Potential BA.2 sublineage with S:Y248SSEN insertion and N:A35T (~180 Seqs, mainly the US)

[c19850727]

This is a potential sublineage very similar to BA.2.52 (#648 proposed by @silcn).
The 9nt out-of-frame insertions here is nuc:22304insCATCTGAGA (while for BA.2.52 it's nuc:22304insCAGGGGAGA).

Description

Sublineage of: BA.2+N:A35T
Earliest sequence: 2022/04/04 (US-IL)
Most recent sequence: 2022/06/16 (US-NE)
Countries circulating: mainly in the US, and also found in Australia, Israel, UK and Mexico (1 sequence each)
Mutations on top of BA.2: S:ins247SSE+S:Y248N, N:A35T

Evidence

Growth advantage in recent 3 months in the US over baseline BA.2:*

Genomes:

INS248.csv

[FedeGueli]

cc @marcogerdol

[InfrPopGen]

Thank you for proposing this. As this lineage has shown little growth advantage over the past month, and appears to be in general decline, I am closing this for the time being. Nevertheless, should this lineage show a marked resurgence in the future, please feel free to reopen or alternatively re-propose.