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JN. 1, a highly contagious off-shoot of the Omicron strain, now makes up around 86 percent of COVID cases in the United States after accounting for less than 5 percent of infections nationally in early November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports. It's also the most dominant across the globe. JN.1 cases in the US have doubled over the last month. In late December, it caused 44 percent of cases in the US, after making up around 22 percent of infections in the middle of December. That's around the time the World Health Organization (WHO) declared JN.1...

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.

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.”

Agency likely to recommend vaccine manufacturers target XBB.1.5 with updated shotsAn FDA advisory panel unanimously recommended that COVID-19 vaccines for the fall be updated to only include Omicron XBB lineages. On Thursday, all 21 members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC)opens in a new tab or window agreed that excluding the ancestral strain is the best path going forward, though some stressed that could change in future years. "We no longer need the Wuhan strain," said Amanda Cohn, MD, of the CDC in Atlanta. "I do want to be careful that we're clear that for this...

New York City health officials are warning residents that the infectious omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 may be more likely to infect people who have already been vaccinated or infected with COVID-19. “Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 now accounts for 73% of all sequenced COVID-19 cases in NYC,” the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene tweeted on Friday. ” XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible form of COVID-19 that we know of to date and may be more likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or already had COVID-19.” The department added that getting vaccinated against the virus, including receiving an updated booster...

The omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 has rapidly spread to become the dominant COVID-19 mutation in the U.S., now accounting for 40.5 percent of all cases. The XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant as of this week has pushed out the BQ.1 and the BQ.1.1 subvariants from their previous positions as the most detected coronavirus mutations, according to surveillance conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The XBB subvariant, from which XBB.1.5 descends, is a recombinant of two subvariants that descended from the BA.2 omicron subvariant. That means it carries genetic data from two versions of the coronavirus that originated from the...

Amid warnings from health officials and the White House over a new COVID-19 surge coming this winter, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed a new variant is now dominant in parts of the Northeast. The Omicron subvariant XBB accounts for about 52.6% of all cases in New England between Dec. 18 and Dec. 24, according to the CDC. XBB constitutes 18.3% of cases across the country. “It looks like it’s just going to blow the other (variants) away in a very short period,” Jeremy Luban, professor of molecular medicine, biochemistry, and molecular biotechnology at UMass Chan Medical...

Although easing zero Covid restrictions in China will be met with reopening hardships as infections soar, earlier this week, one of the top medical advisers in the country said that the omicron variant of the virus is no worse than the flu. Now some Chinese cities are downgrading Covid even further, saying it's the same as the seasonal cold, and there is no need to panic. We pointed out earlier this week that China's renowned respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan downplayed the risks of the omicron subvariant of Covid-19. He said the death rate from omicron is .1%, equivalent to...

COVID-19 cases have been increasing in China, including since the ruling communist regime eased its “zero-COVID” restrictions on Dec. 7. Netizens have been reporting that hospitals and mortuaries are being overwhelmed by demand, particularly in nine provinces where the relatively new Omicron subvariants BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 have been reported to be spreading quickly. On Dec. 14, China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced for the first time that 49 cases of BQ.1 had been found in nine Chinese provinces, as well as cases of BQ.1.1. However, the authorities didn’t identify which provinces were the ones affected. BQ.1 and BQ.1.1...

About a year ago, the nation was on the verge of another lockdown when a tidal wave of Omicron infections prompted those who use masks alone... in their car... with their windows down, to hyperventilate that covid is about to kill several million more Americans, and anyone who suggested that this was nothing more than the flu was promptly suspended from twitter most likely by this guy, er gal: Melissa Ingle.Former content moderator employee at Twitter speaks out. Do you believe this person enforced twitter ToS fairly and equally for all persons?pic.twitter.com/3qverDTdPK — John Curtis  (@Johnmcurtis) November 23, 2022......

Boston health officials said Friday the city’s COVID-19 updated booster rate is lagging as other virus indicators trend upwards with family and indoor gatherings for the winter holiday season around the corner. As of Tuesday, particles of COVID-19 in local wastewater increased by 66% over the past week, and by 70% over the past two weeks, according to the Boston Public Health Commission. And as of Monday, COVID-19 cases have increased by 14% over the past two weeks while the city has seen a 24% increase in new virus-related hospitalizations as of Wednesday, officials said. That comes as only 11%...

