While another variant is progressing in China, should we fear what is about to become the majority across the Atlantic?
We no longer know who to turn to with all these variants and subvariants of Covid. But two of them, from Omicron, are progressing very rapidly: the BF.7 in China and the XBB.1.5 in the United States.
While measures to test travelers from China have been introduced, should the variant developing in the United States also concern France?
What is this new variant?
This is another Omicron sub-variant. It must be said that the Omicron variant since its peak, a few months ago, has undergone many mutations, thus giving rise to the different lineages such as BA.1, BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5 which have caused waves of infections in France.
These have recombined with each other, giving among other things the BQ.1.1 majority in France currently but also this new XBB.1.5 that is spreading in the United States.
He would have been dubbed Kraken by some scientists, this fantastic creature from medieval Scandinavian legends with many tentacles.
On the other hand, overseas, as reported by Le Parisien, this new sub-variant is under construction displace variants that were dominant (and common to those present in France) and will become the majority.
The XBB.1.5 is a relative of the omicron variant XBB, which is a recombinant of Omicron subvariants BA.2.10.1 and BA.2.75, according to a US health official.
A risk of becoming the majority in France?
So inevitably, as it is in the process of supplanting across the Atlantic the subvariants found in France, there is a risk that it will spread to France and become the majority, as it does in the United States, as reported by American health authorities.
Surroundings 40% of confirmed cases of Covid in the United States are caused by the XBB.1.5 strain, against 20% a week ago, specifies NbcNews. And in the Northeast, about 75% of confirmed cases are said to be from this new strain.
Especially since it would already be present in France by then some cases have already been identified.
But its diffusion in France will still depend on thecross immunity. So there is a risk that it will become the majority, but this cannot yet be said.
Easier transmission?
According to early studies on this new strain, it would appear that XBB.1.5, like XBB, is more likely to bypass acquired immunity.
And according to the Chinese scientist Yunlong Cao, it would happen more easily attach to cells. Which could therefore make it more transmissible than its predecessors.
However, the S486P mutation greatly enhanced hACE2 binding, as 486S completely disrupted the local hydrophobic interaction while 486P maintained it. 3/ pic.twitter.com/wp9AGQFzou
— Yunlong Richard Cao (@yunlong_cao) December 28, 2022
“It is clear that XBB has immune evasion properties,” said Dr. Isaach Bogoch, an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist at the University of Toronto.
Laboratory studies have proven this XBB is able to evade antibodies from pre-Covid infections or vaccinationsmeaning that being exposed to the virus would mean a person is more likely to get sick or reinfected and show symptoms.
A danger?
Although this strain looks like sit spread very quickly in the United Statesis, nothing indicates that she will cause more serious forms compared to other variants, Dr. Barbara Mahon, director of the CDC’s division of coronaviruses and other respiratory viruses, told NBCNews.
In any case, scientists invite people to get vaccinated with the latest recombinant vaccine.
The symptoms appear to be the same than for the other variants. Fatigue, fever and sore throat… “There is no suggestion at this stage that XBB.1.5 is more serious,” said Dr Mahon.
