The Omicron subvariant BA.2.75, also dubbed Centaurus—seemingly because some guy on Twitter decided it should be—continues to drive up the number of COVID-19 cases in India, where it was first detected in May.
There, the subvariant seems to have some sort of competitive advantage over BA.5, the subvariant largely responsible for the latest ongoing wave of coronavirus infections around the world, Catholic University of Leuven evolutionary biologist Tom Wenseleers tells Nature. The BA.2.75 subvariant has also made its way to over 20 other countries, including several in the Americas and Europe. Still, experts are mixed on how much of a threat it will pose to the rest of the world amidst and in the wake of the BA.5 surge, the outlet reports.
“It’s clearly growing pretty well in India, but India hasn’t got much BA.5, and it is still very unclear how well it fares against [that],” Tom Peacock, a ...
