Prognosis
Study Calms Fears of Harsher New Version of Omicron Variant
- Hospitalization risk from BA.2 is similar to initial strain
- Subvariant studied in South Africa, where it dominates
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The rapidly spreading omicron BA.2 subvariant doesn’t cause significantly more severe disease than the original version, according to a South African study that appears to allay fears it causes harsher illness.
Patients infected with the new subvariant suffered from similar rates of severe disease and hospitalization as those with the original omicron strain, according to researchers from the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases that analyzed data from a large hospital group and the government laboratory service, looking at almost 100,000 cases.