Fauci Says BA.2 Will Likely Be 'Dominant, More Transmissible' COVID Variant

White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday that Omicron's subvariant BA.2 will likely be the "dominant" COVID variant, adding that it is more transmissible.

"It's got a transmission advantage over BA.1 which is the classic original Omicron, not a multi-fold advantage, but a percentage advantage which means that over time, it likely will be the dominant variant," the infectious disease expert told Fox News host Neil Cavuto.

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed Wednesday that the BA.2 subvariant, also called the "stealth Omicron," is leading the spread of the coronavirus variant worldwide. The subvariant now makes the majority of cases sequenced by experts.

When Fauci was asked, "should we worry about it?" he responded that BA.2 is already highly recognizable and that its characteristics need to be further examined to make that determination. But, he confirmed that BA.2 "does not appear to be any more serious when it comes to complications like the need for hospitalization."

"And it doesn't appear that it escapes immune protection any more or less than the original Omicron," he added.

"So the only distinguishing feature is that it's more transmissible, which is accounting for the spikes that we're seeing throughout the world, including in the European Union and the U.K.," he added.

Meanwhile, the technical lead for WHO's COVID response team, Maria Van Kerkhove, said during a press conference on Wednesday that "about 86 percent of the sequences that are available from the last four weeks are this BA.2 sublineage the rest are BA.1. So we are seeing an increasing proportion of BA.2 being detected."

Echoing Fauci's remarks, Kerkhove said that BA.2 is already spreading across the world.

"Omicron is a highly transmissible variant of concern. BA.2 is more transmissible than BA.1 and what we are starting to see in some regions of the world in some countries is an uptick in cases again," she added.

The assessment of BA.2 transmissibility and severity comes as COVID-related restrictions began relaxing nationwide in the United States. This week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams ended the city's vaccine mandate for athletes and performers. Earlier this month, the city lifted school mask mandates and proof of COVID vaccine requirements for some indoor settings.

COVID cases increased 7 percent worldwide during the period between March 14 and March 20 compared to the week before. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the original BA.1 Omicron variant is still predominant in the U.S., but BA.2 is on the rise.

Newsweek contacted the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for comment.