In March 2022, a new COVID-19 variant known as the Omicron BA.2 Subvariant was identified in South Africa, Denmark and the United Kingdom. BA.2 is a subvariant of the Omicron variant, and the original variant is known as BA.1.

According to recent research, the BA.2 subvariant is about 30% more contagious than BA.1, and is now the dominant variant of COVID-19 in the United States as of  March 19. The number of BA.2 subvariant cases has doubled in the United States over the past 2 weeks, and now represents about 50% of new infections in the country.

Experts believe that there won’t be a large wave of BA.2 subvariant cases because of the level of immunity that the population has developed from the vaccine and from the previous omicron wave. 

This most likely means that the BA.2 subvariant will probably not be as severe as previous COVID-19 variants, and will probably not cause another large outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States.