Evidence is mounting that BA.2, Omicron’s new variant, is more transmissible than the original strain but at this stage it does not appear to be more vaccine-evasive.
Evidence is mounting that Omicron’s new sister variant, known as BA.2, is more transmissible than the original strain but at this stage does not appear to be more vaccine-evasive.
“That does seem to suggest there is an intrinsic transmissibility advantage,” said Dr Adam Wheatley, who heads a research team studying the immune response to COVID-19 at the University of Melbourne. “Nothing ominous has come out so far. There is no reason to panic,” said Professor Seshadri Vasan, who has been tracking COVID-19’s variants at the CSIRO.
Evidence from a small number of Omicron infections tracked by British health authorities suggests BA.2’s “secondary attack rate” – the chance of an infected person passing the virus on to someone else in the household –
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