What is Happening in Europe? The bottom line message for us in the U.S. for how we’re going to see these infections and hospitalizations
Europe tends to precede us by at least four to six weeks, according to Jha. “And so it stands to reason that as we get into November, December, maybe January, we are going to see an increase in infections across much of the country.”
The first hint of what could be in store is what’s happening in Europe. Infections have been rising in many European countries, including the U.K., France, and Italy.
” In the past, what’s happened in Europe often has been a warning for what’s going to happen here in the US,” says Michael Osterholm, who heads the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at University of Minnesota. “So I think the bottom line message for us in this country is: We have to be prepared for what they are beginning to see in Europe.”
“So we need to be prepared for this. In order to deal with increases in cases and possibly also with increases in hospitalizations, countries need to be in a position to conduct surveillance. We don’t see a change yet in severity. And our vaccines remain effective, but we have to remain vigilant,” she said.
However, it’s not certain the U.S. experience will echo Europe’s, says Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina who helps run the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub.
That’s because it’s not clear whether Europe’s rising cases are related to people’s greater susceptibility to new subvariants they’ve not yet been exposed to. Different countries have different levels of immunity.
“The bad news is that it’s likely that people who’ve been vaccinated and/or infected will still get infected” with these new subvariants, says Dr. Daniel Barouch, a virologist at Beth Deaconess Hospital in Boston who’s been studying the new strains.
Amy Kirby is the national wastewater surveillance program lead at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and says that it’s too early to say something big is happening.
But infections and even hospitalizations have started rising in some of the same parts of New England, as well as some other northern areas, such as the Pacific Northwest, according to Dr. David Rubin, the director of the PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which tracks the pandemic.
Rubin says that they are seeing some evidence of increasing transmission in the northern part of the country. The winter resurgence is starting.
It’s not clear whether this gang of new variants will continue to run around together, each sharing a piece of the Covid-19 infection pie, or whether one will rise to outcompete the others, as has happened in previous surges.
Ziyad Al-Aly, an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, is one of the authors of the new study. “So going into the winter surge now people should do their best to try to prevent getting reinfected.”
“Not only have people gotten vaccinated, but a lot of people have now gotten this virus. In fact, some people have gotten it multiple times. It builds up immunity in the population and reduces the risk of severe illness.
It is almost certainly a recipe for rising cases and hospitalizations because of the poor reception of the new boosters, and the immune evasiveness of the new variant.
According to the latest data from the CDC, 14.8 million people have gotten an updated bivalent booster six weeks into the campaign promoting it. That’s less than 10% of the population that’s eligible to get one.
So far, the demand for the newest boosters is very low. Less than 8 million people have gotten one of the new boosters since they became available over the Labor Day weekend even though more than 200 million are eligible.
It’s critical that people up to date on their vaccines because of the likelihood of a surge. “The most important thing that we could do is to take off the table that this virus can cause severe illness and death,” she says.
The warning is in line with some other experts who expect a rise in cases in the coming months, while other modelling suggests that infections will get better in the near future.
The Omicron Vaccine Needs Revival Before It Starts to Swell, but Does It Need to Be Before Halloween? A Recommendation
Some preliminary studies question whether the new boosters are any better than the original vaccine, but others think they are. Vaccine makers Pfizer and BioNTech recently released a statement saying their new booster stimulates much higher levels of antibodies that can neutralize the BA.5 omicron subvariant than the original vaccine.
At a time when population immunity is higher than ever, these subvariants are going to land. It’s a very different setting than the virus encountered when Omicron emerged a year ago, and that should also help dampen any coming wave, Pekosz says.
I tell my family and friends that they should get it before Halloween. Go get it now. And the reason is if you get it before Halloween, you’re going to have a really high degree of protection as you get into Thanksgiving, as you get into the holidays. You know, you can’t time these things too tightly. My recommendation is to go get it, get it soon. Yes, get it before Halloween.
