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“We need people to be aware that this virus is continuing to circulate and it’s continuing to evolve,” Van Kerkhove said during a Covid update Tuesday in Geneva. “That’s why it’s really important that we take measures to reduce our exposure to this virus, whatever variant is circulating.”

BA.2 has become the dominant version of omicron in Denmark, outpacing the original version, BA.1. Danish scientists, in a study published this week, found that BA.2 is substantially more transmissible and is more adept at infecting people who are vaccinated or boosted.

However, vaccinated and boosted people are actually less likely to spread BA.2 once infected compared with people who have the BA.1 strain. The unvaccinated, on the other hand, transmit BA.2 more efficiently than the original omicron, likely due to a higher viral load, according to the study.

The Danish scientists said BA.2, like the original omicron, appears to be associated with milder infections than the more severe delta variant. “The combination of high incidence of a relative innocuous subvariant has raised optimism,” they wrote.

The WHO has repeatedly warned that new Covid variants will likely emerge as omicron spreads rapidly around the world. Van Kerkhove said last week the next variant will be more transmissible, but it’s an open question on whether it will be more severe.

The WHO labeled omicron, including its sublineages, a variant of concern in November. The BA.2 subvariant has not been separately categorized as such because it falls under omicron, the organization said.

“BA.2 is one of the sublineages of omicron, so BA.2 is omicron, and it is a variant of concern,” Van Kerkhove said Tuesday. “It’s in the family of the variants of concern around omicron.”