A new COVID variant has recently been detected in several countries including the UK, US, India, Australia and Germany. Called BA.2.75, it’s a subvariant of omicron. You might have also heard it called Centaurus, the name of a constellation and given to BA.2.75 by a Twitter user.
The World Health Organization has classified BA.2.75 as a variant of interest, rather than a variant of concern. This means it’s being monitored but there’s not yet evidence it will cause problems. The numbers of BA.2.75 infections are still relatively low. Most infections in the UK remain driven by the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5. BA.5 in particular is similarly dominant in other countries where BA.2.75 has been detected.
However, BA.2.75 is becoming more common in India (where it was first detected, back in May), suggesting it has advantages relative to current circulating variants. Some have noted that BA.2.75 is spreading in regions of India where it doesn’t have to compete with BA.5, but rather with the variant it evolved from, BA.2.
