Scientists around the world have spent weeks anxiously analyzing the evolution of two new subvariants of the omicron variant of covid-19. They can cause a new chapter in this endless pandemic, experts warn. calls BA.4 and BA.5, are even more infectious than the original mutation, although the severity of its effects seems similar, and for the moment they have caused infections to skyrocket again in South Africa, the country where the penultimate phase of the health emergency began, which marked unknown incidence levels in Europe and North America at the beginning of the year.
The cases of coronavirus have triplicate in South Africa over the last week and the hospital admissions they start to speed up. It is still early to know if what happened a few months ago can be repeated now, and that what ends up happening here is a replica of what happened previously there. But something is beginning to be clear: the new sublineages, which have already begun to appear in Spain and other European countries, although for the moment with scant presence, show how the virus now evolves differently, due to higher percentages of immunity, whether it comes from vaccines or previous infections.
Until now, the scientific consensus indicated that each new wave of the pandemic was caused by a new variant, but this time it may be due to only some modifications within the omicron itself. A few days ago, South African scientists published a study in which they analyzed samples of 39 people who had been infected by this mutation late last year. The work concluded that the two new subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, had the ability to dodge antibodies of those who had suffered omicron, and also, although to a lesser extent, of those who were vaccinated.
According to preliminary results, “covid-19 may be evolving differently and not need a new variant to cause a new wave of infections & rdquor ;, considered Tulio de Oliveira, director of the center for response to epidemics in South Africa and head of the team of experts that discovered the omicron variant in November. “We are all tired of this virus, but the virus is not tired of us & rdquor ;, argued the scientist.
So, it looks that #COVID19 may be evolving differently and that we may not need a new variant to cause a new wave of infection. We are seeing this with BA.4 and 5 in SA and with BA.2.12.1 on the east coast of the USA.
– Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) April 29, 2022
The start of the wave
The African country, for the moment, already assumes that it may be facing the start of a new wave, arrival long before of what its authorities had foreseen, and the omicron mutations are already close to being the dominant among its population. The latest events, with the multiplication of cases in just seven days, have many similarities with what happened at the end of the year, when this variant arrived in Europe and beat here infection records.
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The new subvariants still have higher transmission capacity that the original mutation, and also that BA.2, called at first “silent”, the majority in Spain, which already shows symptoms, according to experts, of entering the beginning of its seventh wave, in part due to the relaxation of measures such as the obligation to wear a mask indoors. The latest data from Ministry of Health, released this Tuesday point out that the cumulative incidence in the last 14 days it has increased more than 50% during the last month and is already at 790 cases per 100,000 inhabitants among those over 60 years of age.
But experts insist that the most recent past does not have to predict what will happen in the immediate future. There are two fundamental differences with the situation in South Africa. On the one hand, the weather factor. While the southern country enters its winter, in Spain the temperatures rise, which implies that more and more meetings are held abroad, where infections are less frequent. On the other hand, the extension of the vaccines. Barely a third of its inhabitants have received two doses there, and only 1% the booster, while here more than 85% of the population has the full regimen and 52% has the third dose.