Public Health Officials: XBB.1.5 is Comin' to Getcha!

 

The public health community is wringing its hands over a new variant. New variants take over periodically because they evolve better fitness and this allows them to supplant older variants. We've learned by now what trouble this can cause. 

Delta took hold in summer/fall 2021. It was more infectious and caused more serious disease, and it killed a whole bunch of people. Then about a year ago Omicron started up. It caused less serious disease but was more contagious so it also caused a big surge that killed a lot of people.

Since the Omicron wave died down, people who worry about these things have been waiting for a new variant to pop up and renew our misery.  First it was BA.4 and BA.5. Then it was BA.2.75.2. When that didn't cause the expected problems, attention shifted to BQ.1 and BQ.1.1.

The new boogeyman is another son-of-omicron dubbed XBB.1.5. This one is concerning because of how quickly it is taking over. According to a guy at Northwestern University who tracks variants, XBB.1.5 has "shot up like a rocket. This variant has displaced other variants in a way that we've never seen before. That's kind of alarming."

It is said to be the most contagious variant yet. It can evade antibodies from vaccinations and previous infections and has a mutation that allows it to bind to human cells better. Luckily it does not seem to cause more serious disease. 

In Arizona, The latest data from Lim Lab showed that on December 19 (which to be fair is not very "latest") XBB had not yet gotten much traction. The BQ brothers were still accounting for two-thirds of the cases in the state, with BA.5 mopping up another 22%.


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