The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the coronavirus subvariant JN.1 is now causing about 20% of new Covid-19 infections in this country, and it’s the fastest-growing strain of the virus. It’s already dominant in the Northeast, where it is estimated to cause about a third of new infections.

JN.1 is descended from BA.2.86, or Pirola, a subvariant that came to the world’s attention over the summer because of the large number of changes to its spike proteins: more than 30. Scientists feared that it was so mutated that it would completely escape the protection of vaccines and antibodies against Covid-19, perhaps sparking another tidal wave of illness the way the original Omicron variant did in 2021.

That never happened, but BA.2.86 hung around, growing very slowly in some countries, including the US. Some studies suggested that it never really took off because it may have lost some of its ability to infect our cells.

 

Enter JN.1, which is two generations removed – a granddaughter, so to speak – of BA.2.86. JN.1 has only one change to its spike protein compared with its ancestor, but that seems to have been enough to make it a fitter and faster virus.

The CDC estimates that prevalence of JN.1 more than doubled in the US between late November and mid-December. It seems to be getting an assist from holiday travel and waning immunity.

“When I just look at the growth curve, it is rising quite sharply, and it seems to coincide with the Thanksgiving break in terms of timing,” said Dr. Shishi Luo, who heads infectious diseases for the genomic sequencing company Helix.

Variant trackers say they expect JN.1 to become the leading coronavirus variant around the world in a matter of weeks. The World Health Organization named it a variant of interest on Tuesday because of its “rapidly increasing spread” but noted that the additional public health risk remains low.

“It’s already pretty clear that it is highly competitive with existing XBB variants and looks like it’s on track to become the next sort of globally dominant group of variants,” said Dr. T. Ryan Gregory, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, who has been tracking the evolution of the virus that causes Covid-19.

The mutation in JN.1’s spike is at a position that Gregory said seems to help the virus escape our immunity.

 

FULL STORY

 

not a single word of associated deaths. telling. next. 

"Coronavirus subvariant JN.1 growing fast in US, already dominant in the Northeast"

 

here we go again! new alphabet letters will soon have to be invented to designate new covid mutations