a booster dose. Early evidence out of the U.K. showed that people who had completed the one- or two-dose vaccination regimen without getting a booster were far less protected from BA.2 at least 25 weeks after. But those who got a booster dose saw vaccine efficacy shoot back up to 74% after two to four weeks.
The U.S. has adopted a more laissez-faire approach to COVID-19 now that cases, hospitalizations, and deaths due to the virus are plummeting nationwide. The vast majority of Americans no longer need to wear masks because transmission of the virus at the community level has fallen, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a few weeks ago. Public health experts have anticipated the arrival of another variant and have improved ways to monitor new variants accordingly. Scientists will continue to monitor the spread of BA.2 while encouraging more people to get booster shots. Uptake of extra doses is low in the U.S., with only 44% of eligible people 12 and over getting the shots.
