Officials with the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday said there is no indication that the COVID-19 Omicron sub-variant BA.2 is more severe than Omicron’s original strain. “There’s no indication that there’s a change in severity,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, said during a news briefing on Feb. 1. BA.2, which was discovered in January by UK researchers, has seen a “slight increase in [the] growth rate” over the initial Omicron variant, she said. “Beyond that, the data is really quite limited,” the official said, while saying that “most of the research that is available is on the subvariant BA.1.” She continued to say that BA.2—like the original strain—is a “variant of concern,” referring to WHO’s designation and its controversial naming of the CCP virus variant in November 2021. “We need people to be aware that this virus is continuing to circulate …