XBB and Covid-19 as the Scrabble variants of BQ.1, B Q.1, BF.7, BA.6 and BA.2.75
I would say I understand the fatigue. You know, we’re now at a point where COVID doesn’t have to rule our lives. We don’t have to take extraordinary precautions the way we did two years ago or even a year ago. This is now a once-a-year shot for majority of Americans. I get a flu shot for 20 odd years. It’s not a big deal. I go get my flu shot every fall and it helps protect me in the fall and winter. In our case we have the same situation with COVID, where for a majority of Americans it’s a once-a-year shot.
For high risk people like my elderly parents, they might need more than one shot a year. In the spring, they may need one again. For a majority of people, it’s a once-a-year shot, and it is a great way to protect yourself.
BQ.1, B Q.1.1, BF.7, BA.6 and BA.2.75 are all found in the United States. In other countries the XBB has been rising quickly and seems to be sparking a new wave of cases in Singapore. Cases are also rising in Europe and the UK, where these variants have taken hold.
Dr. Peter Hotez, who co-directs the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, says he thinks of them collectively as the Scrabble variants because they use letters that get high scores in the board game like Q, X and B.
XBB.1 has more than doubled its share of the Covid-19 pie every week for the last four, rising from 4% to 41% in the month of December according to the CDC. 75% of new cases in the Northeast are caused by XBB. 1.5.
If these antibodies stop working against the virus, the United States will still have Covid-19 antiviral drugs like Paxlovid, molnupiravir and remedsivir to help those at risk of severe complications.
New omicron variants of COVID-19 and the timing of the arrival of the winter surge: a phenomenological analysis
Though they each descend from slightly different branches of the Omicron family tree, these new offshoots have evolved to share many of the same mutations, a phenomenon known as convergent evolution.
Some experts think this convergence means we’ve entered a new phase of the evolution of the virus, one that will see circulation of several variants at the same time.
Concerns have been raised about another winter surge, because of the new strains that are becoming dominant just as winter is approaching and people will be traveling for the holidays.
With convergent evolution, it may be possible for several different lineages to obtain the same transmissibility levels.
“This is what predominantly happens for most pathogens, such as the flu and RSV,” Grubaugh wrote in an email. The virus has adapted to the human body so that most of what was circulating now has high fitness.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the Covid-19 response technical lead for the World Health Organization, said Wednesday that the large mix of new variants was becoming more difficult for WHO to assess because countries were dialing back on their surveillance.
The CDC released estimates on Friday that showed two new omicron subvariants were dominant in the US, raising fears they could fuel another surge of COVID-19 infections.
Fauci said that most people think that they will end up being a substantial proportion and that BA.5 will get bumped off as the dominant variant in the middle of November.
These variants are different from BA.4 and BA.5, but they’re descended from those viruses, the result of genetic drift. They share parts of their genomes with the virus.
He said it was also a very different kind of population landscape for a variant to emerge because lots of people were being boosted and vaccinations were happening. “All the signs are, I think, the best part of the scenario in terms of not seeing these massive increases in cases.”
“It isn’t that different from BA.5 that it would completely escape the protection that you would get from vaccine” – if people would just get the shot, Fauci said.
Is the Winter Wave bigger than the BA.5 Wave? Mark Zeller, M.D., O.M. Biden, C.L. Lilly, c.e.d
Mark Zeller, a project scientist who monitors variant at the Scripps Research Institute, said that it was likely that it would be much bigger than the BA.5 wave. He doesn’t expect the winter surge to reach the heights of the Omicron wave.
The immunity created by vaccines and past infections makes it a recipe for re-infections, so people who have never had an updated booster should not take any chances.
One variant appears impervious to the last lab-created anti- Covid 19 that is available, a treatment called bebtelovimab, which is made by Eli Lilly.
Drug- and disease-impaired people with immune function are more likely to benefit from antibody therapies. These are the same people whose bodies don’t respond robustly to vaccines.
The White House Covid-19 response coordination said that the federal government had been promising to purchase new therapies after they’re made.
