The new COVID subvariant appears to be less severe but more transmissible than previous variants.
That’s according to Cookeville Regional Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Mark Pierce. Pierce said that after cases of BA2 began to spread widely across Europe, experts in America expected to see a similar increase in cases–but the surge hasn’t happened in the states yet.
“Now reasons for that, we aren’t really sure but I suspect it’s probably because so many people have been either vaccinated or have had the disease itself,” Pierce said. “And so the disease is kind of like a vaccination itself. You get immunity from having had it–actually, you get pretty good immunity from having had it.”
Pierce said that we will probably continue to see these variants from time to time. He said that he believes it “reasonable” that young and healthy people have taken to living their lives amidst the virus. He said it’s those who are vulnerable that need to take safety measures and maintain healthy precautions.
Pierce said that he suspects that we will continue to see these variants from time to time and that they could gradually become a part of life. He said that while no one is able to predict a surge, they have not seen a variant that has caused more severity in illness recently, which is a positive.
“A virus or any kind of parasite reaches a kind of symbiosis or a kind of steady-state with its host where people that get infected with don’t get as sick as when it initially gets into that population,” Pierce said. “So hopefully we’re going to see a period of time where we do have COVID, it may be bad, but the majority of people will have mild disease. So I think it’ll be there and background level for a long time, we’ll see different variants, but hopefully, it will remain no more virulent than these are.”
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