Over 300 BA.2 cases, but original Omicron still dominant in NZ

By 1news and is republished with permission.

There have been over 300 cases of Omicron’s BA.2 sub-variant found in New Zealand in 2022, but the original BA.1 variant is still dominant according to the Ministry of Health.

On Thursday, the ministry provided 1News with a breakdown of variants sequenced in 2022.

“As at 9am on Tuesday morning, WGS has identified 346 confirmed cases as BA.2. This includes both MIQ and community cases.”

The ministry says the original Omicron Covid variant, known as BA.1, is still the dominant one in New Zealand.

BA.2 has fast been on the rise in the US and parts of Europe, particularly Denmark, with some experts believing it will soon be the dominant variant in the UK.

While BA.2 looks likely to prolong the current Omicron Covid wave worldwide, there is still no scientific consensus on whether it causes more severe illness than BA.1.

A recent study from South Africa published by Bloomberg shows it appears to have the same severity as BA.1, making it more mild than Delta.

However, a paper awaiting peer review published to biorxiv claims BA.2 is more pathogenic than BA.1, meaning it causes worse illness.

The South African study looked at data from 95,470 cases recorded within a large hospital system using the government’s laboratory service.

Of those cases, 3.6 per cent infected with the sub-variant BA.2 ended up in hospital, compared to the 3.4 per cent who ended up in the hospital with the original Omicron variant BA.1

While the biorxiv paper concludes: “Our multi-scale investigations suggest that the risk of BA.2 for global health is potentially higher than that of BA.1.”

While the jury is out on what BA.2 means for the state of Covid-19 in New Zealand and globally, it appears the sub-variant will be with us for some time to come.

There were 1573 cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand on Thursday.