There are no symptoms so far that the new LB. 1 variant is causing more severe illness in COVID-19 patients, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, as infections began to rise with the wave this summer throughout the country.
The LB. 1 variant ultimately accounts for 17. 5% of new COVID cases, the CDC forecast Friday, and could possibly be on track to overtake its sister, the KP. 3 variant, which has also been on the rise in recent weeks.
“There is no evidence lately that KP. 3 or LB. 1 causes more severe illness. CDC will continue to track SARS-CoV-2 variants and is working toward greater potential public health impact,” the CDC spokesperson said. CDC, David Daigle. a statement.
The reason why any possible change in symptoms or disease severity caused by new variants is complex and is affected by people’s underlying immunity resulting from a combination of infections and vaccines beyond, as well as changes in the virus itself.
The CDC has said in the past that it is intensively tracking the effect of newer strains, relying largely on data and studies from hospitals, comparing trends in places where new variants emerged first.
Only a fraction of facilities still report hospitalization and ICU admission numbers to the CDC, after a pandemic requirement expired earlier this year. A proposal from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to incorporate data reporting into the regimen’s requirements is expected to take effect through October.
Instead, the company has turned to other sources, such as a network of hospitals that continue to report more detailed patient knowledge, as well as emergency room visits, to track the virus.
In California, one of the states that saw virus trends earlier this summer in wastewater at “high” levels, data from CDC COVID-NET shows hospitalizations were near levels not seen since February.
The most recent data from California’s emergency rooms also shows that COVID-19 patient rates have reached levels seen since February.
But the KP. 3 variant, not LB. 1, accounted for the largest proportion of cases in this first wave, estimates from the CDC and the California Department of Health suggest.
Only 7. 8% of cases in HHS Region 9, which covers California and some other western states, are expected to come from the LB. 1 variant on June 8.
Instead, the prevalence of LB. 1 appears to be in HHS Region 2, which includes New York and New Jersey. As of June 8, an estimated 30. 9% of cases were caused by LB. 1.
Compared to highly mutated SARS-CoV-2 variants that emerged before the pandemic, experts say LB. 1’s adjustments are relatively small compared to its parent JN. 1 variant, which dominated last winter’s surge. .
LB. 1 is also very similar to KP. 3, which is also a descendant of the JN. 1 variant. Unlike KP. 3, LB. 1 has a key mutation that scientists call S:S31 that appears to spread faster.
Research by Japanese scientists this month, published as a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that this mutation appears to be more contagious and better able to evade the immune system.