That means the quick S-gene failure method to catch Omicron infections "is no longer sufficient to assess the spread of Omicron as a whole," it continued. As case counts ballooned, that evolutionary process has seemingly gone into overdrive, prompting variant after variant. On Monday, the World Health Organization said research into how BA.2 operates should be "prioritized independently" from other Omicron subvariants. Omicron infections make up more than 90 per cent of Canada's recent cases — and nearly all of those remain BA.1. But BA.2 infections totalled around one per cent of reported cases in early January, up from a mere 0.2 per cent in late December, with data for that stretch still accumulating.

Source: CBC News January 26, 2022 18:17 UTC