2 new omicron variants are spreading in N.Y. and elsewhere. Here's what we know

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/04/14/ [login to see] /two-new-omicron-variants-are-spreading-in-n-y-and-elsewhere-heres-what-we-know
On Wednesday, health officials in New York said that two new omicron variants are spreading rapidly in the state. The variants appear to be causing a small surge in cases in central New York state, the department of health said.

Known as BA.2.12 and BA.2.12.1, the variants are closely related to the BA.2 variant – a version of omicron that has caused surges across Europe and is now dominant across the U.S.

Together the two new variants now comprise 90% of cases in central New York.

But one of them, BA.2.12.1, contains a mutation that appears to give the variant an advantage, computational biologist Cornelius Roemer wrote on Twitter. The mutation resides on the part of the virus that binds to human cells. And in previous variants, this mutation has helped the virus infect cells, studies have found. The BA.2.12. variant appears to have a growth advantage of about 30% to 90% per week over BA.2, Roemer estimates.

"It looks like [the variant] has an advantage ... It has certainly rapidly grown in some places," epidemiologist William Hanage, at Harvard University, wrote in an email to NPR. Some of the variants' mutations could help the virus evade the immune system, he notes.