Omicron - BA.2 Variant Becoming Dominant (An Update)

Omicron has spread across the globe and has peaked in several places. One thing that has evolved though in this timeframe is the sub-lineages (sub-clades or sub-variants) of Omicron, including BA.1, BA.2, and BA.3. Given how much Omicron has spread, it has sustained a fairly significant amount of mutations that have created sub-Omicron lineages. Basically Omicron with more or different mutations. One of these is starting to become dominant in several regions and that is BA.2, displacing the previous dominate BA.1. Interestingly, BA.2 actually has just as many unique mutations compared to BA.1 as many of the distinct variants (alpha, beta, delta) did from one another. Some are calling for this sub-lineage of Omicron to be named it’s own variant. We discuss the details of BA.1, BA.2, BA.3 and the mutations the make them distinct.