United States: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), no signs have been noted yet for the newcomer LB.1 variant has been causing a severe disease in COVID-19 patients.
The COVID-19 infection has started to pace up around the country since the onset of summer this year.
About the new variant
The new LB.1 variant has presently made up at least 17.5 percent of the new COVID cases, as the projection showcased by the CDC on Friday. It could soon overtake its cousin variant KP.3 if it continues to keep growing in the coming few weeks.
According to the CDC spokesperson David Daigle, “There is currently no evidence that KP.3 or LB.1 cause more severe disease. CDC will continue to track SARS-CoV-2 variants and is working to better understand the potential impact on public health,” as CBS News reported.
To ascertain the reasons behind probable shifts in the symptoms or severity of disease caused by new variant hard, which attack the immunity of impacted person on varying degrees.
The immune response is a mix of the previous infections caused, several vaccinations done, and also the virus itself.
The officials are on alert
The CDC alerted that previously, it closely monitored the total count of infections caused by the latest variants by largely taking the data and studies from hospitals and comparing trends from different places where new variants popped up.
Only a small percentage of such facilities are submitting data on hospitalization and ICU admissions to the CDC, though a mandate to do so expired early this year, as CNS News reported.
An attempt by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, to include the data reporting into the list of common regulations is not expected to start until October.
Rising cases of LB.1 in these states
California is one of the states that experienced a rising trend this summer, noting that wastewater levels were “high,” as the CDC’s COVID-19 data showed hospitalizations were near levels that had not been witnessed since February.
However, KP.3 variant instead of LB.1 has been constituting the largest share of cases during the early surge period this season, as noted by the CDC and the California’s heath department.
How different is LB.1?
As compared to highly mutated SARS-CoV-2 variants which popped up during the earlier phase of the pandemic, according to the experts LB.1 has been mutated on a relatively much smaller scale as compared to its parent variant JN.1, the dominant variant during winter.