Thursday, January 05, 2023

FROM THE USA

New 'ultra-transmissible' Covid 'Kraken' variant sparks warning from WHO

Kieran Doody
Thu, 5 January 2023 

 (Image: PA)

Health experts have issued a warning over a new “ultra-transmissible” Covid strain spreading across the UK.

The new Covid XBB.1.5 variant dubbed “The Kraken” currently surging across the US has already been spotted in parts of the UK.

The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) technical lead for Covid Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove expressed her concern about the growth of the new variant.

Speaking at a press conference, she said: "We are concerned about its growth advantage in particular in some countries in Europe and in the US... particularly the Northeast part of the United States, where XBB.1.5 has rapidly replaced other circulating variants.

"Our concern is how transmissible it is… and the more this virus circulates, the more opportunities it will have to change.”


Covid XBB.1.5 should be 'wake-up call' to UK

Professor Lawrence Young from Warwick University told the Mail Online that the new variant should be a “wake-up call” to the UK.

He said: “The XBB.1.5 variant is highly infectious and is driving increased hospital admissions in New York, particularly among the elderly. Waning immunity, more indoor mixing because of the cold weather and lack of other mitigations, such as wearing facemasks, are also contributing to this surge of infection in the US.

“This is a wake-up call - a sharp reminder that we can't be complacent about Covid. The threat of XBB.1.5 and other Covid variants further exacerbates the current NHS crisis and stresses the need for us to remain vigilant.”

He added: “We need to continue to monitor levels of infection with different variants in the UK, encourage those who are eligible to get their boosters shots - why not extend this to the under 50s - and promote the value of other mitigation measures.”

XBB.1.5: ‘Most Transmissible’ Strain Could Drive New COVID-19 Surge In US

By  

There are concerns that a new COVID-19 surge in the United States could unfold in the wake of the new omicron subvariant’s emergence. 

XBB.1.5 is the new member of the omicron sublineage that sparked concerns among health experts this week after data showed how quickly it spread.

Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, noted on Twitter Wednesday that there’s been a “stunning increase” in the cases caused by XBB.1.5 in the country over December. 

“Over the holidays, you may have heard about omicron XBB.1.5. It went from 4% of sequences to 40% in just a few weeks. That’s a stunning increase,” he tweeted. 

Epidemiologist and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) technical lead on COVID-19 Maria Van Kerkhove echoed the same sentiments, saying they are “concerned about its growth advantage.”

Van Kerkove pointed out via CNN that the new strain, first detected in the U.S., is the “most transmissible form of omicron to date.” It has already spread to at least 29 countries thus far. 

Despite the threat of XBB.1.5 starting new waves of infections in different parts of the world, Van Kerkhove was optimistic that there wouldn’t be serious effects when proper countermeasures remained in place. 

“We do expect further waves of infection around the world, but that doesn’t have to translate into further waves of death because our countermeasures continue to work,” she explained. 

Jha said in a separate tweet that XBB.1.5 “binds more tightly to the human ACE receptor,” so it could be more contagious than the other omicron subvariants. 

He added that the best protection tool against XBB.1.5 is the new bivalent COVID-19 vaccine. The bivalent shots from Moderna and Pfizer can help protect against infection and serious illness caused by the new strain, according to the expert. 

“We can work together to manage the virus. And if we all do our part, we can reduce the impact it will have on our lives,” he concluded his Twitter thread. 

Meanwhile, Van Kerkhove said the WHO is working on a risk assessment for the new strain by looking at real-world data on hospitalizations and their severity. The report will be released in the next few days.


New COVID-19 Variant Mutation Has

'Alarming' Immunity Evasion; Could 

Cause US Surge

By 

A new offshoot strain, XBB.1.5, of the COVID-19 Omicron variant has been found to have "alarming" immunity evasion, which could cause another surge of cases in the United States, according to experts.

Dr. David Ho, professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, said the XBB.1 offshoot variant is 63 times less likely to be neutralized by the antibodies in people who have either been infected by COVID-19 or have been vaccinated against the virus when compared to the BA.2 variant. The same is the case with the XBB.1.5 strain.

"It is alarming that these newly emerged subvariants could further compromise the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines and result in a surge of breakthrough infections as well as re-infections," Dr. Ho wrote in his findings, which were recently published in the journal Cell.

In addition to its high immune evasion, the XBB.1.5. also has a key mutation at site 486, allowing it to bind better to ACE2, which is the door the virus uses to enter human cells. This mutation means the offshoot variant is more infectious.

"The mutation is clearly letting XBB.1.5 spread better," Jesse Bloom, a computational virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, wrote in an email to CNN.

Experts are now warning that the strain's features could give it the ability to cause another surge of COVID-19 cases in the U.S.

As of Friday last week, the U.S. Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that the XBB.1.5 variant accounted for 41% of new COVID-19 infections throughout December.

In northeastern states, the CDC said the offshoot variant is causing about 75.3% of all new cases. Those states include Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

In New York and New Jersey, the XBB.1.5 strain caused 72.2% of cases during the last week of December.

As of Tuesday, the U.S. reported a total of 100,845,043 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in 2020. Among those, 1,093,971 have died of the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

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