BQ.1, an emerging COVID-19 variant along with one of its descendants, is now accounting for more than 1 in ten cases in the US. The news was revealed in the latest data by CDC. Moreover, the variant accounted for less than 1% of cases just a month ago.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to Joe Biden said,
When you get variants like that, you look at what their rate of increase is as a relative proportion of the variants, and this has a pretty troublesome doubling time,
In addition, this variant has other concerning features also, which are that it could escape treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.
The current variant widespread in the US is the Omicron subvariant BA.5, accounting for 68% of the overall infections. Furthermore, the ongoing treatment for BA.5 infections is monoclonal antibodies. However, according to the experts, the monoclonal antibodies treatment may not be equally effective in combating the upcoming variant strains BQ.1 and it’s descendant BQ.1.1.
Fauci further told the news,
That’s the reason why people are concerned about BQ.1.1, for the double reason of its doubling time and the fact that it seems to elude important monoclonal antibodies,
The current scenario is that BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 are widespread in NY and NJ. Furthermore, they account for 20% of the infections based on the CDC’s findings. However, since both these variants are descendants of Omicron, the boosters currently available are the best first-line defence against the upcoming threat.
Fauci further said,
The bad news is that there’s a new variant that’s emerging and that has qualities or characteristics that could evade some of the interventions we have. But, the somewhat encouraging news is that it’s a BA.5 sub-lineage, so there are almost certainly going to be some cross-protection that you can boost up,
