{"id":8652,"date":"2023-12-15T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=8652"},"modified":"2023-12-15T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T17:00:00","slug":"new-covid-variant-spreading-in-us-experts-explain-risks-or-lack-thereof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=8652","title":{"rendered":"New COVID Variant Spreading In US, Experts Explain Risks (Or Lack Thereof)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NOV 30, 2023 – Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compared to Eris, BA.2.86 has a significantly lower growth efficiency, meaning that it is less capable of replicating itself in the human bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new BA.2.86 variant, unofficially known as Pirola is taking hold in the United States.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between Oct. 28 to Nov. 25, its prevalence increased from 1 to around 9 percent in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Health Organization designated Pirola as a variant of interest on Nov. 21, yet it also found the public health risk posed by BA.2.86 to be \u201clow at the global level (pdf<\/a>).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an update published<\/a> on Nov. 27, the CDC agreed with the WHO\u2019s assessment \u201cthat the public health risk posed by this variant is low compared with other circulating variants, based on available limited evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Current Research Suggests Low Risk of Disease<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pirola is derived from BA.2, an earlier Omicron variant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other variants derived from BA.2 include XBB.1.5 which became the dominant strain in early 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current dominant variant is H.V.1, and it is derived from the variant EG.5, unofficially known as Eris, a previously dominant variant in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt this time, BA.2.86 does not appear to be driving increases in infections or hospitalizations in the United States,\u201d the CDC wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research outside of the United States similarly suggests that Pirola should not be more severe than current variants.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researcher Yunlong Cao, who holds a doctorate in physical biochemistry from Harvard found that<\/a> Pirola \u201cexhibits lower cell infectivity\u201d compared to XBB.1.5 and Eris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A preprint study<\/a> from Japan found that while Pirola may be more transmissible than Eris a previous dominant variant, it is less likely to cause disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compared to Eris, Pirola has a significantly lower growth efficiency, meaning that it is less capable of replicating itself in the host, the authors wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not the second coming of omicron. If it were, it is safe to say we would know by now,<\/strong>\u201d Bill Hanage, associate director and professor of epidemiology at Harvard wrote on X on Sep. 1 <\/a>,when the variant’s prevalence was significantly lower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior Infections Gives Immunity Against the New Variant<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Compared to BA.2, its ancestral subvariant, Pirola has more than 30 mutations in its spike protein. The virus uses the spike protein to infect human cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The substantial number of mutations initially raised concerns among virologists, who feared this variant might partially evade earlier immunity from previous exposure, whether from natural infection or prior vaccination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, evidence is still lacking to predict if there will be more immune evasions as well as the severity of future Pirola cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Cao\u2019s own research in mice who have been vaccinated or infected with XBB vaccines showed that the antibodies generated \u201ccannot well recognize and neutralize BA.2.86,\u201d he wrote in a thread posted on the social media platform, X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Pirola had a low cell infectivity, <\/strong>which can affect the variant’s transmission, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In discussion of Mr. Cao\u2019s findings, Mr. Hanage agreed that immune evasion is not a definite indication of more severe infection and transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAny hopeful virus has to have some immune evasion, because almost everyone has immunity,\u201d he wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most recent research on Pirola’s immune evasion abilities comes from a series of reports conducted by researchers at Columbia University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first study, published in Nature<\/a>, tested Pirola, XBB1.5, and Eris spike proteins against antibodies produced from a breakthrough XBB infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These antibodies conferred robust neutralizing activity against Pirola. The authors also noted that Pirola’s ability to evade immunity was no better than that of XBB1.5 and EG.5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same group of researchers then tested antibodies produced from the new XBB1.5 COVID vaccine against several variants, including XBB1.5, Eris, and JN.1, a derivative of Pirola. The findings were published in a preprint.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors found that, compared to all variants investigated, JN.1 was the most immune evasive against antibodies produced from the vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HV.1: The Current Dominant Variant<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The current dominant subvariant is HV.1, a new variant derived from Eris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eris is currently the most dominant globally and HV.1 succeeded Eris as the dominating variant in the U.S. on Oct. 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Pirola, the WHO has classified HV.1 as a variant with low public health risk. The variant accounted for about 31.5 percent of all cases in the United States as of Nov. 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOV 30, 2023 – Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times Compared to Eris, BA.2.86 has a significantly lower growth efficiency, meaning that it is less capable of replicating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,101,251,435],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ba2-86","category-covid-19","category-infectivity","category-pirola"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}