Dr George Christos

covid19 & other Infectious diseases

What is happening to the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron in South Africa?


I largely recorded this on video and uploaded to youtube.

The world will have a new wave of BA.4 and BA.5 coming soon.

I just looked up to see how these variants are faring in South Africa because they be dominant here in Australia soon. BA.1.* has essentially been wiped out, whereas BA.2.* have been receding in prevalence, with BA.4 and BA.5 both growing in prevalence, BA.4 started off first followed by BA.5.

I did notice that BA.2.11 also have the mutation in BA.4 and BA.5, namely, the mutation L452R which was found in the delta variants on the spike protein that made delta more infectious or maybe more deadly.

There is not enough data to make any claim about the virulence of these upcoming variants, but mutation does not have to always weaken a virus.

It is interesting to note from my other posts that Australia and the UK are generating their own vaccine induced variants, which are being generated in the large virus pools of vaccinated people, that are not in South Africa. I did notice back in June/July 2021 that the most highly vaccinated countries were producing these wild fire of new subvariants and is why I coined the phrase “vaccine induced variants”.

Here is the video about BA.4 and BA.5.


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