Omicron is evolving, but it's no reason to panic.
While some media sources have dubbed this "stealth Omicron," because it requires a greater degree of scrutiny to detect, Louisiana health officer Dr. Joe Kanter says this is not new in the world of virology.
"It's not unexpected to have a variant of a variant, that's the way these things go," Kanter told WWL's Newell Normand.
Researchers have dubbed this strain of SARS-CoV-2 as "Omicron BA.2."
"In Louisiana, we've identified five cases of this BA.2," said Dr. Kanter. "There's something around 1,100 cases identified worldwide. It's only accounting for about one percent of all the new cases of COVID, globally."
And he says so far, it does not appear to be all that different from its parent strain.
"It doesn't yet seem to be more transmissible or more virulent, making people more sick," explained Dr. Kanter, "The caveat here is sometimes you just don't know until you have some time to watch what it does."
