Tracking Variants of Concern

Sub Variants

- The Omicron sub-variant BA.5 is the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen The Biology of BA.5

Trevor Bedford et al

presented slides 1. Emergence of variants of concern 2. Assessing adaptive evolution 3. Variants transmission dynamics 4. Omicron emergence and spread 5. Future perspectives

YOUTUBE Nd9Kk79jauI Viruses and Vaccines Seminar at BBI on "SARS-CoV-2 evolution in light of Omicron" from Mar 15, 2022

# Takeaway (as of mid-March 2022) - Primary hypotheses for Omicron's origin. (More likely) Evolution during chronic infection in an immunocompromised individual. - Likely scenarios over the next 12 months Another Omicron-like emergence event with high attack rates with epidemic driven by variant emergence. # Posterior probability in rest of 2022 - 70% chance of zero Omicron-like emergence - 20% chance of one Omicron-like events - 8% chance of two Omicron-like events - 2% chance of three events