That is where people have got to in updating the number of Omicron variants anyhow. There are more likely 300 to 400 of them, but the number of variants are going too fast to keep track of of all of them. Variants like B.2.23 and BA.2.33 had been seen in Australia and the USA but they had not added them to the official list until now, and the official list needs more updates.

Here is the current list:

The ones to watch out for are:
BA.2.3 and BA.2.9

They are in the UK and most of Europe. They have recently starting growing in Australia, with Victoria spinning off its own subvariant BA.2.3.3. If the UK data is trustworthy, BA.2.3 may be more virulent but we do not know if as many people are testing now as they were 6 months ago. The CFR looks like it is rising. Deaths appear to be rising. See graphs below.

BA.2.2

This subvariant was deadly in Hong Kong, and is the dominant variant in China and probably North Korea right now. You can see why China wants to keep it out and stay zerocovid. Look at the graph with Hong Kong below.

BA.2.12.1

Seems to be highly contagious in the USA. Growing in prevalence very quickly. No indication if more virulent

BA.2.10.1

Native at the moment to Western Australia. Appears to be hyper-contagious less virulent. May show up in the eastern States of Australia, which is not a bad thing if it supersedes BA.2.3, BA.9, and BA.2.3.3, and BA.2.2 (from Hong Kong). Australia has been lucky so far with variants.

BA.4 and BA.5

These subvariants have almost completely taken over all BA.2.* subvariants in South Africa (see a previous post) and they will do the same in the rest of the world. So far we know little, other than that they have a mutation which was on the delta variant. We do not know what that mutation does as yet, besides making BA.4 and BA.5 more infectious, but delta was more deadly than Omicron, so we have to wait and see. They will cause another covid wave, on top of the new one we are having in Australia right now.

This has truly become the never-ending-pandemic. By the time we have finish with the BA.2.* waves we will have BA.4 and BA.5 waves followed by other variants.

I have previously estimated that there are at least 100 million actively infected people in the world at any one time, what I called the “virus pool”, in which the virus is happily mutating, and in most cases these people are vaccinated, so it is mutating around any vaccine induced barrier. Thank you very much says the virus. I believe #vaccineshavefailed and we should stop them period in all but the most vulnerable immediately.

Meanwhile states in Australia still have vaccine mandates. These mandates are not supported by science at all now. In fact, I would suggest the opposite may well be true now.

I have also argued extensively that most of these subvariants of Omicron are “vaccine induced variants”.