Covid subvariant ‘Omicron BA.2’ as deadly as Delta, says expert. What makes it worrisome?

Coronavirus pandemic has been troublesome for most parts of the world in last two years. What’s more worrisome is the emergence of variants and subvariants.   

One subvariant, which can prove to be as deadly as Delta and previously identified Covid variants is Omicron subvariant BA.2. It can also be called as ‘stealth Omicron’.  

The new lab studies have revealed that this subvariant BA.2 can cause severe illnesses. Considering this, epidemiologist Eric Fang has voiced concern and wants it to be upgraded as ‘variant of concern’.   

This subvariant may have features, which can make it capable of causing serious illnesses. It has immune escape properties just like sub-variant BA.1. It is resistant to treatments like sotrovimab, the monoclonal antibody.  

Although the study is yet to be peer-reviewed, it has been posted on the preprint repository, BioRxiv.   

Although BA.2 is considered as an Omicron variant, its genomic sequence is heavily different from BA.1, the researchers said. “And, this suggests that the virological characteristics of BA.2 are different from that of BA.1," they added.   

In a tweet, Fang said that BA2 is seriously bad news. It’s both faster transmission than BA2 and if it’s truly more severe and as evasive against prior immunity including BA1 old Omicron immunity— then it’d be the worse of four worlds.   

(With inputs from agencies)