Wednesday, February 23, 2022

New Covid variant being studied in Japanese labs could be 'seriously bad news'

A new Japanese study has found that the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron has the capacity to produce more severe histopathological disorders than other variants, experts have warned


By John James
22 FEB 2022
The BA.2 variant is now dominant in Denmark (Image: Getty Images)

Boris Johnson's government might have announced the end of all restrictions in England but elsewhere in the world, experts are worried a new subvariant of Omicron could see a massive surge in infections and deaths.

The new subvariant named BA.2 has been described as 'seriously bad news' by virus geeks who have been tracking its spread through Denmark where it is the dominant strain.

Eric Feigl-Ding, a Harvard-trained epidemiologist has warned of the new strains' ability to transmit itself, saying: "Even the World Health Organisation is getting very concerned about BA.2 variant outcompeting and displacing old Omicron."

In Denmark, the new strain accounts for a staggering 90% of all new cases.


Eric Feigl-Ding continued: "Here is what is happening in the country with the most BA.2 variant so far.

"Denmark has been BA.2 dominant for weeks and have now almost no mitigations either … now their excess deaths are spiking again.”


The subvariant has been extensively analysed (Image: via REUTERS)

His thoughts were echoed by the World Health Organisation’s Maria Van Kerkhove who said that the new subvariant has the potential to become the new dominant strain globally.

She said: "We already know that Omicron has a growth advantage … compared to other variants of concern. But we know that BA.2 has a growth advantage even over BA.1.
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“This virus continues to be dangerous. This virus transmits very efficiently between people but there’s a lot that you can do.

“We need to drive transmission down. Because if we don’t, we will not only see more cases, more hospitalisations, more deaths, but we will see more people suffering from Long Covid and we will see more opportunities for new variants to emerge.

“So it’s a very dangerous situation that we’re in, three years in.”


A Japanese university has said it is a variant of concern
Image: The Asahi Shimbun 

To make matters worse, a new Japanese study appears to suggest the new variant BA.2 can make symptoms of the virus worse.

Organised by Kei Sato of the University of Tokyo, the study exposed hamsters to different variants and compared their viral loads.

And annoyingly it found that the "viral RNA load in the lung periphery and histopathological disorders of BA.2 were more severe than those of BA.1 and even B.1.1."

The study finished by recommending that BA.2 be "recognised as a unique variant of concern."

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