{"id":4283,"date":"2023-08-08T17:02:46","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T22:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=4283"},"modified":"2023-08-08T17:03:36","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T22:03:36","slug":"meet-eris-a-leading-u-s-covid-variant-likely-driving-up-infections-and-hospitalizations-this-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/08\/08\/meet-eris-a-leading-u-s-covid-variant-likely-driving-up-infections-and-hospitalizations-this-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet \u2018Eris,\u2019 a leading U.S. COVID variant likely driving up infections and hospitalizations this summer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fortune<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new family of COVID variants is on the rise in the U.S. and abroad\u2014one experts say is likely responsible for a rising tide of infections and hospitalizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Health Organization recently designated EG.5 a \u201cvariant under monitoring\u201d due to its steady global growth. Reports of EG.5, detected in 45 countries so far, nearly doubled from mid-June through mid-July,\u00a0according to an Aug. 3 WHO situation report.<\/a>\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the U.S., EG.5 and its spin-offs are now the most common COVID variants, according to the latest projections issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The viral family was estimated to account for 17.3% of cases in the country as of Friday. Meanwhile, COVID hospitalizations have risen nearly 13% over the past two weeks, according to CDC data<\/a>. And levels of the virus in wastewater have already crested into a half-wave<\/a>, albeit a relatively small one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts are keeping their eye on EG.5 \u201cchild\u201d variant EG.5.1 (dubbed \u201cEris\u201d by variant trackers, after the second-largest known dwarf planet in the solar system). EG.5.1 is taking off in the U.S.\u2014it\u2019s responsible for nearly 8.5% of sequenced cases over the past three weeks, according to GISAID<\/a>, an international research organization that tracks changes in COVID and the flu virus. Levels are also rising in Europe and Asia, Dr. Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research and founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, wrote in a Sunday blog entry<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With testing and sequencing at all time-lows, it\u2019s impossible to say for certain whether EG.5.1 is fueling the current rise in cases in the U.S. and abroad. But \u201cit certainly does not look benign,\u201d Topol wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some locations like New York City \u201care already seeing upticks in the number of COVID-19 cases, and we should expect that we might see similar increases in cases in other parts of the country,\u201d Talia Quandelacy, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health and a member of the state\u2019s COVID modeling group, told Fortune.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe could see COVID-19 cases increasing around the same time as flu season (October to May) if we don\u2019t see cases increasing earlier from a new variant,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Symptom-wise, it\u2019s too early to say if EG.5.1 is any different from other Omicron strains. And the variant may not cause a large wave of cases, according to Ryan Gregory, a biology professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario. He\u2019s been assigning \u201cstreet names\u201d to high-flying variants since the WHO stopped assigning new Greek letters to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy best guess is we\u2019re heading back up to a high baseline [of cases] that may stay up there, but probably not a huge wave,\u201d he tells\u00a0Fortune. \u201c<\/em>The past year has been about rising sea level, not tsunamis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fortune A new family of COVID variants is on the rise in the U.S. and abroad\u2014one experts say is likely responsible for a rising tide of infections and hospitalizations. The World Health Organization recently designated EG.5 a \u201cvariant under monitoring\u201d due to its steady global growth. Reports of EG.5, detected in 45 countries so far, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4284,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4283\/revisions\/4284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}