New COVID variant is on the rise, has tripled in the past 2 weeks

Although the pandemic is over, COVID-19 remains a persistent threat. Incidents of a highly mutated variant, BA.2.86, have tripled in the past two weeks, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced early this week

Scientists first warned of the highly mutated variant in August, but it since has spread in several regions of the United States. This variant is spreading fastest in the Northeast, with more than 13% of cases in the New York and New Jersey region attributed to BA.2.86.

BA.2.86 may become the dominant strain, according to Dr. Brendan Jackson, head of the CDC’s respiratory virus season. “Chances are it probably will, given the growth rate, but it does not seem to be a game-changer,” he said.

The CDC is confident about managing the new variant with vaccines and procedures that have been effective against previous strains.

“At this time, BA.2.86 does not appear to be driving increases in infections or hospitalizations in the United States,” it said. ”CDC contributed to and agrees with the World Health Organization’s recent risk assessment about BA.2.86 suggesting that the public health risk posed by this variant is low compared with other circulating variants, based on available limited evidence. Updated COVID-19 vaccines are expected to increase protection against BA.2.86, as they do for other variants.”

Both Pfizer-BioNTech and Novavax told Forbes that their latest vaccines offer some protection from the new variant, and a September clinical trial from Moderna found its latest shot provided an 8.7-fold increase in protection.

Nevertheless, the CDC cautioned against complacency “It is important to note that early projections tend to be less reliable, since they depend on examining growth trends of a smaller number of sequences, especially as laboratory-based testing volume for SARS-CoV-2 has decreased substantially over time,” the agency said.

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Meanwhile, CDC data show that emergency department visits linked to COVID-19 have begun to climb nationwide. After weeks of largely slowing or flat trends, the CDC said this month that figures such as emergency department visits had begun to increase nationwide from COVID-19. Most regions of the country are now seeing at least slight increases. Some of the highest increases are in the Midwestern region of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin, where trends are nearing levels not seen since early January.