Omicron BA.2 subvariant will soon dominate in U.S., but Fauci doesn’t expect another surge

Omicron’s more contagious subvariant, BA.2, has more than doubled in prevalence over the past two weeks in the U.S. and now represents more than 34% of Covid-19 infections that have undergone genetic sequencing, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week.

BA.2 has been steadily growing as a proportion of the Covid variants circulating in the U.S. since Feb. 5, when it represented about 1% of genetically sequenced virus samples, according to the CDC. BA.2 probably already accounts for 50% of new infections in the U.S. because many people are taking tests at home that aren’t picked up in the official data, according to Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

Data from Walgreens, which conducts testing at its pharmacies nationwide, shows BA.2 as the dominant variant, at 51% of all positive Covid cases for the week ending March 19.

Though BA.2 is rising in the U.S., leading public health officials are not expecting another dramatic surge in new cases, largely due to the level of immunity the population has from vaccination and the fierce outbreak during the winter omicron wave.

“The bottom line is we’ll likely see an uptick in cases, as we’ve seen in the European countries, particularly the U.K.,” White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told ABC’s “This Week.” “Hopefully we won’t see a surge — I don’t think we will.” ...

... Mokdad said the situation in the U.S. is different from that in European countries, because there was much more infection from omicron here over the winter. European nations have also dramatically changed their behavior in recent weeks by lifting restrictive public health measures, which has led to the spike. In many parts of the U.S., on the other hand, restrictive measures were not implemented during omicron, so there’s not as dramatic a change in behavior to drive new infections, Mokdad said. ...