@mvankerkhove explains what studies have shown so far on the difference in severity of #COVID19 disease caused by BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron sub-lineages ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/3dA1aaFqAo She said a lot of people out there have heard of a Japanese study that came out as a preprint. “And this is the study that is an experimental study, looking at hamsters in particular.
And what they were looking at is whether or not, experimentally within hamsters, there was a signal of causing more severe disease under these experimental conditions.
We are also looking at severity in what we call the real world," she added. Kerkhove said the WHO is also looking at severity signals in people. “And are we seeing any differences in severity at a population level in terms of increased risk of hospitalisation of people who were infected with BA.2 compared to BA.1?
And what this evaluated from several countries is that we are not seeing a difference in the severity of BA.1 compared to BA.2," she maintained.