Study reveals likely reason for 'stealth' Omicron's recent success

COVID-19 vaccines are holding up against"stealth" Omicron almost as well as they do against the original version of the variant, a new study finds.

Epidemiologists can watch BA.1 and BA.2 compete against one another in a race to infect people and tell you which is winning. But scientists who study the evolution of viruses would like to understand not just which is winning, but why. As they gain more insight into how individual mutations change a virus' behavior, they can be better prepared for its next genetic shift.

But if that's not it, the best alternative explanation is that the virus has improved its ability to spread, and it might do that by many means. Perhaps it causes more asymptomatic infections, so people who are infected continue to circulate and infect others. Perhaps the virus lingers longer in the air and gets more chances to find new hosts. Perhaps it establishes itself more readily in the nose and mouth, where it's more likely to be expelled into the path of new victims.

The authors found that after two and three doses of vaccine, BA.2 was a little bit better than BA.1 at getting past the immune systems of vaccinated people. In subjects who'd had three doses of vaccine, levels of neutralizing antibodies — the immune proteins that thwart infection — were about 40% higher against BA.1 than they were against BA.2.of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, one of the authors of the new report.

The good news, Barouch added, is that BA.2 hasn't really bolstered Omicron's ability to infect people who've been vaccinated. The bad news is that both BA.1 and BA.2 are already pretty good at that, he said.

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