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A new Covid variant that is behind a resurgence in hospital admissions may be more deadly than previously thought, research suggests. BA.2.86 — or 'Pirola' — is a mutation on the Omicron BA.2 subvariant and is the ancestor of the currently dominant JN.1, which is responsible for more than three in five Covid cases as of January 6. Both strains have around 60 more spike protein mutations than the original coronavirus and over 30 more than other Omicron variants such as BA.2 and XBB.1.5.

The United States is in the throes of another covid-19 uptick, cementing a pattern of the virus surging around the holidays as doctors and public health officials brace for greater transmission after Americans return to school and work this week. Coronavirus samples detected in wastewater, the best metric for estimating community viral activity, suggests infections could be as rampant as they were last winter. A smattering of health facilities around the country, including every one in Los Angeles County, are requiring masks again. JN.1, the new dominant variant, appears to be especially adept at infecting those who have been vaccinated...

TOPLINE Pirola, or BA.2.86, is the third most prevalent Covid strain in the U.S., and although there may be concerns the new monovalent vaccines—which protect against the XBB lineage that Pirola isn’t a part of—don’t offer protection against Pirola and its subvariants, drugmakers and the CDC are sure the vaccines offer defense. Pirola made up 8.8% of cases as of November 25, almost triple the number of cases the variant made up during the previous two-week period ending on November 11, when Pirola wasn’t even one of the top five most prevalent variants, according to data from the Centers for...

Nearly 1 in 10 new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are from the BA.2.86 variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Monday, nearly triple what the agency estimated the highly mutated variant's prevalence was two weeks ago. Among the handful of regions with enough specimens reported from testing laboratories, BA.2.86's prevalence is largest in the Northeast: 13.1% of cases in the New York and New Jersey region are blamed on the strain. Monday's figures mark the first time BA.2.86's prevalence has surged enough to be listed as a standalone variant on the CDC's estimates. Scientists first warned of...

97 HOUSTON – COVID-19 is continuing to make its presence known across the world as it adapts and evolves into a new strand. American Medical Association Vice President of Science, Medicine and Public Health, Andrea Garcia, JD, MPH, said HV.1 has become the variant responsible for most COVID cases here in the United States in just a few short weeks. According to an article from the TODAY Show, the omicron subvariant accounts for nearly one-third of cases nationwide and is “highly infectious.”

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...

KEY POINTS:* Moderna’s new Covid vaccine generated a strong immune response against BA.2.86, a highly mutated omicron variant that health officials are watching closely, according to clinical trial data the biotech company released Wednesday. *Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax are slated to roll out new vaccines targeting another omicron strain, pending potential approvals from the FDA. * Moderna’s new trial results suggest that the company’s jab will still be effective against newer variants of the virus, even as XBB.1.5 declines nationwide. Moderna’s new Covid vaccine produced a strong immune response against BA.2.86, a highly mutated omicron variant that health officials are...

VIDEOWhy the sudden PRETEND panic attack in the media over a Covid variant whose strength is not even fully known? Simple. The current CORRUPT Regime is so DESPERATE that they want to use the new Covid scare as an excuse to bring back Mail In Ballots for the 2024 election. Never mind that any Covid variant now will be long gone by a year from now. The FAKE panic will begin with the return of mask mandates and new vaccine boosters. However, I doubt the authorities even give a damn about compliance this time because the MAIN GOAL is to...

@TheRightMelissa BREAKING: Alex Jones says a TSA whistleblower has told him TSA employees were instructed on Tue that masks are coming back by October for travelers & full Covid restrictions/lockdowns by December due to a new “dangerous variant” out of Canada.

VIDEORUN FOR THE HILLS! There is a new variant, EG.5, out there that the media is now hyping in a big way in order to scare you into getting jabbed with yet ANOTHER booster. Oh, and they are telling you it is... EVOLVING! Yeah, no word on how deadly it is but break out your worry beads because it is... EVOLVING! The problem for them is all the MISINFORMATION spread by the media about Covid and the vaccines which contrasted sharply with reality has created widescale skepticism among the public to the extent that it is doubtful there will be...

