A new subvariant of the coronavirus is causing a surge in cases nationwide. In Maryland, the positivity rate climbed to 8.39% on Friday - the highest positivity rate since January.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an infectious disease physician, answered seven important questions about BA.2.12.1.
What are the key facts about the new variant of the coronavirus?
Dr. Amesh Adalja: BA.2.12.1 is another version of Omicron that descended from the BA.2 variant. And it appears to have mutations in it that make it more transmissible or have an advantage over other versions of this virus. It seems to be the most efficiently spreading version of this virus that we've seen and it has the ability to get around some of the protection from prior immunity and from vaccination, giving it an advantage over other strains of the virus. And it is expected to become the dominant version of COVID19 circulating in the United States.
How much more contagious is BA.2.12.1?
Dr. Amesh Adalja: BA.2.12.1 appears to be about 25% more contagious than BA.2, which was about 30% more contagious than BA.1. And Omicron itself was more contagious than other versions of the virus. So, we are dealing with an officially transmitting version of the virus. What drives its transmission efficiency is its ability to get around the antibodies that we form because the population is now very different than the population that the original version of this virus faced. There's so much immunity from natural infection as well as immunity from vaccination, plus hybrid immunity for people who've been vaccinated and then gotten infected that the virus has, in order to spread efficiently, developed mutations to be able to get around those antibodies. And by BA.2.12.1 seems to do it the most efficiently of all of the other versions of the virus we've seen.
Is there a different incubation period?
Dr. Amesh Adalja: There's no major difference in the incubation period of this variant versus other versions of Omicron. Omicron in general tends to have a shorter incubation period than we saw with prior versions of the virus, or the original version of the virus, where it was about seven days for people to get sick. We're seeing people get sick four to five days on average.
What are the symptoms?
Dr. Amesh Adalja: The symptoms are still the same constellation of upper respiratory symptoms - fever, chills, muscle aches and pains, cough, runny nose. Those types of things are very common with any version of COVID19. We tend to see less of the loss of taste and smell that we saw early on in the pandemic with any of these new variants. But in general, these are the same sort of constellation of symptoms that we've seen throughout the pandemic being common with this version of Omicron or any version of Omicron.
How can I tell the difference between COVID symptoms and allergies?
Dr. Amesh Adalja: A lot of the symptoms may overlap with allergies. But, people who have allergies usually have them every year. If this is something new and you're not an allergic person, it could be a sign that you have a COVID19 infection. The best way to really differentiate it is- Are you having a fever? Are you coughing? Are you having chills? That's not common with with allergies. Those symptoms are common with COVID19. But, the easiest way to differentiate that is to have a low threshold to do a home test if you do experience symptoms and that can help you differentiate between what's causing your symptoms.
Is the illness more or less severe than other variants?
Dr. Amesh Adalja: There's no evidence that the newest version of Omicron is any more severe than any version. And, in many ways, because these infections are increasingly happening in a population that's highly immune, we're seeing cases kind of skew toward the milder side because of the prior immunity, because of people's access to monoclonal antibodies, because of people's access to antivirals.
How effective are vaccines against BA.2.12.1?
Dr. Amesh Adalja: Because of the immune evasive properties of this variant, vaccines don't necessarily always stop infection. Even if you are up to date with boosters a couple of weeks after those boosters have been given, your antibody levels fall enough to allow you to be infected. Where the vaccines are critical, though, is preventing what matters - serious illness, hospitalization and death. So people who are vaccinated, yes, they can get infected even shortly after they've gotten their latest booster. But the thing is, what they're protected against is severe disease. And that's always been the goal with these vaccines - to protect against severe disease, hospitalization and death.