A New Omicron Subvariant Raises Concerns Among Health Agencies
The BA.2.86 spike protein has the potential to bypass the immune system because of its unusually high number of mutations
A new Covid-19 variant, BA.2.86, dubbed Pirola, has 34 mutations to its spike protein relative to BA.2 (its ancestor), as well as 36 mutations relative to XBB.1.5 (the dominant strain earlier this year), according to Dr. Jesse Bloom, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle.
According to Dr. Scott Roberts, an infectious disease specialist at Yale Medicine, the virus has the potential to bypass immune defenses because of its high mutations. The large number of mutations is what differed between the Delta strain of Covid and the Omicron variant. “When Omicron hit in the winter of 2021, there was a huge rise in Covid-19 cases because it was so different from the Delta variant, and it evaded immunity from natural infection and prior vaccination,” Dr. Roberts says.
A total of 23 Covid-19 cases have been reported worldwide, including one in Michigan and another in Virginia. According to CNN three other countries, Israel, Denmark, and the UK have reported new cases. However, epidemiologists fear that many more cases may exist worldwide since monitoring of variants has dropped off. The…
