CHICAGO — The first COVID-19 omicron subvariant, called “stealth,” has been detected in Illinois by Northwestern Medicine.
The subvariant was detected at Northwestern Medicine’s Center for Pathogen Genomics and Microbial Evolution over the weekend by an individual who was tested for COVID-19 on Tuesday, Jan. 18.
Early research says the BA.2 strain is more contagious but does not appear to cause severe disease.
Doctors advise the same precautions — full vaccination and booster shots — as they continue to be effective in preventing symptomatic cases.
BA.1 is the most widely spread omicron subvariants, according to doctors.
“Now the question is whether the new subvariant will extend the tail of cases infected with “omicron,” said Ramon Lorenzo-Redondo, the bioinformatics director at CPGME, which is part of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “If BA.2 follows the same pattern in the U.S. as observed in countries like the United Kingdom, Denmark or India, we could observe a slowing of the current decline in new cases. In this case, the number of new cases could stabilize for a while before starting to decrease again.
“It is still too soon to know because there are still very few BA.2 cases in “the U.S.”
Doctors also don’t yet know for sure if someone who’s already had COVID-19 caused by omicron can be sickened again by BA.2. But they’re hopeful, especially that a prior omicron infection might lessen the severity of the disease if someone later contracts BA.2.
The World Health Organization classifies omicron overall as a variant of concern, its most serious designation of a coronavirus mutant doesn’t single out BA.2 with a designation of its own. Given its rise in some countries, however, the agency says investigations of BA.2 “should be prioritized.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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