Scientists in Israel, the UK and the US are closely monitoring AY.4.2, a new descendant of coronavirus related to Delta.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, AY.4.2 remains "very rare" in America.
The CDC stated in a Wednesday statement that it was well below 0.05% of all sequenced viruses and had less than 10 reports in our database, according to Insider.
The CDC stated that AY.4, which is the parent lineage for the new variant, "represents approximately 11 percent of all the Delta viruses in America."
Although there have been many AY variants of the Delta variant, AY.4.2 has attracted the attention virus-watchers all over the globe. It has two modifications to the viral spike protein that could give it some benefits. It's not clear if this is the case.
The CDC stated that there was no evidence to suggest that sub-lineage A.Y.4.2 has any impact on the effectiveness of current vaccines and therapeutics.
On Friday, the UK Health Security Agency stated that AY.4.2 was "expanding" in England, and "increasing its frequency," while Israeli officials reported their first case on Tuesday.
Because it is now a 7% proportion of all sequenced strains, the AY.4.2 lineage has been in high demand. It is extremely rare elsewhere (only 2 strains have been found in the US).
4/ pic.twitter.com/j4VENBKBsA Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) October 16, 2021
Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, stated on Twitter that there was "urgent research" needed to determine how serious a threat the new Delta descendant is.
It is possible that AY.4.2 may be slightly more transmittable than the other viruses we have seen. This is not a reason to panic.
Professor Francois Balloux, Director at the University College London Genetics Institute said Tuesday that this situation is not comparable to the emergence Alpha and Delta, which were far more transmissible (50% or more than any strain in circulation at that time).
"Here, we are dealing with a possible small increase in transmissibility which would not have a similar impact on the pandemic."
The US has identified AY.4.2 "occasionally".
"We have, at times, identified the sublineage here in America, but not with recent increased frequency and clustering to date," Rochelle Walensky, CDC director, said Wednesday morning during a White House coronavirus briefing. She was referring to AY.4.2.
(The UK has seen a greater increase in AY.4.2 cases in recent months and has done a better job than the US in tracking and sequencing coronavirus variants during the pandemic.
Jeffrey Barrett, a genetics expert at the Wellcome Sanger Institute who is leading the COVID-19 Initiative, stated that it's possible that AY.4.2 had just experienced some "epidemiological luck” in the UK.
Professor Balloux agreed.
He said that the subvariant was found in Denmark, which is the only country with excellent genomic surveillance. It reached a frequency of 2 percent, but has declined since.
Business Insider originally published this article.
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