'It's got a transmission advantage over BA.1 which is the classic original Omicron, not a multi-fold advantage,' Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday.
that the BA.2 subvariant, also called the"stealth Omicron," is leading the spread of the coronavirus variant worldwide. The subvariant now makes the majority of cases sequenced by experts.
When Fauci was asked,"should we worry about it?" he responded that BA.2 is already highly recognizable and that its characteristics need to be further examined to make that determination. But, he confirmed that BA.2"does not appear to be any more serious when it comes to complications like the need for hospitalization."
White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said that the Omicron subvariant BA.2 will likely be dominant, but not more serious when it comes to hospitalizations. Above, Fauci is seen testifying at a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on January 11, 2022."And it doesn't appear that it escapes immune protection any more or less than the original Omicron," he added.
"So the only distinguishing feature is that it's more transmissible, which is accounting for the spikes that we're seeing throughout the world, including in theMeanwhile, the technical lead for WHO's COVID response team, Maria Van Kerkhove, said during a press conference on Wednesday that"about 86 percent of the sequences that are available from the last four weeks are this BA.2 sublineage the rest are BA.1. So we are seeing an increasing proportion of BA.2 being detected.
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