Prevalence of a new subvariant of Omicron is increasing, but whether it will cause a big surge in infections or hospitalizations isn’t clear.
New year, new variant. Just as scientists were getting to grips with thecirculating globally — your BQ.1.1, CH.1.1 and BF.7 — one lineage seems to be rising to the top, thanks to a peculiar new mutation.
“It’s almost certainly going to dominate in the world. I cannot find a single competitor now. Everything else is incomparable,” sayswhose team is studying the properties of XBB.1.5 in the laboratory. However, even if XBB.1.5 does not cause big COVID-19 waves, it will be important to track the lineage closely, researchers say. The subvariant bears a rarely seen mutation that might enhance its infectivity — and create anAs its name suggests, XBB.1.5 is an offshoot of a SARS-CoV-2 variant called XBB. That lineage is a recombinant of two descendants of the BA.2 lineage that began spiking in early 2022; BA.2 itself is an offshoot of.
The relationship between a variant’s ability to attach to ACE2 and its transmissibility isn’t fully clear, says Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington. But for XBB.1.5, “F486P seems to have given it another boost, which is enabling the virus to spread”, he says.The CDC estimates that XBB.1.5 is the second most common variant in the United States, comprising 28% of cases nationally, and upwards of 70% in the northeast .
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