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The flu epidemic has not suppressed Corona. The numbers are rising again, and after BA.5, the BQ.1 subvariant is now dominant.
After a relatively quiet start to the winter, corona numbers are slowly but steadily beginning to rise again. But not only that, there’s a blowout to report at the top. The previously dominant BA.5 variant has been successfully ousted. Instead, the BQ.1 lines have “quickly picked up speed,” as molecular biologist Ulrich Elling reports on Twitter.
He said that BA.5, together with variant daughter BF.7, now account for only one-third of infection cases in Austria. On the other hand, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 would be dominant, with about 50 percent of the issues. This worries the researcher from the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW).
“Since BA.5, there has not been a line that has shown such rapid expansion. The faster the growth compared to previous lines, the more total cases a line can produce once it becomes dominant,” he warns. Also, according to U.K. health officials, the BQ.1 lines are 29 percent more transmissible than the original Omicron strain, so the new variant could quickly trigger a new wave of Corona.
What’s new about the rapidly spreading Omicron variant is its high transmissibility and its symptoms. According to “L’Indépendant,” cardiac arrhythmias and severe headaches are more common in the BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 lines. Symptoms that were previously not necessarily considered typical of a Corona infection.
According to the latest prognosis report, the Austrian Corona Task Force GECKO expects that BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 will cause an increase in the number of cases over the Christmas holidays.
- source: heute.at/picture: pixabay.com
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