Scientist Finally Speak About New ‘Stealth’ Omicron Variant

Various members of the scientific community have stated that a new “stealth” subvariant of Omicron, BA.2, has been slowly and quietly creeping its way across the country, but they have also claimed that they do not believe that the new strain will end up causing any new surges in COVID-19 cases.

Quite a few studies have discovered that BA.2 is far more transmissible than even BA.1, but they have affirmed the fact that they are not concerned at all about it.

“In early 2022, BA.2 was growing more common in a number of countries,” read a report from The New York Times. “By February, it had become dominant worldwide, driving down the once-dominant BA.1. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that BA.2 jumped to 11% in early March from 1% in early February. It could soon become dominant in this country as well.”

“But that does not mean that Americans are riding a new BA.2 wave that is infecting a lot of new people. As BA.2 became more common in the United States, the total number of new cases fell by about 95%. Worldwide, the number of daily new cases had fallen to half of what they were at their peak in late January,” continued the Times.

Many others have parrotted this sentiment.

“Cases of this particular omicron subvariant, one of a few, keep popping up and have roughly doubled the past few weeks in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data estimates,” claimed the Miami Herald Wednesday of last week. “It now makes up 11.6% of overall virus cases as of March 5 since it began doubling as of Feb. 5.”

“All in all, I think we’re really gonna be OK and I don’t think BA.2 is gonna be problematic like omicron,” stated one infectious disease doctor and professor and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Buffalo, Dr. Thomas Russo, as reported by the Herald.

“In some parts of the world, the BA.2 subvariant has replaced the original omicron strain, known as BA.1, as the most dominant even as global cases go down, the World Health Organization said in a March 8 statement,” stated the recent report.

As of writing, the new variant has been found in every state in the United States. This new variant, which did not merit its Greek letter name, is far more contagious than its predecessor, but all vaccines seem to be effective against it, claimed scientists.

The subvariant in question was discovered in Europe back at the first of the year and has already made its way across the world “becoming the leading strain behind new coronavirus infections in at least 18 countries,” as claimed by a report from Fortune magazine.

“A study from Denmark, where stealth Omicron rapidly became the dominant lineage of the virus, sampled 263 cases of COVID reinfection from stealth Omicron in the country, and found that reinfections were nearly four times as common for people who had recovered from the Delta variant than those who had come down with Omicron,” stated Fortune. “The good news from the Danish study is that prior infection with Omicron and vaccination seemed to be enough to provide abundant protection to the new strain.”

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