T Ryan Gregory News Today

Health officials are issuing a warning about an increase in COVID activity with a new variant called KP.2, or the FLiRT variant.

This Medical News story discusses the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and recent increases in other respiratory diseases.

From Greek letters (Alpha, Delta Omicron) to mythological creatures (Kraken) and now astronomical names (Pirola, Eris), Covid-19 variant naming systems have evolved along with new strains.

The rise of JN.1 to dominance in the US could soon cause the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases of any wave so far, excluding only the initial Omicron wave exactly two years ago.

Health experts monitoring JN.1 say it may not cause as much damage as previous waves but it could still be severe

The World Health Organization has added a new covid-19 strain, JN.1, to its list of “variants of interest,” its second highest level of monitoring. Itself an offshoot of the omicron subvariant BA.2.86 (nicknamed “Pirola” by the media),1 JN.1 is described by WHO as posing a “low” risk to global public health. The agency warned, however, that the winter season in the northern hemisphere could increase the burden of respiratory infections in many countries. Having made up just 3% of inf...

JN.1 is now causing about 20 percent of new coronavirus infections in the US.

It’s already dominant in the Northeast, where it is estimated to cause about a third of new infections.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the coronavirus subvariant JN.1 is now causing about 20% of new Covid-19 infections in this country, and it’s the fastest-growing strain of the virus

The CDC estimates that prevalence of JN.1 more than doubled in the US between late November and mid-December.