Coronavirus variant: As BA.2 is on rise, know who should be more worried about BA.2 infection

Omicron BA.2 cases are on rise after a brief spell of low COVID cases. Panic has struck worldwide seeing the high transmission rate of the Omicron BA.2 variant or the stealth variant. While experts are asking people to not let the guards down and keep wearing masks and sanitizing hands, few people should be extra careful about the COVID infection now that it is expected to make a comeback in many countries.

Though everyone needs to be on alert, few people need to be more alert than others. CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health says people who are more vulnerable to COVID despite vaccination should be more careful this time.

The expert also says that people who are moderately or severely immunocompromised or with multiple underlying medical conditions may need hospital care and advises these people to have extra precautions. "That includes wearing a high-quality mask (N95, KN95 or KF94) in all indoor public settings, avoiding large crowds and traveling for essential reasons only. Before getting together with other people, they may wish to request that the others are tested for COVID-19," the expert says.

Very often people ask that if they have already been infected with the BA.1 variant do theys still need to be careful this time as well? In February, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had said, "Reinfection with BA.2 following infection with BA.1 has been documented, however, initial data from population-level reinfection studies suggest that infection with BA.1 provides strong protection against reinfection with BA.2, at least for the limited period for which data are available."

Though reinfection is not seen to be a possibility but given the contagious nature of BA.2, additional precautions are necessary.

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As of now no specific symptoms of BA.2 have come to the fore except that it shares few of the distinct symptoms of its parental strain, Omicron. The common symptoms of Omicron induced COVID infection are: cold, body pain, sore throat, stomach ache, diarrhea, runny nose, fatigue, headache and cough.

Might be possible, says the expert.

BA.2 variant has a high transmission rate and hence has been a subject of monitoring by experts.

"Studies have shown that BA.2 has a growth advantage over BA.1. Studies are ongoing to understand the reasons for this growth advantage, but initial data suggest that BA.2 appears inherently more transmissible than BA.1, which currently remains the most common Omicron sublineage reported," the WHO has said.

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