Omicron’s BA.2 subvariant — which is spreading rapidly, especially in Denmark — does not “cause a more severe form” of COVID-19 than the BA.1 variant that is circulating widely around the world, said Tuesday. an official from the World Health Organization.
“Therefore, the level of severity is similar in terms of the risks of hospitalization,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, who oversees the fight against COVID-19 at the WHO, during a question-and-answer session on the social networks.
This finding “is really important, because in many countries there was a substantial amount of BA.1 as well as BA.2 cases.”
Mme Van Kerkhove thus reported the conclusions drawn on Monday by an advisory committee of experts on the evolution of the virus which gives COVID. Reassuring and long-awaited conclusions after the concerns raised by the pre-publication – therefore not peer-reviewed – of a study on hamsters which seemed to show that, on the contrary, BA.2 inflicted more serious forms of COVID.
Mme Van Kerkhove took the opportunity to call on countries around the world not to dismantle their sequencing devices alongside the lifting of health restrictions in many countries.
“At the moment, there seems to be a significant protection between BA.1 and BA.2, and vice versa,” underlines Dr. Anurag Agrawal, member of the advisory committee. This means that if you have been infected with Omicron BA.1 or BA.2, you are protected for a period of at least six to eight weeks. No older data are available, the BA.2 sub-variant having appeared only recently.
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