Research is under way to determine whether the mutation-laden lineage BA.2.86 is nothing to worry about — or has the potential to spread globally
Researchers are racing to determine whether a highly mutated coronavirus variant that has popped up in three continents will be a global concern — or much ado about nothing.
Successive COVID-19 waves and booster vaccine roll-outs mean global immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is higher and broader than ever, and most scientists do not expect BA.2.86 to have the same impact as Omicron’s arrival. “There’s good reason to think it won’t be like the Omicron wave, but it’s early days,” Lauring adds.What do we know about BA.2.86? As of 21 August, the variant had been linked to 6 cases in 4 countries: Israel, Denmark, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“Just like Omicron was a little out of left field, this BA.2.86 is little out of left field,” says Ashish Jha, a public-health researcher at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and the former White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator. “There is enough here to get us all to start paying attention.”
What do researchers want to find out? Labs worldwide are now scouring patient samples as well as wastewater to get a sense of how widespread BA.2.86 is. “We want to try and understand how much of this lineage is out there,” says Lauring. If the current trickle of new confirmed cases turns into a flood, it will be a sign that the variant has the potential to compete with other circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, including a more common lineage called EG.5, and cause a global spike in infections.
Should the public be concerned about BA.2.86? “I don’t think anybody needs to be alarmed by this,” stresses Bloom. “The most likely scenario is that this variant fizzles out, and in a month, nobody other than people like me even remember that it existed.”
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