I have always regarded the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron and potentially more dangerous than BA.1 as it is quite different.
Up until a week or so ago, BA.1 had generated 19 new subvariants BA.1.*, e.g. BA.1.1 and BA.1.14, and BA.1.17.
Now BA.2 is developing new subvariants, like BA.2.1 and BA.2.3. They have appeared in South Africa already.
One of these BA.2.* subvariants has the same L452R mutation that was found in a lot of the Delta variants. We do not know if this makes them more virulent, if the BA.2.* subvariants grow/proliferate that are certainly more contagious.
It has been pointed that a BA.2.* subvariants have the L452R mutation of concern/interest.
There are already 54 subvariants of Omicron and counting. These subvariants, if the result of mutations, are generated in the large “virus pools” of vaccinated people. This is why, when this happened with the Delta variants, I called “vaccine induced variants”. #Delta generated some 240 subvariants. The situation with Omicron may be worse as there are more infected people right now (most vaccinated). The virus is mutating inside them, using the vaccine response as this barrier it is mutating against.
Delta started forming in early 2021 when there were less than 20 million people actively infected. There are 60 million actively infected right now. I should add that this is a lower bound on the number of people who are permanent infected as most people would be asymptomatic or mildly affected because that is the nature of omicron and also most people in western countries are vaccinated. The virus pool may be 180 to 240 million people. Crazy.
We hope these are just subvariants of BA.2 and not new recombinant/crossover variants like #deltacron (= delta AY4.2 + BA.1), which incidentally is still active. Are any of these new BA.2 subvariants also recombinant? That could make them much more deadly, as crossover does a quantum leap compared to ordinary mutation.
See my article on Deltacron.
The new BA.2.* subvariants has also been announced by Dr Eric Feigel-Ding on Twitter.