A new variant of the coronavirus is spreading worldwide, raising the possibility of a pandemic this summer.
On May 19th (GMT), the Financial Times (FT) reported that a subvariant of the Omicron variant, known as FLiRT, is spreading and possibly a threat to herd immunity.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the FLiRT variant of the coronavirus has been confirmed in Israel and 14 other European countries.
According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the KP.2 variant became the dominant strain and accounted for 28.2% of new cases from the end of April to May 11 after emerging in the U.S. in March.
The CDC is monitoring the spread of not only the KP lineage variant but also JN.1, which mutated from Omicron. However, it is not expected to cause severe illness.
Experts are on guard for the possibility of a pandemic this summer, even though they predict there will be no surge in hospitalizations due to the COVID variant.
Lawrence Young, a virus expert at the University of Warwick in the UK, was optimistic that additional vaccinations would at least prevent severe illness. However, he questioned the effectiveness of existing vaccines in preventing the new variant of the coronavirus.
On the other hand, William Schaffner, a preventive medicine expert at Vanderbilt University in the U.S., refuted this, stating that existing vaccines may not prevent the variant virus based on laboratory test results. He emphasized, “We need to continue to monitor the situation.”
He said, “There is a difference between antibodies that occur from infection or vaccination, so it is not certain whether they can prevent subvariants.”
Recently, variant coronavirus infections have also been confirmed in Asia.
On May 18th, Channel News Asia (CNA) reported that Singapore’s health authorities are assessing the situation in hospitals as the number of coronavirus infections has doubled in a week.
The broadcast reported that more than two-thirds of new coronavirus cases in Singapore were infected with the KP.1 and KP.2 variants.
In China, 25 cases of the KP.2 variant have been confirmed nationwide since the first infection was detected in Guangdong Province in March.
The Chinese CDC stated on WeChat that the likelihood of a new pandemic is low as KP.2 is becoming the dominant strain of the coronavirus, while the number of confirmed cases of JN.1 is decreasing.
