While war rages in Ukraine, not much attention is being paid to surging Covid-19 cases across Europe that could soon start to filter out to the rest of the world.
The rise in cases is being driven by several factors, including the lifting of covid restrictions and waning immunity from vaccines.
We all hoped and expected a different turn at the beginning of spring, according to the professor of epidemiology at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.
The situation in Europe is a bit bumpy at the moment, and in Germany the numbers are still increasing.
Germany has seen a surge in cases and infections in the last week, with daily counts of between 200,000 to 300,000.
The combination of everyone thinking and expecting that the epidemic is over now and the relaxation of Covid measures gives the BA.2 subvariant a really good chance.
It is difficult to predict but I think it is very likely that this will continue its tour around the globe as well.
There are a lot of reports that people who have an omicron infection, or BA.1 variant, then a few weeks later get BA.2 variant, and there is a good chance that that is the new variant.
There is a growing number of new cases of the highly transmissible omicron variant in Europe, and public health officials and scientists are closely watching it.
It is also accounting for a growing number of infections in the U.S. and Asia.
The subvariant is more transmissible than omicron and is likely to replace it as the globally dominant variant.
Initial data shows that BA.2 is more likely to cause infections in household contacts than BA.1. It is not believed that the BA.2 variant causes more severe illness or carries an increased risk of being hospitalized, however further research is needed to confirm this, according to a U.K. parliamentary report published earlier in March.
It has a genetic variation that could make it harder to distinguish it from the older variant.
The new subvariant is the latest in a long line of variations. The omicron variant was the most transmissible strain so far, but it was not the original strain of the virus.
The World Health Organization said it is keeping a close eye on BA.2 and noted a rise in global cases after a recent lull.
The number of new weekly cases rose for a second week in a row last week, with a 7% increase in the number of infections reported, according to the WHO.
In the last 30 days, the WHO noted that the BA.2 variant has become the most popular variant, with 85% of the virus sequences submitted to the public database being the BA.2 variant.
According to the WHO, the proportion of BA.2 cases has increased steadily since the end of 2021, with the subvariant becoming the dominant lineage by week seven of 2022.
The trend is most pronounced in the South-East Asia Region, followed by the Eastern Mediterranean, African, Western Pacific and European Regions. The WHO said that BA.2 is currently dominant in the Region of the Americas.
The latest available data from the Office of National Statistics shows that the BA.2 variant is the most common variant in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. 76.1% of all Covid-19 infections from the survey were compatible with the BA.2 variant, and 23.9% were compatible with the original omicron strain.
In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that BA.2 cases now account for 34.9% of all cases, with the subvariant making up over half the number of cases reported in some northeastern states.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