More than 3 years into the COVID-19 era, most Americans have settled back into their pre-pandemic lifestyles. But a new dominant variant and rising hospitalization numbers may give way to another summer surge. Since April, a new COVID variant has cropped up. According to recent CDC data, EG.5 – from the Omicron family – now makes up 17% of all cases in the U.S., up from 7.5% in the first week of July.

In May, the COVID-19 emergency was officially declared over — but the coronavirus remains a lethal threat, according to an increasingly concerned medical community. The latest data from the New York state Department of Health, released Aug. 2, shows that COVID cases spiked by 55% since the prior week, with an average of 824 reported cases per day across the state. And hospital admissions for the disease increased by 22% compared to the previous week, which translates to more than 100 admissions a day. Meanwhile, a new variant — dubbed EG.5, or eris — has arisen as the dominant strain,...

Cases of Omicron variant XBB are mounting in China, forming a new wave expected to crest around 65 million cases a week by the end of June.XBB, the “first major highly immune-evasive” group of COVID variants, “will sweep through China,” but the wave will be “largely invisible” due to low rates of testing and reporting, Raj Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., and a top COVID-variant tracker, tells Fortune.When it comes to XBB variants, “the rest of the world has seen them all.” But up until recently,...

White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci cautioned Tuesday that "we should not be surprised" if a new COVID-19 variant emerges in the winter. Speaking during an event with the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, Fauci said that while pandemic trends like hospitalizations were down nationwide, challenges still lie ahead. "We should anticipate that we very well may get another variant that would emerge that would elude the immune response that we've gotten from infection and/or from vaccination," Fauci said, noting that there's always the risk of an uptick of respiratory diseases during the winter months. Last winter,...

Imperial College yet again panics the masses. What a small world we live in. The “Nu variant” scare you keep hearing about is coming from the same people and institutions that spawned the last COVID scare, and the one before that, and the one before that one, dating back all the way to the onset of COVID Mania. [Update: the World Health Organization has now labeled this strain the “Omicron variant,” in noticeably skipping over “Xi” in the greek alphabet] The corporate press and world governments have produced an incredible amount of noise about a claimed new COVID variant, the...

A new COVID variant that infected vaccinated residents and staff at a Kentucky nursing home has been detected in 47 U.S. states, according to data. The R.1 variant spread through 45 residents and staff at the nursing home after an unvaccinated staff member triggered the infections in March, the Kentucky Department of Public Health revealed. Due to its mutation, the variant, first detected in Japan, was able to bypass the antibody protection present in the fully vaccinated. According to Outbreak.info, a website that collects data on COVID variants, as of September 21, R.1 has now infected more than 10,567 people...

As the US struggles to suppress the rapidly advancing coronavirus Delta variant, new evidence has emerged that the latest Lambda mutation — ravaging parts of South America — won’t be slowed by vaccines. In a July 28 report appearing on bioRxiv, where the study awaits peer review prior to getting published, researchers in Japan are sounding the alarm on the C.37 variant, dubbed Lambda. And it’s proven just as virulent as Delta thanks to a similar mutation making them even more contagious. The strain has been contained in 26 countries, including substantial outbreaks in Chile, Peru, Argentina and Ecuador. “Notably,...

Throughout the pandemic, the coronavirus has spawned a multitude of mutations: from the once-dominant Alpha variant to the still-raging Delta strain. But with California and the country still in the grips of another COVID-19 surge, a new alphabetized entry — Lambda — has been raising fresh questions about whether it, too, might feature characteristics that could trigger dangerous shifts in the dynamic pandemic landscape. Lambda, which was first identified in Peru, is worth watching because "it has had massive spread in South America," according to Dr. Benjamin Pinsky, director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory at Stanford University. When exposed to...

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has caused almost 4.5 million deaths worldwide and infected almost 211 million as of August 19, 2021. To date, millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccines have been deployed globally, which has significantly reduced the rate of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths from COVID-19. Despite these efforts, emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants that evade neutralization by antibodies to earlier lineages have threatened the efficacy of current vaccines. A new study published on the preprint server bioRxiv* explores the mechanism by which the SARS-CoV-2 lambda variant has...

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Fox News: "...I just received this morning data out of Israel that shows the populations about 84% vaccinated, but the new cases of Covid in Israel are about 84% with vaccinated individuals." ...