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Chief White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that he does not think the U.S. will see a major COVID-19 surge from a new version of the Omicron variant, but that an uptick in cases is more likely.
Speaking on ABC's This Week, Fauci noted that while the BA.2 Omicron variant has a high level of transmissibility, it does not appear to cause more severe illness or evade immune responses from vaccinated individuals or those with prior infections.
BA.2, which has also been dubbed the "stealth variant," is considered to be a sub-type of Omicron that has been spreading across the U.S. and Europe in recent weeks. It is a different variant than BA.1, which caused a significant rise in cases late last year.
"It has a degree of transmission advantage over the original Omicron," Fauci said, noting that it may be up to 50 or 60 percent more transmissible. "However, when you look at the cases they do not appear to be any more severe."
"The bottom line is we likely will see an uptick as we've seen in the European countries, particularly in the U.K.," he added. "Hopefully we won't see a surge. I don't think we will. The easiest way to prevent that is to continue to get people vaccinated. And for those who have been vaccinated, to continue to get them boosted. That's really where we stand right now."
His comments came after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that BA.2 accounted for over 23 percent of new domestic cases for the week ending on March 12. That marked a nearly 14 percent increase from the previous week, showing that the variant is already on the rise.
Professor Christine Petersen, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa, told Newsweek on Friday that BA.2 will likely become the dominant strain in the country, but that it does not appear to be a cause for concern.
"All evidence indicates that BA.2 is outcompeting BA.1 and will become the predominant strain in the next couple weeks," she said. "We can't completely let our guard down and must keep sequencing and monitoring the virus, but I do not think it warrants concern."
So far, data has suggested that BA.2 has not caused an increased risk of hospitalizations compared to BA.1, and that vaccine effectiveness appears to be similar for both strains. Health care experts have noted that even if vaccines don't stave off infection, they will still work to protect individuals from severe illness.
Overall, COVID-19 cases and deaths in the country have plummeted in recent months, prompting a number of states to lift indoor mask mandates and vaccine requirements. Fauci also said he doesn't believe there is reason to reverse the relaxation of those restrictions in response to BA.2 right now.
"I don't see us going back into any more really very restrict kinds of restrictions, but you always have to have the flexibility," he added.
