New York State health authorities are warning the public about two new viral subvariants that are spreading more faster over the state’s central region. They are offshoots of Omicron’s BA.2 virus.
BA.2.12 and BA.2.12.1 are the new branches of the BA.2 family tree. According to a news release from the New York state department of health, they are proliferating around 25% quicker than BA.2, particularly in the central area.
In Central New York and the surrounding Finger Lakes region, these subvariants are now responsible for more than 90% of infections.
Cases of Covid-19 are on the increase again across the United States, but they’re developing especially quickly in New York. In just over two weeks, the state’s average daily cases have doubled.
Although daily reported cases are still a fraction of what they were during the peak of the Omicron outbreak, New York currently has one of the highest case rates in the country. Hospitalizations for Covid-19 have also begun to rise in the state, pushing certain counties into a “high Covid-19 Community Level,” where the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended compulsory indoor masking.
This isn’t the first time these subvariants have shown up. According to GISAID.org, a global effort to study the progress of the virus that causes Covid-19, they’ve been documented in at least 50 US states and territories since January 2022. According to the database, BA 2.12 has also been found in the United Kingdom, India, Germany, and Canada.
Dr. Wesley Long, an associate professor of pathology and genomic medicine at Houston Methodist Hospital, stated, “Time will tell if we see them start to supplant BA.2, the parent lineage, but for now, I don’t believe people need to fret.” Long, who monitors variations as part of the ARTIC network, explained, “You might have regional variants that do really well in a region and sort of stay restricted to that region.”
Since early January, when BA.2 first arrived, Long claims he has detected over 80 Covid-19 instances in Houston caused by these subvariants. However, in Houston, the subvariants appear to have no benefit over BA.2 in terms of distribution or transmission.
Long told CNN that the enhanced growth rate discovered by New York state officials could not represent an intrinsic trait of these subvariants, but rather something that happened “by coincidence.”
“I understand it’s worrisome,” he continued, “but I believe people can take solace in the fact that the things we need to do to protect ourselves are essentially the same things we’ve done in the past.”
Officials from the New York City Department of Health concur.
“We’re warning the public about two Omicron subvariants that have just arisen and are rapidly spreading throughout upstate New York,” said State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett in a statement.
“While the subvariants themselves are novel, the techniques for combating them are not. These tools will only be effective if we all use them: be fully vaccinated and boosted, test after exposure, symptoms, or travel, consider wearing a mask in public indoor settings, and discuss treatment options with your healthcare practitioner if you test positive “Bassett explained.
Cases and hospitalizations are on the rise in New York, according to data from the state’s Department of Health. Hospitalizations are increasing more quickly among unvaccinated persons than among fully vaccinated people, yet they are still relatively low.
