{"id":4477,"date":"2023-08-29T19:42:11","date_gmt":"2023-08-30T00:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=4477"},"modified":"2023-08-29T19:48:29","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T00:48:29","slug":"this-falls-covid-variant-might-really-be-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/08\/29\/this-falls-covid-variant-might-really-be-different\/","title":{"rendered":"This Fall\u2019s Covid Variant Might Really Be Different"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WSJ<\/a> What to know about BA.2.86, or \u2018pirola,\u2019 from where it\u2019s spreading to whether vaccines will work against it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists have their eye on a different variant than the XBB variants, such as EG.5, that are driving the summer Covid-19 bump<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BA.2.86\u2014dubbed \u201cpirola\u201d by a group of scientists on social media who name notable variants\u2014has been detected in only about a dozen people, but it has surfaced in all corners of the world. What\u2019s troubling about this variant, scientists say, is that it contains more than 30 mutations on the spike protein, which is what helps the virus enter cells and cause an infection. This means it might be able to evade current vaccines and previous infections more easily, and it likely won\u2019t be a great match with the fall booster<\/a> expected to be approved soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s drastically different\u201d than the dominant variants circulating now, says Katelyn Jetelina, a scientific adviser to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and author of the \u201cYour Local Epidemiologist\u201d newsletter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unclear whether the variant will result in different or more severe symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we know about BA.2.86<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Positive cases of BA.2.86 have been reported in the U.S., Denmark, Israel, South Africa, Portugal and the U.K. The cases include people who haven\u2019t traveled recently, suggesting that there is community transmission. It\u2019s also been detected in wastewater in the U.S., according to the CDC, and in Switzerland and Thailand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s unknown is how transmissible the variant is and whether it will spread widely or fizzle out like many other variants. Another important, outstanding question is whether it causes more severe disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jetelina says she hypothesizes that if the variant spreads widely, it would be able to escape the neutralizing antibodies we have from vaccines and previous infections, making it easier to get infected, but might not be as successful with our immune system\u2019s second line of defense, the T-cells, which protect against severe disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists say treatments such as the antiviral Paxlovid should still remain effective even with such a highly mutated virus because they target a different part of the virus, not the spike. Rapid antigen tests, often used to test for Covid-19 at home, also should be able to detect the new variant, the CDC said last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a risk assessment released Aug. 23<\/a>, the CDC said scientists are evaluating the effectiveness of the fall Covid-19 booster, expected to roll out in September, and the new variant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse Bloom, a virologist and professor at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, says transmission is likely happening because multiple sequences of the variant have been identified in different countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCertainly, it\u2019s probably in more places than it\u2019s been identified so far because surveillance is incomplete,\u201d says Bloom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why this Covid variant is worth watching<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Bloom says the evolutionary jump of BA.2.86 is similar to that of the original Omicron, which burst onto the scene in the winter of 2021, resulting in a spike in infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he and other scientists, including the CDC, note that the Covid-19 landscape is different now as almost everyone has some immunity to Covid-19 from either a previous infection or vaccines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists don\u2019t know where the variant originated. Because it contains so many mutations, they speculate it developed over months in an immunocompromised person with a chronic infection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably been evolving for quite some time,\u201d says T. Ryan Gregory, an evolutionary biologist and professor at University of Guelph in Ontario. Gregory says it isn\u2019t clear whether it\u2019s taking off as a variant the way Omicron did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With surveillance efforts reduced, the new variant could be common in a locale without being noticed, says Gregory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if BA.2.86 doesn\u2019t spread widely, it\u2019s an important reminder that vastly different strains can surface out of nowhere, says Justin Lessler, a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lessler says the fact that the locations where the variant has been identified haven\u2019t experienced large surges in cases is a hopeful sign that the strain might not be proliferating rapidly. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t mutate to be able to spread quickly at some point,\u201d he notes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some public health experts caution against reading too much into the new variant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be sounding alarm bells over a variant that is just as likely to die out as it is to become the next big thing,\u201d says David Dowdy, a professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. \u201cIf we did that for every single variant we\u2019d be sounding alarm bells every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lessler says the fact that the locations where the variant has been identified haven\u2019t experienced large surges in cases is a hopeful sign that the strain might not be proliferating rapidly. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t mutate to be able to spread quickly at some point,\u201d he notes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some public health experts caution against reading too much into the new variant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be sounding alarm bells over a variant that is just as likely to die out as it is to become the next big thing,\u201d says David Dowdy, a professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. \u201cIf we did that for every single variant we\u2019d be sounding alarm bells every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WSJ What to know about BA.2.86, or \u2018pirola,\u2019 from where it\u2019s spreading to whether vaccines will work against it. Scientists have their eye on a different variant than the XBB variants, such as EG.5, that are driving the summer Covid-19 bump. BA.2.86\u2014dubbed \u201cpirola\u201d by a group of scientists on social media who name notable variants\u2014has been […]<\/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":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"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\/4477","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=4477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4478,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4477\/revisions\/4478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}