A Covid-19 expert has warned a new variant is “sweeping up everyone who didn’t get Omicron”.
Prof Luke O’Neill fears we are in the middle of another surge that will last six more weeks.
The immunologist is concerned that the highly transmissible BA2 variant of Omicron (BA1) is “spreading widely”.
READ MORE: Everything you need to know about super infectious new Covid strain BA.2 expected to hit Ireland
He said it is “the most infectious virus we’ve seen” and not enough people are wearing masks.
On Tuesday, the HSE updated its latest Covid case tally count to show that there have been close to 90,000 new cases of Covid-19 since St Patrick’s Day.
It announced 63,954 cases on Monday for the five-day period March 17 to March 21. And it announced 23,702 new Covid cases, of which 7,729 are positive PCR tests and 15,973 are positive antigen tests.
That means there have been 87,656 new cases reported since March 17. Prof O’Neill revealed BA2 is 30% more infectious than Omicron, which is 70% more transmissible than the previous variant Delta.
The Trinity College Dublin biochemistry professor warned another variant may yet “break through and be more nasty” so he is urging continued testing so we can “keep an eye on it”.
He wants masks to be mandatory until the summer while we try to mitigate the surge and said Covid testing facilities should be ramped up.
He said of the new Covid-19 surge: “It’s a global wave. The WHO said there’s been an 8% increase [in cases worldwide] in the past week. It’s happening again.
“And it’s all because of this BA2 variant, which is a sister of Omicron, and is much more infectious than Omicron and is spreading more and more widely.
“It could be the most infectious virus we’ve seen. Chickenpox and measles spread like wildfire - but BA2, there’s nothing like it. BA2 is sweeping up everyone who didn’t get Omicron. In other words, it’s almost impossible to avoid this.”
Prof O’Neill explained that the quicker spread is due to a change in the variant’s spike that allows it to attach more firmly in the lungs.
He said: “The incubation time is shorter in someone who’s infected, so [it] grows more quickly in someone’s body, and that means it’ll spread more because it grows more rapidly.”
The BA2 symptoms manifest more quickly than with Omicron – usually in two days compared to four – but the symptoms can be less severe in some and can disappear quicker. Prof O’Neill told RTE’s Today with Claire Byrne: “The other concern is another variant coming along.
“It might break through and be more nasty, so that’s something to keep an eye on. BA2 will reinfect, even if you have had Omicron before, although the risk is lower. But because the numbers are still spreading so widely, it puts pressure on the [health] system”.
On the potential for another new variant, he said: “Every time a virus divides, you might end up with another variant that could be nasty.
“Some people think that viruses get milder as time as goes by, but that’s a misunderstanding. That’s not how viruses work.”
Prof O’Neill believes masks, which are no longer mandated by Government to be worn, except in certain circumstances, offer important layers of protection.
He said: “The virus is still out there and masks give you protection.”
BA2 Covid symptoms
Top medics around the world now fear that the Deltacron variant is a hybrid of the two, combining severity and transmissibility.
An associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Louisiana State University, Jeremy Kamil, told NBC: "Delta basically grabbed Omicron's spike protein. This is essentially Delta trying to hang on by plagiarising from Omicron. The genomes get a bit acrobatic, and pieces can jump and then recombine together.
"It's like if you had 70 printouts of an identical manuscript on your desk and then an office fan turns on and blows things around, and you're trying to put everything back in order. Viruses are no different from that."
The symptoms for Deltacron are said to resemble that of Omicron, including a runny nose, fatigue, headache and sneezing.
