This is the Guardian. No sooner do we get used to one version of COVID than another comes along.

Just over a month ago I spoke to co-host Madeline about how worried we should be about Omercron.

In sample, as a science editor at the Guardian, you've been following the emergence of new COVID

variants closer than most. Why is Omicron... But within a few weeks a close

relative started to hit the headlines.

Staying with a pandemic, government around the world are tracking the spread of

what is considered to be an offshoot of the Omicron variant, scientists have labeled it B.A.2.

As the world struggle to get to grips with the original Omicron, known to scientists as

B.A.1, one of its cousins, the BA2 sub-variant, was quietly taking off in

Denmark and India.

And the World Health Organization has now said that there is a sub-variant of the COVID-19 omicron mutant

variant that has not been reported in at least about 57 countries around the world.

Studies indicate that this particular sub-variant could be even more infectious than the original omicron

variant of the coronavirus.

So how worried should we be about the new Omicron sub-varian B.A2?

From the Guardian, I'm E in sample and this is science weekly. Nick Lohmann,

Nich Lohmann, you're

Nich Lohmann, your professor of microbial genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Birmingham,

as well as part of Kog UK, a consortium of scientists and organisations that's been sequencing coronavirus genomes throughout the pandemic.

The most recent one we're hearing about is B.A.2.

What's its relationship to B.A.1, the original omicron if you like.

Yeah, this is slightly complicated, so I try and simplify it.

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