It would take a lot of time to bring a product to market even if we had the money today.
Antibodies are a losing proposition for companies because it takes millions of dollars of investment to make them and because the virus is evolving so fast, they might be effective for only a few months.
Current realities require that the government continue to provide incentives for the production of new therapies and he expects that the Biden administration will once again ask for more funding to do that.
What Happens When Kids Aren’t Exposure to the RSV Environment: Parents, Intensive Care Units and Emergency Rooms
The U.S. could see another flu wave later this winter. In parts of the southern hemisphere’s winter it happened, and in the Northern Hemisphere it happens as well.
Hensley says that this is because the population “is more immunologically naive than what we would expect in most years”. Normally, children get infected by their second birthday. You are going to end up having kids that are three, four years old, who have never been exposed to RSV.
But just how concerned should parents be? Here are answers to some of the most common questions about the RSV infection, who is most at risk and what might be causing this year’s outbreak.
We have had some young children that haven’t been exposed to the same viruses at day care or in the community. And so now they’re getting exposed and it’s hitting them really hard,” Madhavan said.
Those conditions have led to what some doctors are calling an unprecedented number of infants and children in emergency rooms and pediatric intensive care units across the country.
The importance of taking measures to stave off respiratory syncytial and serious illness in children, adults, and babies at high risk with palivizumab
“My hope is that this is not the new normal,” Madhavan said on Friday. It’s concerning since we don’t know what will happen in the fall and winter, so it’s important for this year.
The problem is that their small lungs and muscles can’t muster up the power to cough up or sneeze out the increased secretions and mucus caused in their airways.
“They have a hard time breathing and that leads to problems with eating and drinking, which is why they have trouble breathing,” he said.
Health officials say that hand washing, drinking water, keeping hands away from the face, and sterilizing surfaces can help to stave off respiratory syncytial (RSV) or a serious illness.
It’s important to be inquisitive about how others have been feeling. A lot of the time, people ask if they’ve had a cold, but the person on the other end doesn’t think to mention if they’ve been sick. She added that that could be a serious case for an infant or toddler.
Madhavan said the effective way for children and adults to try to stay healthy throughout the remaining fall and winter months, is to get updated COVID booster and influenza vaccines.
Anyone over six months old can get the flu vaccine. Madhavan noted that it takes a couple of weeks for the shot’s full protection to take effect. She says that a child under eight can get the vaccine two weeks after receiving the first dose, but only if they get a second dose within a month.
The COVID bivalent boosters for people 5 and older became available in September. Children over 6 months can receive any of the three Vaccines. “Don’t wait until we are in the middle of a new wave to get the booster,” warns Madhavan.
It is possible to treat high-risk infants with palivizumab. It is an injection that can be given to premies and other babies born with certain lung or heart conditions who are at high risk for severe RSV disease. It is administered once a month throughout the RSV season.
“It is not a vaccine in that it doesn’t help the immune system make longer term immune protection, but it keeps giving antibody against RSV every month during those high-risk periods for those high-risk children to give them additional protection,” Madhavan explained.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/02/1133040571/rsv-questions-answers-treatment-options
The Flu Season in Children’s Hospitals: Overview of Infections, Treatment Strategies, and Impact on the Epidemics of Palivizumab
It’s not often that palivizumab is given to all children. Part of that is due to the possible, more serious side effects associated with the drug, which include swelling of the throat, difficult or rapid breathing, muscle weakness, and unresponsiveness.
“If you think you or your child has it, it’s best to pick up the phone and call your doctor or nurse rather than coming into a setting that might mean a long wait or might mean exposure to other viruses that your child and family don’t have and can have risks on their own,” she said.
Madhavan said that in most cases, health care professionals can go through a checklist of warning signs and make suggestions for potential at-home treatments.
“Based on that information they can recommend that you start doing nasal saline drops, use a humidifier or shower, or do other things to help loosen up mucus and decrease congestion,” she said. “If it’s a child older than one, they may say try honey to help with a cough or give suggestions on how to bring down a fever.”
