Is COVID ever ending? Meet ‘Centaurus’, the latest Omicron subvariant that could become dominant

A new subvariant of Omicron is making headlines around the world, with health agencies and virologists believing it could likely become the dominant strain in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

BA.2.75 is already becoming dominant in India, after it was first detected there in May.The subvariant has now been found in dozens of countries including the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Because it is overtaking the previously dominant strain in India - BA.5 - virologists think it is likely to be more transmissible and therefore likely to become dominant elsewhere. But they caution that they don’t yet have enough data on the strain to make definitive statements like this.

The Dutch Institute for Public Health announced this week that BA.2.75 had been identified in the Netherlands, saying little is known about it, although “it appears to be able to more easily bypass the defence built against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus through small, specific changes".

This raises fears that it could potentially be adept at evading immunity built up through vaccination or previous COVID-19 infection.

“We're seeing this new variant displacing all the variants that we have considered previously to be extremely transmissible, yet we don't know quite why this variant is becoming so dominant yet,” Dr Eleanor Gaunt, a virologist at the University of Edinburgh, told Euronews Next.

She said BA.2.75 “could be able to get around previously existing immunity, or it could be that it's better at transmitting,” but that given the lack of data, “only time will tell”.

BA.2.75 has picked up the moniker “Centaurus”, although it hasn’t received an official Greek letter from the World Health Organization yet, with the WHO insisting it is a subvariant of Omicron.

The name