The World Health Organization expects a more transmissible version of omicron to increase in circulation around the world, though it’s not yet clear if the Covid subvariant can reinfect people who caught an earlier version of the omicron strain.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, said Tuesday the global health agency is tracking four different versions of omicron. Van Kerkhove said the BA.2 subvariant, which is more contagious than the currently dominant BA.1 version, will likely become more common.
“BA.2 is more transmissible than BA.1 so we expect to see BA.2 increasing in detection around the world,” Van Kerkhove said during a question-and-answer session livestreamed on the WHO’s social media platforms Tuesday.
The WHO is monitoring BA.2 to see if the subvariant causes an increase of new infections in countries that saw a rapid rise and then a sharp decline in omicron cases, she said.
Van Kerkhove emphasized that there’s no indication of a difference in the severity of infections caused by either subvariant, though she noted that research is ongoing. Omicron generally doesn’t make people as sick as the alpha and delta variants, though it does spread faster.