But, Madhavan warns, it may be time to seek more intensive care when an infant or young child is working extra-hard to breath. A wide array of things includes a flaring of the nostrils, grunts as they exhale and the skin between the ribs and collarbone pulling in and out.
There are 17 states with high or very high respiratory illness activity due to the flu season that is hitting harder and earlier than usual.
Since the H1N1 swine flu outbreak a decade ago, the hospitalization rates of the flu have been high this year. The CDC update shows data through the end of October.
The good news is the worst appears to be over from the RSV surge that has been making life miserable for many children and their parents. RSV cases have been falling steadily since the end of November, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Influenza activity is high and is driving a significant number of visits to our emergency department,” Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia spokesperson Ben Leach said. Increased wait times in emergency departments and urgent care settings have been caused by the rise in upper respiratory infections, but we’re seeing fewer hospitalizations related to the flu than we used to.
The Northern Hemisphere is becoming more susceptible to influenza and COVID-19: An immunology professor discusses a recent outbreak of influenza
The majority of the country has less than one in five beds available. Five of them are more than 90% full: Rhode Island, Arizona, Maine, Minnesota and Delaware, along with Washington, DC.
This means that we are more susceptible to these infections. What’s behind the current surge in the Northern Hemisphere, and what will the new normal be?
Researchers in France were the first to use the term immunity debt. The term has taken off on the social networking site. Matthew Miller, an immunology professor at the university in Canada, says the idea that a lack of exposure to pathogens has irrevocably damaged the immune system is nonsense.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions regarding seasonal viruses. rhinoviruses, the most common cause of colds, is not affected by restrictions on COVID-19 because of reasons that are not fully understood. Miller thinks that it might be because of their ability to weather harsh weather. They’re less prone to desiccation and can persist for longer in the environment.
Another open question is how these viruses compete and interfere with one another. A strong immune response can be created if you are exposed to a singleviruses and prevent exposure to anotherviruses. Hensley points out that last year’s first wave of influenza declined soon after the Omicron surge began. Omicron infections provide short-lived protection against flu. Or maybe the Omicron surge simply convinced people to mask up and keep their distance.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03666-9
Vaccination and Antibody Testing for Viruses with Gene-Induced Sub-Variants During the Great Depression and the Emerging Cold War
Pitzer expects that next year’s peaks and valleys might look much more like those that occurred before the pandemic. She isn’t placing bets. She believes that this winter will be the last unusual one.
“This time of year last year we were optimistic. We were coming out of the delta wave, and it was steadily decreasing, and we went into Thanksgiving to wake up to omicron. So there is this sort of déjà vu feeling from last year,” Luban says.
Dr. David Ho, professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, recently tested viruses engineered to have the spikes of XBB and XBB.1 as well as BQ.1 and BQ 1.1 in his lab against antibodies from the blood of people who’d been infected, who were vaccinated with the original and new bivalent vaccines, and who’d been both infected and vaccinated. His team also tested 23 monoclonal antibody treatments against these new sublineages.
A new study suggests that getting reacquainted with theviruses can pose a variety of problems, including an increased risk of hospitalization, long-term problems and even death.
The Rockefeller Foundation’s vice president of Pathogen Surge Prevention said the question was whether the increase would be nationwide or if it would be smaller.
The recent surge in other countries could be a sign that the sub-variants are involved in a new U.S. wave. The surge in cases in France dissipated quickly and was related to the new subvariants.
Another concern is that these new subvariants are likely to render the last monoclonal antibody drugs useless, including one that people with compromised immune systems use to protect themselves.
Observation of an Increase in the Rate of Coronavirus Infections among 18- and 24-year-olds during the Holiday Season
Sometimes, holidays can cause small, sometimes a modest spike in infections with people gathering together indoors, according to a University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children professor.
