World Health Organization [WHO] technical Covid-19 lead Maria Van Kerkhove, said she’s tracking three different Omicron variants, now accounting for 99.9% of SARS CoV-19 worldwide but can’t yet determine if Omicorn BA.1 will be replaced by BA.2 or BA.3. Kerkhove said that the BA.2 Omicron variant is about 1.5 times more contagious than the BA.1 but can’t say yet whether BA.2 can infect people who’ve already been infected with BA.1. Preliminary research indicates that BA.1 or BA.2 have about the same severity, with some evidence that BA.1 infected patients are somewhat immune to BA.2. Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Feb. 3 that there’s been a 53% drop in hospitalizations from Omicron BA.1, suggesting that the January 2022 surge has begun to diminish. Kerkhove can’t tell yet whether or not Omicron BA.2 will replace BA.1 as the dominant variant worldwide.
With governors around the country aware of decreasing transmission rates, some have started to set new rules for vaccines and other measures used to stop the spread of the virus, including proof of vaccines in indoor settings, like bars and restaurants. So far, most governors have continued vaccine mandates for indoor dining, bars and nightclubs. Kerkhove doesn’t have a crystal ball whether or not the current downward trend in infection and hospitalization rates will continue. “BA.2 is more transmissible that BA.1 so we expect to see BA.2 increasing in detection around the world, ”Kerkhove said today at WHO’s social media platforms Tuesday. Once Delta began to decline in June 2021, health officials began to relax guidance on masking and social distancing. CDC continues to push for more vaccines, now totaling 75% or 247,500,000 of the total U.S. population getting one vaccine.
CDC reports that citizens with at least two mRNA vaccines, including Pfizer and Moderna, account for 64% or 211,200,000 citizens, something scientists believe has slowed the spread of the coronavirus, resulting in today’s drop 53% drop in hospitalizations. Researchers in Denmark, where the BA.1 variant infected the population, indicated that the new BA.2 variant is 1.5 times more contagious than the BA.1 but can’t say yet whether vaccines provide any protection from infection. Research shows, unlike the Alpha and Delta variants, that breakthrough infections for fully vaccinated patients, including those with third-shot booster, happen easily with BA.1 and BA.2. Danish researchers showed that fully vaccinated BA.1 or BA.2 breakthrough cases are less likely to infect others, slowing the sprea. Kerkhove believes vaccines help to stop severe disease.
Kerkhove doesn’t think transition from Omicron BA.1 to BA.2 doesn’t appear to create the same surge that occurred from Alpha to Delta variants or from Delta to Omicron. In June 2012 cases and hospitalizations dropped over the summer to the lowest levels since the pandemic swept the planet in 2020. Unlike Omicron BA.1, the BA.2 variant doesn’t appear to be taking over BA.1, meaning that a drop in cases could start the end of the pandemic. No one at WHO or the CDC wants to speculate about the end to the pandemic but clearly, if Omicron BA.2 doesn’t overwhelm BA.1 cases, the SARS CoV-2 virus could be mutating its way out of existence. It took a good three years before the H1N1 Spanish flue pandemic began to disappear. But WHO and CDC officials haven’t been honest since the beginning in January of 2020 what started the SARS CoV-2 global pandemic.
WHO and CDC officials need to level with the public about the origins of SARS CoV-2, not continue to suppress the best evidence that it leaked from a Wuhan Institute of Virology bioweapons lab. Biden’s 80-year-old chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, has been denying from Day One that the virus was produced in Shi Zenghli’s bioweapons lab. Fauci went ballistic July 20, 2021 in front of Sen. Rand Paul’s Senate Committee, calling Paul a “liar,” for insinuatimg that he helped fund “gain-of-function” research in his role at the National Institutes of Health [NIH]. President Joe Biden asked last summer Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to get to the bottom of the origin of the deadly novel coornavirus. Haines told Biden months later that without Chinese help, she could not determine the origin of the virus. Fauci knows it came for Zhengli’s bioweapons lab.
When it comes to what happens next, no one at WHO, CDC or NIH have a crystal ball. But what they have are growing data that the SARS CoV-2 global pandemic has been starting to dwindle in the United State and around the world. Because Omicron BA.1 through scientists for loop, WHO, CDC and NIH aren’t ready to speculate about the end of the pandemic, but, as it looks now, things look up. WHO’s Covid-incident manager Dr. Abdi Mahamud said the two-thirds of Omicron cases has already had either the Alpha or Delta variants. Mahamoud thinks that Omicron variants BA.1 and BA.2 may not have the infectiousness to spread like earlier variants because of increased vaccine rates, but, more importantly, prior infections with BA.1. Only 460 total BA.2 cased have been confirmed in the U.S., suggesting that it’s not spreading with the same ferocity as BA.1.
