haxxiy on 29 April 2022
Hot out of the oven for you folks some BA.4/BA.5 data on immune escape properties (South African autumn resurgence). It's looking like a ~ 7.5x decrease from BA.1 without vaccines, which is similar to Beta or Mu vs. Wuhan-type.
Not great, not terrible; could cause some reinfections in those who weren't vaccinated and had BA.1 but nothing like going from Delta to Omicron.
Transmissibility advantage is likely still the main cause for the replacement of vanilla BA.2 here, same as BA.2.12.1.
