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Are COVID surges becoming more predictable? New Omicron variants offer a hint

Omicron relatives called BA.4 and BA.5 are behind a fresh wave of COVID-19 in South Africa, and could be signs of a more predictable future for SARS-CoV-2.
  1. Ewen Callaway
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A woman is tested for COVID-19 at the Lenasia South Hospital, near Johannesburg, South Africa.

Infections with new variants of Omicron are rising in South Africa and Europe. Credit: Shiraaz Mohamed/AP/Shutterstock

Here we go again. Nearly six months after researchers in South Africa identified the Omicron coronavirus variant, two offshoots of the game-changing lineage are once again driving a surge in COVID-19 cases there.

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Nature 605, 204-206 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01240-x

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 10 May 2022: In an earlier version of the graphic ‘Omicron’s new identities’, the x-axis of the chart in the lower panel was labelled with the wrong years; it should have been 2021 and 2022. This has now been corrected.

References

  1. Tegally, H. et al. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.01.22274406 (2022).

  2. Khan, K. et al. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.04.29.22274477 (2022).

  3. Xie, X. et al. Preprint at ResearchSquare https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1611421/v1 (2022).

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