If you think the Covid-19 outbreak is over, think again. In China, a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has been detected: it has been the majority in Beijing since the beginning of December 2022. Called BF.7, this “new version” of the coronavirus is actually a sub-variant of the BA variant. 5, the famous Omicron variant.
Problem: BF.7 is, according to experts, much more contagious than Omicron. Indeed, its R0 (its reproduction rate, therefore) would be between 10 and 18.6, against 5.08 on average for Omicron. Clearly, a person infected with the BF.7 sub-variant would be able to transmit it to more than 10 people.
A more contagious but not necessarily more dangerous sub-variant
More contagious than Omicron, is BF.7 therefore more dangerous for health? Not sure, according to specialists who point out that an infection with BF.7 gives the same symptoms as an infection with Omicron: fever, cough, sore throat, fatigue, runny nose. .. On the other hand, BF.7 would have a shorter incubation time than Omicron (this is the time between infection and the appearance of the first symptoms) and would also be able to better escape the immune defenses of the ‘body.
Is the BF.7 variant present in France? Yes, answer the statistics, but nothing to panic: this sub-variant of Omicron represents only 0.99% of the tests. In the United States, this proportion rises to 1.5%, and to 12.5% in Germany. In short, we must remain vigilant and continue to apply barrier gestures as often as possible…
Source : GlobalTimes
