Early signs that Covid-19 virus is evolving differently, experts reveal
sub-variants of Omicron-BA.5 and BA.5 are more transmissible, and can dodge some of the immune protection conferred by previous infection and vaccination.
According to Nature's magazine, the rise BA.4 and BA.5 — as well as that of another Omicron offshoot in the US — could mean that SARS-CoV-2 waves are beginning to settle into predictable patterns, with new waves periodically emerging from circulating strains. “These are the first signs that the virus is evolving differently" compared with the first two years of the pandemic when variants seemed to appear out of nowhere, Tulio de Oliveira, a bioinformatician at Stellenbosch University in South Africa told the magazine.
Omicron's BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants emerged in mid-December 2021 and early January 2022 in South Africa first, thereafter, they gradually spread to other countries.
The two sub-variants of Omicron account for 60-75% Covid cases in South Africa at present. The boost in transmissibility of Omicron varinats is similar in magnitude to the advantages that some other fast-spreading SARS-CoV-2 variants had over their predecessors, says Tom Wenseleers, an evolutionary biologist at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. “Taking everything together and looking at all the data, it seems a sizeable new infection wave is certain to come." Jesse Bloom, a viral evolutionary biologist at Fred Hutch, a research centre in Seattle, Washington, said that BA.4 and BA.5 are spreading faster than other Omicron lineages.
United States
|
Cases: 46 252 513
Deaths: 750 423
Recovered: 0
|
India
|
Cases: 34 321 025
Deaths: 459 652
Recovered: 0
|
Brazil
|
Cases: 21 835 785
Deaths: 608 235
Recovered: 0
|
United Kingdom
|
Cases: 9 215 683
Deaths: 141 607
Recovered: 0
|
Russia
|
Cases: 8 494 589
Deaths: 237 619
Recovered: 0
|