The BA.2 Omicron subvariant doesn’t appear to cause more severe illness than the original strain, a new South African study showed Wednesday.
Those who tested positive for the new subvariant suffered similar rates of hospitalizations as those infected with the original Omicron strain, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases’ study.
The study, obtained by Bloomberg, examined data from 95,470 cases recorded within a large hospital system and the government’s laboratory service.
Of those cases, 3.6 percent infected with the subvariant were hospitalized, compared to the 3.4 percent who ended up in the hospital with the original strain.
Just over 30 percent of hospitalized patients with BA.2 fell seriously ill, while 33.5 percent of those with the initial Omicron variant developed severe disease.
The study included 3,058 hospitalized patients in total.
Despite fears that BA.2 was more infectious than the initial Omicron strain, the subvariant is still more mild in comparison to earlier strains — including the Delta variant, the study found.
“These data are reassuring,” the researchers said. “The clinical profile of illness remains similar.”
The researchers warned that the results may be different in South Africa, compared to other countries like the US, because most of the immunity there comes from prior infection — not vaccination.
In South Africa, 29 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated against COVID, while 63 percent of Americans are immunized.
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February 16, 2022 at 09:29PM
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