December 19, 2023 – A subvariant of the COVID-19 virus is spreading across the United States and is already dominant within the Northeast, a recent study says CDC Characters.
In this a part of the country, the JN.1 subvariant causes a few third of recent cases, accounts for about 20% nationwide, and is the fastest-growing strain, in keeping with the CDC.
According to the CDC, the prevalence of JN.1 doubled between late November and mid-December, helped by holiday travel and lower immunity.
“Just looking at the growth curve, it's rising quite sharply and seems to coincide with the Thanksgiving break,” said Shishi Luo of Helix, a genome sequencing company CNN.
Many Americans didn’t receive a booster shot this fall or last 12 months. As of Dec. 9, about 18% of adults had received the most recent version, in keeping with the CDC. This roughly corresponds to the previous 12 months's value.
Over the past 4 weeks, COVID-19 hospitalizations increased 51%, in keeping with the CDC.
“The CDC has urged doctors to work harder to get their patients vaccinated, stressing that it is not too late in the season to benefit from the shots,” CNN reported.
The network reported that JN.1 is a descendant of BA.2.86, or Pirola, which attracted attention over the summer. The newer variant is 2 generations faraway from BA.2.86 and “only has one change to its spike protein compared to its ancestor, but that appears to have been enough to make it a fitter and faster virus.”
Some researchers around the globe say antibodies are less capable of neutralize JN.1 enough to trigger a brand new wave of infections. According to CNN, some European countries have experienced “exponential growth in JN.1” and increasing hospitalizations; it also grows in Australia, Asia and Canada.