Symptoms of COVID-19: These are the main differences in the BA.2 subvariant as the original Omicron mutant disappeared from Australia.

Omicron variant of coronavirus It has been dominant in Australia since late 2021.

However, the more contagious subvariant of Omicron, BA.2, currently accounts for the majority of cases in the country.

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And BA.2 has begun to create its own sublineage in other parts of the world.

Subvariant BA.2.12.1 rose from 7% in US cases in early April to 19% last week, and authorities are most likely contributing to the increase in the number of cases. It states.

So far, the main difference between the new version of Omicron and the previous soaring version in Australia is infectivity.

Some experts say that BA.2 50% increase in transmissibility From the original Omicron line.

However, the cold-like symptoms felt by people vaccinated and boosted as a result of Omicron infection are almost the same regardless of the submutant.

“Omicron’s symptoms are fairly consistent,” said Dr. Dennis Cunningham, director of infection control and prevention systems at Henry Ford Health in Detroit.

“Few people lose their sense of taste and smell.

“In many respects, it’s a bad cold, a lot of respiratory symptoms, a stuffy nose, a cough, a pain in the body, and fatigue.”

Symptoms of BA.2 subvariant

The Zoe COVID Symptom Study In the UK, hundreds of thousands of people are now able to self-report their symptoms via smartphone apps.

Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, one of the co-founders of the app, said that runny nose is still the most common symptom of Omicron, fatigue, sore throat, based on Zoe’s data. Sneezing, headache.

“The change from BA.1 to BA.2 is very subtle — probably a runny nose and malaise. [are] Go up, “he said.

According to Specter, 84% of people in the UK who recently recorded symptoms had a runny nose compared to about 73% in early January.

72% said they were tired, up from 68% of the first Omicron wave.

However, due to the large number of confounding factors, it is difficult to attribute these changes directly to subvariants, Specter said.

What should we make from all these Omicron strains?

According to experts, BA.1 and BA.2 are genetically similar in delta to about the same as alpha.

Differences between subvariants can affect the effectiveness of monoclonal antibody therapy.

Dr. Ameshua Dalha, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center, said: For Health Security at Bloomberg School of Public Health.

However, experts generally agree that the general public should not be too worried about the emergence of each Omicron subvariant.

David Montefiori, a professor at the Human Vaccine Institute at Duke University Medical Center, said:

“We have experienced multiple waves of really very important variants, but we could get out of it because there are so many immunities built into the population.”

People who recovered from Omicron infection in the winter are likely to have protection against BA.2 for at least a few months, Adalja said.

“If they share enough mutations to be classified as Omicron variants, many mutual protections can be made, but over time, reinfection as antibody levels decline. We know that all coronaviruses will become common, “he said.

Due to these factors, experts are optimistic that previous Omicron infections will also be protected from BA.2.12.1.

However, your level of protection can depend on the degree of your illness at the time of infection.

According to Montefiori, immunity from Omicron infection can last from one month for asymptomatic people to one year for seriously ill people.

“Looking at the immunity accumulated by an infection, the milder the infection, the weaker the immunity from the infection,” he said.

Still, Adalja said, even those with mild cases “will not see defensive erosion against severe illness. I think that’s really important.”

What about those who haven’t obtained COVID-19 yet?

BA.2.12.1 is not the only version of BA.2 that has attracted the attention of scientists.

Another sublineage, BA.2.12 Push the case up in New YorkAnd some are distributed in other parts of the world.

“What I’m really more worried about is the number of BA.2 subvariants that are showing signs of spreading,” says Montefiori.

“It’s as if the virus is trying to find a way to puncture the immunity that has accumulated in the population.”

Nonetheless, vaccinations, masks, tests, and social distances may help control the epidemic of Omicron strains, experts said.

Scientists are still studying how vaccination protection works in the face of new submutants, but healthy people probably won’t need a fourth injection, Adalja said. I did.

“The evolution of mutants like Omicron makes it difficult for these first-generation mRNA vaccines to provide more than protection against long-term serious disease,” he said.

On the other hand, rapid tests can easily detect BA.2, but they are generally less sensitive to omicrons than deltas.

Data from Zoe COVID Symptom Study Home tests have shown that it is 85% sensitive to Delta and 80% sensitive to Omicron.

“These home tests are still pretty good at getting 80% accuracy,” Spector said.

“They haven’t made any false positives either.”