“Covid positivity is going up,” said Shishi Luo, associate director of bioinformatics and infectious disease at the genetic testing company Helix, which has been monitoring coronavirus variants. The sampling shows that it’s increasing fastest among 18- to 24-year-olds.
When test positivity increases, it means a greater proportion of Covid-19 tests are returning positive results, and it can be an indication that transmission is on the rise.
“We should expect more cases,” Luo said. “Whether they’re measured in how we measure cases right now, I don’t know, but I think in general, you should see more people who are sick. I definitely do.
More than 100 million cases have been reported in the United States. However, the actual number of cases is likely much higher, as many individuals who are infected do not test or do not report the results of tests taken at home. Hospitals have become better indicators of disease trends due to undercounts.
The impact of dominant variants of coronavirus on deaths and victims of Covid-19: a longitudinal study of Los Alamos, Calif
The BQ variant will not be known exactly what will happen. Many experts say they feel hopeful that we won’t see the big waves of winters past – certainly nothing like the original Omicron variant, with its jaw-dropping peak of nearly a million new daily infections.
Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says that’s probably because BQ.1’s advantages are incremental, not drastic.
Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, thinks our behavior and our social contacts might be bigger determinants of whether cases will rise this go-round than whatever variant is in the lead.
“It’s probably got a bit more of a fitness advantage, so what we’re seeing is gradual replacement without a massive change in the total number of Covid-19 cases,” he said.
BQ.1 and BQ. 1.1 may not have any impact, but they are not out of the question. They’ve shown marked resistance to the antibodies that are available to protect and treat people who are vulnerable to severe Covid-19 infections. It is a good reason for people to be careful if they have weakened immune systems, or will be near someone who does.
Scientists at Los Alamos National Labs recently completed a study delving into what drove the effects of 13 dominant variants of coronavirus as they transitioned from one to another in 213 countries. The data was included in the study before it was published for peer review.
The number of previous cases in a country, the percentage of people who wore masks, average income and the percentage of the population older than 65 ran a distant second, third, fourth and fifth, respectively.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/24/health/covid-19-thanksgiving-bq/index.html
Emergence of a new variety can help dampen the Covid-19 wave in the United States, says Korber, a researcher at the Los Alamos Laboratory
How many other variants are in the mix when a new one rises is also an important factor, says senior study author Bette Korber, a laboratory fellow in the Theoretical Biology and Biophysics Group at Los Alamos.
Korber said that after Alpha came to the United States, it was evolving its ownvariants out of California and New York, which had a competitive edge over what it had to overcome in England.
The CDC is tracking a soup of more than a dozen Omicron subvariants that are causing cases in the US, and that variety may end up helping dampen any wave over the winter.
Korber is not making any predictions. She says it’s just too difficult to know what’s going to happen, pointing to Asia as the source of her uncertainty.
“XBB.1.5 has gotten a specific mutation that enables it to maintain antibody escape properties while also giving it an advantage for spreading through the population,” says Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle who has been studying variants.
“To me, it’s a good time, when it’s possible, to wear masks,” she said. Masks protect the wearer as well as others around them. “Get the booster if you are eligible and it’s the right moment for you,” as we gathered around the table to feast with our friends and family.
“It’s a time to exercise a little additional caution to prevent that wave that we don’t want to see happening, or at least make it a smaller bump,” Korber said
The stakes are even if Americans do not prepare for a potential surge in Covid-19 cases this winter according to the White House Covid-19 response coordinators who was interviewed by CNN.
Jha noted that effective tools to avoid severe Covid-19 infections include rapid tests, high-quality masks, ventilation and filtration of indoor air, oral antiviral pills and updated vaccines.
As a part of its push, the administration is restarting the free at- home Covid-19 test program, which will give each American household up to four free tests this winter. It is also offering federal resources to local health departments that can help them focus their attention on high-risk individuals and allow nursing home staff to administer vaccinations.
Jha declined to predict how many Covid-19 cases there might be this winter, but said data from the past few weeks make clear that numbers have been on the rise, likely driven in part by indoor gatherings during the Thanksgiving holiday and the beginning of the winter holiday season.
