The COVID-19 Omicron subvariants are labeled as if they are letters and numbers from the alphabet soup. The original one is B11529, while the initial Omicron variant produced subvariants such as BA1, BA1.1, BA2, BA2.2, BA2,12.1, BA.3, and the latest addition to the list, BA4, and BA5.
A KHN report said that the Omicron subvariants all differ "by having different mutations in the spike protection," part of the virus that infiltrates host cells and causes infection, explained professor of medicine Dr. Monica Gandhi from the University of California-San Francisco.
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The minor-to-modest mutations in such subvariants can make them marginally more transmissible from one person to another.
In general, the higher the number following BA in the name of the subvariant, the more transmissible the subvariant is. For example, BA2 is roughly 30 to 60 percent more communicable than the subvariants.
4 Things to Know About Omicron Variant and Its Subvariants
In the US, for example, BA1.1 was dominant early this year, having overtaken the initial strain, B.1.1.529, as explained on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Although by the middle of March, BA1.1 started to lose ground to BA.2, which turned dominant by early April.
Here are four important things to know about this COVID-19 variant and its subvariant:
1. Severity
Luckily, the diseases caused by Omicron have usually been less severe than those caused by the initial variants, a pattern that appears to hold all the subvariants studied thus, far.
One Denmark analysis showed that BA2 does not cause more hospital admissions than the BA1 subvariant.
Even the most recent variants detected showed no evidence to suggest that it is more alarming than the original variant, other than a potentially slight increase in incommunicability, Boston University's infectious-disease mathematical modeler Brooke Nichols said.
2. Protection Against Other Variants, If Infected with Omicron
So far, according to professor of applied evolutionary biology at the University of Amsterdam's medical center, Collin Russell, in all variants until now, the virus's ability to escape the present immune protection is just partial, much like it is for the seasonal flu.
3. Vaccines Against Omicron and Its Subvariants
Even though the present vaccines, as well as boosters, are not quite as successful in protecting against the so-called "Omiveron variant" as they are against the initial variants, they will protect, in general, people from severe disease if they are infected by one of the new subvariants.
Professor of preventive medicine and health policy Dr. Williams Schaffner from Vanderbilt University said he had not seen a single study from the field that reveals a substantial distinction between vaccines' responses to omicron subvariants.
The vaccines are generating cells known as "memory B cells," as detailed in the Nature Reviews Immunology journal, and have been "shown to recognize different variants" as they arise, said Gandhi.
More so, the vaccines stimulate the production of T cells, which shield against severe illnesses, she added.
4. Possible New Variants
Experts had agreed that the only newcomers in the past weeks had been cumulative subvariants, certainly nothing that appears as game-changing as omicron or delta were when they first appeared.
Gandhi explained that there are approximations that over 60 percent of the population of the world has been exposed to Omicron, and more than 65 percent of the global population has received at least a single dose of the vaccine, explained Gandhi, so he is keeping his fingers crossed the development of new strains will slow with this extent of population immunity.
The expert acknowledged some surprise at how quiet the horizon is currently, although she's seeing it as a favorable development.
Related information about the Omicron subvariants is shown on South China Morning Post's YouTube video below:
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