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Q: What is AY.4.2, also known as the Delta Plus variant?
A: Put simply, it is a mutation of the Covid-19 Delta variant. It is a combination of the AY.4 Delta variant plus the S:Y145H spike mutation.
Q: How bad of a threat is it?
A: Currently, experts are saying there is no indication that the subvariant is more infectious or more dangerous than the Delta but tests are ongoing, the BBC reported.
It has not, as yet, been classified by The World Health Organisation as a variant of concern, or a variant under investigation.
Q: Where has it been reported?
A: More than 6 per cent of all cases so far have been reported in Britain.
Newsweek reported that data from the Gisaid virus reporting database, as well as those collected and displayed by Outbreak.Info, showed that cases have been reported in the US, Canada, Australia and parts of Western Europe.
Australia and Japan have reported only one case each as at Tuesday. The US has reported seven, Canada, six.
Q: What do the experts say about the subvariant?
A: The AY.4.2 has yet to be observed driving any recent increase in case numbers in Britain, said University College London's professor of computational systems biology Francois Balloux. "As AY.4.2 is still at fairly low frequency, a 10 per cent increase in its transmissibility could have caused only a small number of additional cases," he said. "This is not a situation comparable to the emergence of Alpha and Delta that were far more transmissible (50 per cent or more) than any strain."
