A New, Dominant COVID Variant Is Circulating: Here’s What We Know

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/a-new-dominant-covid-variant-is-circulating-here-s-what-we-know/ar-AA1j6PpM

A new variant of COVID-19 has become the dominating strain circulating in the United States.

Replacing EG.5, also known as Eris, and FL.1.5.1, referred to as Fornax, the HV.1 variant currently accounts for more than a quarter of reported COVID cases in the U.S. It is followed by Eris and Fornax, which contribute to 21.9% and 12% of all cases, respectively.

HV.1 first showed up on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID variant tracker in late July, right as cases began to surge. Although the summer surge of COVID hospitalizations has been on the decline for several weeks, HV.1’s presence has continued to grow quietly, yet steadily.

How contagious is the HV.1 variant?
Some experts have suggested that HV.1 might spread more easily than some of its predecessors and that it appears as though it may have the potential to bypass prior immunity — hence its increased presence across the U.S.

"I would expect that it might be a slight increase in transmissibility or immune escape, which is why it appears to be dominating,” Dan Barouch, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, told NBC.

Will HV.1 cause more serious infections?
So far, experts have not signaled that this latest variant has any unique qualities with regard to its symptoms or severity. It has not yet been linked with an uptick in severe COVID infections.
Like the variants that have been dominating in recent months, HV.1 is yet another descendant of Omicron. Given its similar characteristics to XBB variants, which also stem from Omicron, experts have not expressed heightened concern for its potential to cause serious infections, at least not yet.

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Boris Johnson favoured ‘older people accepting their fate’, Covid inquiry hears
Former PM had said his party felt virus was ‘nature’s way of dealing with old people’, and was not convinced NHS was overwhelmed

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/31/boris-johnson-favoured-older-people-accepting-their-fate-covid-inquiry-hears

Boris Johnson told senior advisers that the Covid virus was “just nature’s way of dealing with old people” and he was “no longer buying” the fact the NHS was overwhelmed during the pandemic, the pandemic inquiry has heard.

In a WhatsApp message sent to his top aides in October 2020, the former prime minister said he had been “slightly rocked” by Covid infection rates and suggested he was, as a result, unconvinced that hospitals were on the brink despite public warnings from NHS chiefs and frontline staff.

The former chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, in his diaries described a “bonkers set of exchanges” in a meeting from that August. He noted that Johnson appeared “obsessed with older people accepting their fate” and letting younger people get on with their lives during the pandemic.

Another note from Vallance, after a meeting in December 2020, hinted at the power wielded by the right of the Conservative party during the pandemic: “PM told he has been acting early and the public are with him (but his party is not).

“He says his party ‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much.’”

Vallance’s diary also recounts how then chief whip Mark Spencer told a cabinet meeting in December 2020 that “we should let the old people get it and protect others”. He said that Johnson then added: “A lot of my backbenchers think that and I must say I agree with them”.

Johnson, despite Covid infection numbers going up at that time, told the meeting that he wanted to move to tier 3 restrictions instead.

The documents emerged during a bruising session of the Covid inquiry for the former prime minister, with the former senior aides Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings questioning in evidence his suitability for the role during the pandemic.

more at link...

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