Someone will have protection before Christmas if they get a vaccine tomorrow. But it’s not like Christmas Day is the last day people socialize over winter,” Jha said. It is important that you get the vaccine as quickly as possible to protect you from harmful effects.
If one tests positive for Covid-19, the CDC suggests isolating from others, but not necessarily from others if they catch the flu orRSV. When asymptomatic people spread the flu and theRSV more than unsymptomatic people do, it’s because of the fact that Covid-19 can be transmitted a lot more if a person is exposed to it.
He is encouraging Americans to follow this simple rule of thumb, whether you have Covid-19 or something else: “If you are feeling sick, you should stay home.”
In other words, if you are not convinced that you have Covid-19, then don’t cough at the family holiday dinner.
State of the Art: The Colorado Hospital Association’s Combined Hospital Transfer Center faces an increasing outbreak of influenza, Covid-19, RSV or flu
The Colorado Hospital Association said it is deactivating the Combined Hospital Transfer Center, a program that enabled overwhelmed pediatric hospitals to transfer young patients with Covid-19, RSV or flu to other hospitals, because cases have plateaued.
The Colorado Hospital Association’s president and CEO Jeff Tieman said in a statement that hospitals in Colorado would use capacity management tools if faced with another surge.
Health care workers urge families to take precautions – like wearing masks in crowded indoor settings, washing their hands frequently and getting their flu vaccine and Covid-19 booster shots if they haven’t already – to prevent an influx of flu and Covid-19 cases over the next few weeks.
“You can get an invasive group A strep infection without having an underlying viral infection, but often they also happen as a complication of a viral infection,” O’Leary said.
Strep A, or group A streptococcus, is a bacteria found in the throat and on the skin that usually causes fever and throat infections, such as strep throat or scarlet fever. Invasive group A strep infections can include necrotizing fasciitis and can be deadly.
The increase in illnesses, the shortage of medications, the hospitals teetering at the edge of capacity – all of this tells O’Leary that public health needs to be bolstered with more investment.
All of the staff as well as the clinic physicians are working where they normally wouldn’t. We could certainly use some time to regroup, we are stepping up to meet the need right now.
While the seven-day rolling average of hospitalization cases derived from US Health and Human Services’ data has come down in recent weeks, experts warn a resurgence is possible as people travel and gather for the holidays.
The U.S. Department of Health Announces New Measurements of the Covid Variants Conceal a Black Hole in the United States
congestion and coughing are symptoms of the flu and other respiratory illnesses. Some are unique. RSV, for example, can cause wheezing or decreased appetite while Covid can cause shortness of breath. Health experts say that testing is helpful to determine which illnesses are at play and to make sure that appropriate treatment happens in a timely manner. Paxlovid can be used to treat flu in Covid patients.
Testing people before they board the plane won’t answer the question of whether or not they’re producing more variant infections in China.
US health officials announced Wednesday that, starting January 5, travelers from China will be required to show a negative Covid-19 test result before flying to the country. Passengers traveling to the US from China will need to get tested no more than two days before flying and present proof of the negative test to their airline before boarding.
The CDC is expanding the Genomic surveillance program to airports in Seattle and Los Angeles, which will add seven airports with over 500 weekly flights from at least 30 countries.
The US testing requirements for travelers will “buy some time,” but they won’t prevent new Covid-19 cases from coming to the United States or new variants from emerging, said Dr. Carlos Del Rio, the executive associate dean for the Emory School of Medicine and Grady Health System in Atlanta.
He doesn’t think the travel requirements will benefit us. We need more transparency from the Chinese, and that is pretty much a diplomatic decision, because they don’t tell us what’s going on. This is about diplomacy.
In terms of the genetic data on coronaviruses in China that is accessible to the public, “It really is a bit of a black hole,” Pekosz said. According to an internal estimate of the number of people in China that caught Covid-19 in the first 20 days of December, there could be 250 million of them.
