17 cases of new Covid cases found in India; all you need to know
The AY.4.2 lineage of Covid-19, a subvariant of the Delta coronavirus strain, has appeared in at least six states of India, manifesting in as many as 17 cases reported so far, according to data uploaded on GISAID, an open-source database tracking the genomic signature of coronavirus variants.
While the central government has said that a panel of experts was looking into this new coronavirus strain which is believed to be behind the recent infection explosion in the United Kingdom.
British authorities have posited that AY.4.2 could possibly be even more transmissible than Delta, although there currently is no evidence suggesting that it caused more severe diseases or rendered vaccines ineffective.
It is still too early to tell if this is the beginning of the next dominant lineage, and any ability this variant might have of escaping immunity needs to be confirmed by experimental work.
It should also be noted that some experts have said delta sub-lineage can’t do greater damage.