The next Covid variant to emerge is poised to be more severe than the mild strains that are currently world-dominant, according to a new study. The ultra-infectious Omicron strain emerged almost exactly a year ago and its mutated spinoffs have risen to the top in virtually every country in the world. They are far milder than the older versions of the virus and many researchers believed they represented a kind of end game for Covid’s evolution, which like many viruses before it, mutate to be more mild so they can spread more easily. But researchers in South Africa say the...

Several Southern California hospitals have begun using overflow tents outside emergency rooms to cope with a rising number of patients with flu and other respiratory illnesses. The San Diego-Union Tribune reported Friday that overflow tents were put up at Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas, Jacobs Medical Center at UC San Diego Health in La Jolla and Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa to handle an increase in respiratory illness. Scripps hospitals and doctor's offices reported 1,695 positive flu tests since Sept. 1, up from 471 during the same time period one year ago.

f you’ve received a new omicron-specific Covid booster, you’re the most protected you possibly can be against the virus. But there’s a new batch of so-called “Scrabble” variants circulating globally. While omicron’s BA.5 subvariant still accounts for nearly 40% of U.S. Covid cases, strains like BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BA.4.6 are rising each week, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The new strains present an uncomfortable question: Are the new bivalent boosters still worth getting, or has the virus already outmaneuvered them? “A booster is a booster,” Dr. Roy Gulick, chief of the division of infectious...

The European Medicines Agency says a new wave of COVID-19 infections will hit the continent in the coming weeks as we move towards winter. The EMA held a press conferenc in the Netherlands where officials said the pandemic is not over and that the Omicron variant continues to mutate and therefore to cause concern. "Last week one of these new Omicron variants that is called BQ.1 has been identified in at least five countries in the European Union and European Economic Area," explained Dr. Marco Cavaleri, Head of Health Threats and Vaccines Strategy. "According to the ECDC BQ.1 and each...

Less than two months after the FDA used mouse data to give emergency use authorization to bivalent COVID-19 boosters, the real-world performance of the shots that target the ancestral strain and Omicron BA.4/5 subvariants is undermining the feds' one-size-fits-all messaging. New preprint studies by researchers at Columbia University and Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center, not yet peer-reviewed, found that the bivalents showed no meaningful improvement over the original monovalent boosters that targeted the Wuhan strain alone. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky got infected by COVID this past weekend, just a month after taking her bivalent booster. The new boosters are "formulated...

As winter inches closer, Dr. Fauci is sounding the alarm about a pair of “pretty troublesome” Covid variants. The two descendants of omicron’s BA.5 subvariant, called BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, both have dangerous “qualities or characteristics that could evade some of the interventions we have,” Fauci told CBS News on Friday. The two sublineages are responsible for more than 10% of all current U.S. cases, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data — just one week after they weren’t even significant enough to list. There’s no guarantee that the two strains will eventually overtake BA.5 as the...

A top White House health official on Monday issued a stark warning to older people about the health risk they face this fall and winter from Covid-19. Dr. Ashish Jha, head of the White House Covid task force, said everyone older than 50 and senior citizens in particular need to get an omicron booster as soon as possible. "If you're over 50, certainly if you're over 65, you've got to go get these vaccines because it actually, literally could save your life. It's a difference between life and death," Jha said during an interview with Yahoo Finance. The elderly have...

US researchers have developed a new lethal Covid strain in a laboratory – echoing the type of experiments many fear started the pandemic. The mutant variant — which is a hybrid of Omicron and the original Wuhan virus — killed 80 percent of mice infected with it at Boston University. When a similar group of rodents were exposed to the standard Omicron strain, however, they all survived and only experienced 'mild' symptoms.

Boston University scientists were today condemned for 'playing with fire' after it emerged they had created a lethal new Covid strain in a laboratory. DailyMail.com revealed the team had made a hybrid virus — combining Omicron and the original Wuhan strain — that killed 80 per cent of mice in a study. The revelation exposes how dangerous virus manipulation research continues to go on even in the US, despite fears similar practices may have started the pandemic. Professor Shmuel Shapira, a leading scientist in the Israeli Government, said: 'This should be totally forbidden, it's playing with fire.' Gain of function...