Anyone else monitoring this variant? I’m concerned this could impact the summer.
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Not worried
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I think this variant will have its impact felt long before summer starts. I’m hoping it will be gone by summer and there won’t be another variant to take its place.
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I’m hoping it’s like the last strain of Omicron and has a fast cooldown.
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I think a fourth jab is in our near future. And I’m expecting Kid22 will need Jab #4 before getting on any college campus.
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I agree the BA2 wave will probably be over by summer…EU and UK numbers have u-turned already (and they have much higher vaccinated and boosted rates), so should be turning here within a month, maybe sooner. So far, doesn’t look like it’s more serious for vaccinated people than the Omicron BA1, but too early to really tell. It’s unfortunate that more people here in the US aren’t vaccinated and boosted.
Some data in these tweets:
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1504897972315713536
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Maybe people in the US think it’s not much of a problem because so many of us have had Omicron part 1 already, along with all our Covid shots.
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What will be the chances of catching Omicron BA.2 if we caught Omicron BA.1?
I am assuming we will stop declining and maybe bump up somewhat. But the evidence seems to imply that people who had Omicron 1 are pretty immune to Omicron 2, and sooooo many people (over 40%?) in the US already had Omicron 1. I am not expecting something horrific from this, maybe just a bump up and delay from getting to truly low numbers. But we will see!1
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I’m pretty sure I read that there’s about 95% protection from BA2 if you had BA1. Not able to search for article, but that’s what I understood. So great protection!
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Very good to hear!! I was one of the holiday season catchers lol
Yup.
I continue to be careful. I wear a good quality mask in public. I attend comedy shows on Thursday night, when very few others join us in the large, well ventilated building (just returned to that recently after a break for the last surge). I have seen a couple movies on weekday afternoons, when very few others are there. I have eaten in restaurants a few times, going early to avoid crowds. I feel well positioned to handle the next surge, which I am sure will be upon us soon. I have no interest in getting Covid, and I will continue to live my life in a way that will hopefully allow me to achieve that. No apologies when I am one of the very few wearing a mask - I am in charge of my health.
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Statement on Omicron sublineage BA.2 says that “Studies are evaluating the risk of reinfection with BA.2 compared to BA.1. Reinfection with BA.2 following infection with BA.1 has been documented, however, initial data from population-level reinfection studies suggest that infection with BA.1 provides strong protection against reinfection with BA.2, at least for the limited period for which data are available.”
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Up to now…I haven’t gotten Covid that I know of. I’d like to keep it that way.
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Me neither though I can’t imagine I haven’t gotten an asymptomatic case from here at work. We had another guy in my office go out this week. He’s new to us from last summer so I don’t know his vax status. But he went home on Wednesday at lunch and won’t be back until Monday he said. It may well not be covid, but if it was he spent 4 hours unmasked constantly coughing and sniffling and saying he felt like crap in our shared airspace before heading home. Sigh.
Truthfully, I haven’t heard much about the new variant so I haven’t given it much thought. The new state admin changed our health dept website so we can no longer see local 7 day averages of daily case rate and 14 day totals and nice pretty graphs of everything. Now we just get 3 month, 6 months and yearly averages which is pretty useless. So it feels like the pandemic is over even though I can see elsewhere that our daily case rate has never dropped below 30-50 cases/day per 100K.
I’m sure we will start really seeing cases in 2-3 weeks. Add spring break around the country to really ramp things up.
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It’s being reported today that 30% of NYC’s cases are BA2 subvariant.
An even more transmissible version of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus [known as BA.2] now accounts for about 30 percent of new cases in New York City, health officials said on Friday.
And another link:
According to the CDC, that variant accounts for 39% of COVID circulating in New York and New Jersey right now. By comparison, it’s responsible for about a quarter of new infections nationally. Its prevalence has doubled in just the last week or so.
CDC COVID Data Tracker that that 43% in the US have had some form of COVID-19 based on nucleocapsid antibodies. This does not necessarily mean that they had Omicron BA.1, although Omicron BA.1 infections are included. Choosing a date of November 2021 shows 31%, so that means that 12% got COVID-19 during the Omicron BA.1 dominant period since then.
Some time frames:
| Date | Seroprevalence | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 08/20 | 5.9% | |
| 11/20 | 8.0% | |
| 12/20 | 11.5% | Winter surge. Vaccines begin for health care workers. |
| 02/21 | 20.0% | |
| 03/21 | 20.4% | |
| 04/21 | 21.8% | |
| 05/21 | 22.1% | Vaccine first shot general availability. |
| 06/21 | 21.6% | Antibodies fading? Anyone who wanted vaccine ASAP could have completed by now. |
| 07/21 | 20.6% | Antibodies fading? First signs of Delta in the US. |
| 09/21 | 29.2% | Delta surge. |
| 10/21 | 30.7% | |
| 11/21 | 31.6% | Just before Omicron BA.1. |
| 12/21 | 33.5% | Omicron BA.1 beginning. |
| 01/22 | 43.3% | Omicron BA.1 surge. |
I am concerned. We continued to follow other countries so there’s no reason to think it won’t happen here again.
However it’s clear, especially with an election coming up, we are going to move forward as it doesn’t exist. Or it has to be with us in coexistence.
Even in Europe, where it’s hit hard, they are lifting restrictions.
The scary thing this time is hospitalizations are not lagging but happening with the rise this time.
Like everyone I’m hopeful we are done. But I’m afraid we will face continued sickness and death.
This time, however, I think states will ignore the risks.
Just my opinion. Hope I’m wrong.
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