There are FOUR different strains of Omicron circulating, WHO warns https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/17431386/four-different-omicron-strains-covid/
The next Covid variant will be more contagious than omicron, but the question is whether it will be more deadly, WHO says https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/25/the...be-more-contagious-than-omicron-who-says.html
New Omicron offshoot BA.2 is over 1.5 times more contagious than the original, early data from Denmark suggests https://www.businessinsider.com/ba2-omicron-coronavirus-contagious-ba1-denmark-data-2022-1
The latest news on the Omicron BA.2 variant. It is 33% more infectious than the original Omicron variant -- and vaccines are more effective in stopping spread of the BA.2 variant than the original Omicron variant. BA.2 33% more infectious than ‘original’ Omicron COVID strain, study finds https://globalnews.ca/news/8582784/omicron-subvariant-ba2-more-infectious-study/amp/ The omicron subvariant is more contagious, but vaccinated people are less likely to spread it, study finds Danish scientists found the BA.2 subvariant, which has rapidly become dominant in Denmark, spread more easily across all groups regardless of sex, age, household size and vaccination status. However, only unvaccinated people demonstrated higher transmissibility of BA.2 compared to the BA.1 omicron strain, which could be due to their higher viral load. The probability for spreading within a household was 39% for BA.2 versus 29% for BA.1, the study found. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/the...are-less-likely-to-spread-it-study-finds.html
Well... within hour of a study coming out showing the Omicron BA.2 variant is slightly less likely to infect vaccinated people in a household, another take on the study comes out showing BA.2 is slightly more likely to cause vaccinated breakthrough cases. At this point -- just call it a tie. The vaccination breakthrough rate of BA.2 appears to be just about the same as BA.1. Of course, we will wait for further studies -- but we will probably need to wait until BA.2 is dominant to get proper results in context. Omicron sub-variant BA.2 better than BA.1 at infecting booster vaccinated, warn experts. Details here https://www.livemint.com/science/he...warn-experts-details-here-11643642425855.html The BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron COVID variant is not only more transmissible than BA.1, but also more able to infect vaccinated people, including those who have taken booster doses, a new study has revealed. Worldwide, the BA.1 subvariant accounts for more than 98% of Omicron cases, but its close cousin BA.2 is dethroning the original strain in many countries. The study was conducted by researchers at Statens Serum Institut (SSI), Copenhagen University, Statistics Denmark and Technical University of Denmark. However, it is yet to be peer-reviewed. (More at above url)
The Omicron Variant Has New Versions Already. What Comes Next? Viruses keep evolving until they run out of hosts to infect. Worldwide, billions remain unvaccinated against Covid—which means Omicron isn’t the end. https://www.wired.com/story/the-omicron-variant-has-new-versions-already-what-comes-next/
Will this work better than the Lockdown? Hoping that the COVID pandemic would "go away dramatically" by March of this year, George led listeners in an impromptu intention experiment, encouraging them to concentrate on this possibility in the hopes that it would end soon. https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2022-02-04-show/