Thankfully there is currently no evidence the two variants cause more serious illness than previous ones
Covid experts have said that the latest virus variants are quickly becoming the dominant strains after an analysis by the UKHSA suggesting omicron BA.5 is growing 35.1 per cent faster than omicron BA.2.
In addition, there were 39 new admissions to Intensive Care Units with a laboratory-confirmed test of covid, whilst there were on average 1,450 patients in hospital with the virus. This was an increase of 26.3 per cent from the previous week ending June 26. "New mutations give the virus an advantage if they can increase transmissibility: the original Wuhan strain has an R0 of 3.3, Delta has an R0 of 5.1, omicron BA.1 has an R0 of 9.5, BA.2, which is the dominant subvariant in Australia at the moment, is 1.4 times more transmissible than BA.1, and so has an R0 of about 13.3
"This gap is in place because many infected people still shed virus particles many weeks after recovery. However, some unfortunate people get a new infection within the 12 weeks, and therefore are not counted. Likely, there are now tens of thousands. into their second or third infections, and this number will only get bigger with BA.4 and 5."