The more cases that you have, the more likely it is that the virus will be able to evade any of the mutations in it.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/health/covid-variants-concern-new-year/index.html
How is XBB.1.5 different to BA.5, which is the most transmissible type of Omicron? A comment from Van Kerkhove and Trevor Bedford
GISAID said in an email to CNN on Wednesday that China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and several regional centers in the country, “have noticeably increased the number of submissions of genome sequence and associated metadata from samples taken in recent days.”
Van Kerkhove noted that XBB.1.5, which was first detected in the United States, has spread to at least 29 countries and “is the most transmissible form of Omicron to date.”
There’s no evidence the new variant makes people sicker than previous versions of the coronaviruses. And the immunity that people have from getting infected and vaccinated should protect most from getting really sick. No one thinks this winter will be the same as the first two pandemic winters. XBB. 1.5 can easily sneak around immunity, even if it is not something you want to do. It has a piece of technology that makes it possible to get infections in cells more easily than the others. That makes the version of COVID-19 even easier to catch.
Pavitra Roychoudhury, director of Covid-19 Sequencing at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said that they haven’t seen a variant that takes off at that speed in a few months.
Trevor Bedford, a professor of computational biology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, said XBB.1.5 has a growth rate similar to that of its distant cousin BA.5.
Its effective reproductive number is roughly 40% higher than that of its nearest competitor and is estimated at 1.6 new infections per person.
I think it will drive increased circulation in the coming weeks, wrote Bedford in an email. Since people are testing at home more, their cases may not be counted unless they get a lab test to confirm their results. “So I’d look to hospitalizations in the vulnerable age groups [such as seniors] as better indicator of wave,” he wrote.
A Health Expert’s Perspective on the XBB.1.5 Omicron Sublineage, and Implications for Covid-19 Vaccines
XBB. 1.5 is the same result as XBB.1, which means it has the ability to escape the protections of immunizations. It’s also resistant to all current antibody treatments, including Evusheld.
He believes these levels of immune evasion could affect the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines. His findings were recently published in the journal Cell.
An important evolution for viral fitness could be seen in this Mutation, flagged as important by the researcher. It was confirmed by Yinlong Cao at a university.
We’re going to have more data about how well the vaccines do against XBB. 1.5, and that’s when we’ll see how effective the new vaccine is.
He said that the level of immunity provided might not prevent you from getting infectious, but may have an impact on whether you get seriously ill and die. “I mean, right now, the most recent data we have shows that for those who have the bivalent vaccine, they have a three-fold lower risk of dying than those who don’t.”
Experts also note that although antibody treatments won’t work against this sublineage, other antivirals, such as Paxlovid and remdesivir, should still be effective.
Health experts voiced concern Wednesday over the rapid growth of the new Omicron sublineage XBB.1.5, advising the public to stay informed but not alarmed as they work to learn more.
“We do expect further waves of infection around the world, but that doesn’t have to translate into further waves of death because our countermeasures continue to work,” she said.
She said WHO is working on a risk assessment for the sublineage and hopes to publish it within the next few days. The group’s technical advisers are looking at both real-world data on hospitalizations and lab studies to assess severity.
Revisiting the Flu with the Centers for Disease Control (CME): A Preliminary Report from the CDC on Friday
At the same time, the flu — which also came roaring back this fall after mostly disappearing for the previous two years — looks like it’s finally receding in most places, according to the latest data out Friday from the CDC.
“In a couple areas, we’re seeing activity increase or plateau,” Dr. Shikha Garg, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC, told NPR in an interview Friday. “However, in most areas, it’s been declining.”
Around the Thanksgiving holiday, we are seeing the current increase in cases. “After we went into the Hanukkah/Christmas holiday season, that has accelerated infections further.”
Other precautions include avoiding crowded, poorly ventilated parties, restaurants, bars and other places; testing before gathering; and, yes, putting that mask back on in risky situations. If you get sick, make sure to check with your doctor about getting treatment fast.