Free Republic

People across at least 10 states have now been infected by BA.2.86, a highly mutated variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 that authorities have been closely tracking. According to data tallied from the global virus database GISAID, labs have reported finding BA.2.86 in samples from Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington. Estimates suggest BA.2.86 still remains a small fraction of new COVID-19 cases nationwide. Too few sequences of the virus have been reported to show up on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's biweekly variant estimates, which still show that a long...

Vaccinations for BA.2.86 will start on Sept. 11, focusing on care home residents, those at highest riskEngland will bring forward the start of its autumn flu and COVID-19 vaccination programmes as a precautionary step after the identification of highly mutated COVID variant BA.2.86, which has been found in Britain. Scientists have said BA.2.86, an offshoot of the Omicron variant, was unlikely to cause a devastating wave of severe disease and death, given immune defences built up worldwide from vaccination and prior infection. However, Britain's health ministry said annual vaccination programmes for older and at-risk groups would start a few weeks...