The Omicron subvariant, BA.2, is not only more transmissible than the original Omicron strain, BA.1, but may cause more severe disease, a lab study from Japan says.
“Our multiscale investigations suggest that the risk of BA.2 for global health is potentially higher than that of BA.1,” the researchers said in the study published on the preprint server bThe researchers infected hamsters with BA.1 and BA.2. The hamsters infected with BA.2 got sicker, with more lung damage and loss of“Infection experiments using hamsters show that BA.2 is more pathogenic than BA.1,” the study said.
BA.2 was “almost completely resistant” to casirivimab and imdevimab and was 35 times more resistant to sotrovimab, compared to the original B.1.1 virus, the researchers wrote. But some scientists noted that findings in the lab don’t always reflect what’s happening in the real world of people.
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