New COVID-19 subvariant risks new surge

Much like this time last year, a new strain of COVID-19 is spreading throughout the U.S. and the world and looks poised to become the dominant form of the virus in the near future, though health officials suspect the surge will not be nearly as bad as the one in early 2022.

Estimates from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention say that the new subvariant, designated XBB.1.5, accounted for about 2 percent of cases in the U.S. in early December, but over the course of a month that number rose to 27 percent and that number could continue to rise quickly.

This new subvariant of COVID-19 appears to be much more contagious than the original omicron variant that caused a record-shattering number of infections in the U.S. a year ago, but initial studies suggest it is comparable to or weaker than Omicron in terms of the symptoms it causes.

The trend of increasingly contagious variants and subvariants that cause similar or less severe symptoms has held throughout the pandemic and is common for viruses like COVID-19.

Health officials have stressed that the subvariant is still being studied and that initial findings aren't the end-all-be-all, so the medical understanding of XBB.1.5 could change as more data is gathered and more studies done.

While the risk of a new, more contagious strain of the virus has caused many health officials to express concern of a new wave of cases and the effects it could have on the country's hospital system, most seem to be predicting that the surge would be far less severe in impact than the one last year.

Officials have said the fact that more and more people are vaccinated, vaccinated and boosted, or have had COVID-19 already means that the population is increasingly resistant to COVID-19 and that, combined with a potential reduction in symptom severity, means that the risk of straining the system is considerably lower this time around.

Some initial data suggests that XBB.1.5 may be more immuno-evasive than previous incarnations of COVID-19 and further study is being done to test what level of protection is afforded by existing vaccines, but health officials have raised concerns about the spread of misinformation suggesting that the subvariant completely bypasses vaccination or that it developed because of increased vaccination.

Such misinformation has been spreading on social media, but officials have repeatedly said that even if the new subvariant is more immuno-evasive than previous strains the idea that vaccination provides no immunity to it is false as is the idea that it developed due to the vaccine is similarly false.

Officials have, since the vaccines were developed, said that the more people are immunized the less chance the virus has to spread and replicate and, by extension, mutate, so the idea that vaccines are responsible for XBB.1.5 is incorrect.

Indeed, officials continue to ask people to get their vaccination and the bivalent booster if they haven't already as they will afford people the most protection against the virus, with the bivalent booster being especially effective at lessening the effects of the newer variants.