Advertisment
Supported by
The “nightmare variant” is as bad as it sounds.
Send a story to any friend.
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift pieces to offer per month. Everyone can read what you share.
By Knvul Cheikh
As it gets colder and more people move their activities indoors, the recent decline in Covid-19 cases in the U. S. is still being seen in the U. S. The U. S. has begun to stabilize. Coronavirus-related hospitalizations are emerging in several states, including Arizona, Indiana, Illinois, Nevada, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. And there have been a variety of troubling headlines about immune evasion and increased transmissibility of the upcoming coronavirus subvariant circular.
At least part of a dozen versions of the virus are vying to become the next dominant strain in the United States, but they are part of the same family tree. “They’re all descendants of Omicron,” said Dr. Albert Ko, a physician and epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health. While each subvariant has other mutations, none of them seem to create significant waves yet, as the Delta and Omicron variants did when they first appeared, Dr. Ko said.
Here’s what experts know so far about the new subvariants and what their mutations would possibly mean for repeated infections, symptoms, case spikes, and remedy options.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the BA. 5 subvariant, which drove the surge of covid-19 in the summer, still causes a smaller share of infections nationwide. But two other subvariants are emerging and deserve to replace BA. 5 coming soon: BQ. 1 and BQ. 1. 1.
Last Friday, BQ. 1 accounted for 14% of Covid-19 infections in the United States, while BQ. 1. 1 accounted for 13. 1%. Another variant, called BA. 4. 6, also gained traction since August. It now accounts for 9. 6% of cases.
BF. 7, BA. 5. 2. 6, BA. 2. 75 and several other variants are also vying for the position in the US. The variant called XBB has made headlines for its role in the backlog of Covid-19 cases in Singapore. Some reports went so far as to call XBB the “nightmare variant,” even though the number of cases and related hospital admissions had already declined, particularly as of Oct. 29.
The number of cases and the locations of subvariants are vital primarily for vigilant pandemic watchers, who are looking to track how subvariants escape immune protections, how well they will circulate in a community, and how severe they can be for those infected.
The evolution of new variants of the coronavirus is nothing new. “We’ve tried this before, with the flu, for example,” Dr. Ko said. “Viruses and pathogens seek to adapt and evade the immune strain we impose. in them. “
With new, more evasive subvariants, healthy adults are more likely to become inflamed even after vaccination or after a previous infection with another variant. to new subvariants in laboratory experiments.
But other parts of the immune formula may come to our defense, said Dr. Otto Yang, an infectious disease physician and immunology researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“The mutations that define those new variants cluster in and around a key domain for antibody interactions, yet the overall series of spikes isn’t actually altered enough for T cells to recognize any component of the series, and they’re the ones that save it from seriousness. “disease,” says Dr. Yang. People who are up-to-date on their vaccinations and get an early remedy with Paxlovid or remdesivir will do just fine with the peak component. “(Paxlovid is an oral antiviral medication and remdesivir is an injectable antiviral. )
Most experts are not interested in the option of new subvariants that cause mild diseases. “If we see deaths go down and if serious illness and hospitalizations go down, even if other people are infected, it’s still a huge success,” Michael Osterholm said. , epidemiologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Immune avoidance is a major fear for others who are immunocompromised or who do not develop a strong immune reaction to vaccines. This includes other people who have undergone fake or mobile organ transplants, other people receiving cancer treatments, others with autoimmune diseases, and others who want immunosuppressive drugs for medical conditions, Dr. Brown said. Alpana Waghmare, infectious disease expert at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.
Other immunocompromised people rely on preventative shots like Evusheld and intravenous covid remedies like bebtelovicimab, which are made of monoclonal antibodies and can fill gaps in coverage that those patients would possibly have opposed vaccines, Dr. Waghmare said. But remedies with monoclonal antibodies are designed to act on a particular component of the virus; If this component is changed in the new subvariants, those remedies may no longer be effective.
“It’s the fear of most doctors that we will lose this set of equipment in our toolbox to fight covid,” Dr. Waghmare said. As a result, immunocompromised Americans will likely face more severe illness without the option of monoclonal antibody therapy, other antiviral remedies. It will still save you the total number of deaths by expanding into this group.
There is still no evidence to recommend that other people inflamed with BQ. 1, BQ. 1. 1, or any of the other subvariants have new symptoms or that their disease is more severe than we have noticed with previous variants of Omicron. said Dr. . Waghmare.
Maximal non-unusual symptoms come with mild runny nose, headache, and sore throat. These may precede a positive Covid test, and symptoms may be mild or moderately severe for the duration of the illness. “It’s hard to say whether the reduced severity we’re seeing is due to the actual variant or because other people are more protected because they’ve already been vaccinated or noticed an infection before,” Dr. Waghmare said.
The most other people can do to protect themselves in the winter is to get vaccinated and vaccinated. beyond 4 to 6 months, make a plan to get vaccinated, Dr. Yang said. Some experts proposed receiving a reminder even earlier.
A Pfizer study suggests that the updated bivalent booster, which became available in September, produces a larger antibody reaction than BA. 5 for others over 55 than the previous booster. Other independent evidence indicates that the vaccine would not offer much more benefit to young, healthy people who have already received four doses of the vaccine. Bivalent booster could cause your immune formula to recognize the original 2020 virus and BA. 5 Omicron variant. But it remains to be seen to what extent bivalent vaccine antibodies can paint against new subvariants such as BQ. 1 and BQ. 1. 1, which have already been separated from BA. 5.
In addition to antibodies, the T-cell shield that comes from the recall deserves to be able to protect you from serious disease if you’re infected, Dr. Yang said. According to some Israeli studies, the T-cell shield turns out to be the beginning. to decline around six months, so you may need to get vaccinated if you’ve been going on longer, even if you’re young and healthy.
People most at risk of severe COVID-19 or with vulnerable family members also deserve to consider wearing masks, avoiding crowded enclosed places, and asking others about Covid symptoms or exposures if they are going to gatherings during the holiday season. They also deserve to review and get antiviral drugs like Paxlovid early on if a test comes back positive, Dr. Waghmare said.
Advertisment