Thread by @DrEricDing

“Seriously bad” — BA.2 variant: New study suggests Omicron variant worse than BA.1 news.com.au/world/coronavi…

2) Don’t tell me everything is fine when you look at this chart… where #Ba2 is now 90% dominant.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1494760277220507653

3) and what is happening in Denmark 🇩🇰 with their mortality and 90% BA2? Surging excess deaths ago.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1495008100084064258?s=21

4) BA2 is seriously bad news. It’s both faster transmission than BA2 and if it’s truly more severe and as evasive against prior immunity including BA1 old #Omicron immunity— then it’d be the worse of 4 worlds. 👀

https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/1494336422421032964

5) @SystemsVirology wrote in their study:

The viral RNA load in the lung periphery and histopathological disorders of BA.2 were more severe than those of BA.1 and even B.1.1”

biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

6) ““Together with a higher effective reproduction number and pronounced immune resistance of BA.2, it is evident that the spread of BA.2 can be a serious issue for global health in the near future.”

7) ““In summary, our data suggests the possibility that BA.2 would be the most concerning variant to global health.”

7) More resistance to past immunity? Check. #Ba2.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1494749640520048654

8) More transmissible? Check.

https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/1494336629816762382

9) Need more proof that #BA2 is more transmissible than old Omicron BA1? UK 🇬🇧 govt report shows 126% increase in one week in early February.

10) here is the full recent thread 🧵 on #Ba2 that I’m extremely worried about again. I’ve been worried before and this is our 4th or 5th rodeo with variants. Will we ever learn???

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1494746690787717124

11) we epidemiologists have been warning about #Ba2 for a while. I expect BA2 to be doubling by next CDC report — which the @CDCgov is behind and overdue!

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1491309163129237504

12) we have known BA2 was a trouble maker for quite some time. It is much faster than BA1. It’s about double. Hard to imagine something faster than old Omicron yet here we are.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1485354857339011080

13) tired of this stupid treadmill? Me too. We haven’t learned our lesson. Every strain and every opportunity we give it is more chance for more cycles of suffering.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1495761422869045252

14) there are politicians who often downplay everything pretending they have control. And there are precautionary scientists who scream often into the void. Listen to the latter not the former.

15) Who is old enough to remember those touting #Omicron is mild??? Meanwhile— in reality with exponential cases—“The death toll during the Omicron wave is about 17 percent higher so far than the death toll in the Delta wave.”

16) reinfection risk is real. Some will downplay it. But you shouldn’t. See thread 🧵 below 👇

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1487833014965055495

17) Also data shows that while Delta had good protection against another Delta itself, Omicron has much less protection against another Omicron, relatively. This is concerning.

https://twitter.com/longdeserttrain/status/1487848859661389832

18) Side note- there is another new new new sub sub sub variant of BA2 Omicron. It’s now quickly up to 10% in 🇩🇰. This is diff from the other BA2.H87Y subvariant that is the largest sub in Denmark.

https://twitter.com/estion8/status/1494422263210381315