The BA.2 sub-lineage of the Omicron variant now makes up nearly a quarter of new COVID-19 infections nationwide, the CDC estimated Tuesday, up from around 1 in 10 new cases just a week prior.
Those trends appear to hold true even in the regions with the highest share of BA.2 cases, though early-warning datafrom wastewater samples does suggest some communities might soon see an uptick.
"Although the proportion of infections with BA.2 is increasing in the U.S., COVID-19 cases are now declining, so it is likely that absolute numbers of BA.2 infections are not increasing as quickly as they might seem from just looking at the proportion that are BA.2," Dr. Deborah Dowell, the CDC's chief medical officer for the agency's COVID-19 response, said over the weekend. hosted by the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said a key difference between BA.1 and BA.
BA.2 does not cause the same failure, resulting in some misleadingly nicknaming it a"stealth variant." However, after BA.1 had reached virtually 100% of new infections earlier this year, the same difference is actually helping researchers rapidly analyze BA.2's rise. "Although BA.2 does seem to be growing as a proportion of sub-lineages in the United States, it's not nearly as quickly as we've seen in some other countries. The doubling time in the United States actually seems to be slowing down," said Dowell. that BA.2 was now the majority of new infections in most parts of the country.
"The speculation I've seen is that it may extend the curve going down of case rates of Omicron, but is unlikely to cause another surge the way we've seen, that we saw initially with Omicron," Dowell added later. Preliminary research overseas, including from
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