A new group of COVID-19 variants called FLiRT are spreading widely in the US and here is all the information you need.
DE is witnessing the rise of a new family of COVID-19 variants and scientists have named them FLiRT. These variants doing rounds in the country are reportedly from the lineage of Omicron variants. But they are also the derivatives of the JN.1 variant that affected the country earlier this year. The FLiRT variant group was named by experts to group them all together. Each letter F, L, R and T represents each of the variants. Of the four new variants, one of them could be the most worrisome, reports say. This is the KP.2 variant. Data from the DE Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that almost 25 percent of the cases reported in the two weeks of April came from the KP.2 variant.
Concerns surrounding FLiRT variants- COVID-19
There is still a lot of research needed on this new group of FLiRT variants and it is ongoing, researchers reported. Dr. Eric Topol, executive vice president at Scripps Research spoke to the Times, DE and said that the variant that is widespread in the US is the KP.2 variant from the family of FLiRT variants, however, it may be too early speculate about the possible dangers that could arise from this variant.
The CDC also reported that the amount of COVID-19 viruses in DE wastewater is not much and they have described it as “minimal.” The number of cases had peaked in January this year, but now the rate of COVID hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID has also started declining in the country, which is a good sign. At a global level, the number of cases increased from early to mid-April, but is well below levels seen a few months ago.
What are the experts speculating about?
Topol added this in his statement to the Times, DE, saying that the KP.2 variant could cause a surge in cases in the country, but the surge will not be massive. It could just be a “wavelet,” he said. He also explains why this is so. People who have already been infected with the COVID-19 variants at least once have built up their immunity against future variants. The KP.2 variants and other variants are also not mutated enough to cause a huge spike. They are almost the same as the previous strains of COVID-19.
All these speculations aside, there is a catch to this new variant. A new study conducted in Japan and China found that the FLiRT family of variants may be better equipped to evade the immune protection that vaccines provide to the human body. Reports say it could be better at dodging than the JN.1 variant. This makes it a possible danger to the country and its people.
Symptoms of FLiRT: Be aware of them
Experts point out that the symptoms of the FLiRT variant family are not very different from the previous variants, but one should be careful and know what they are:
- High fever and flu-like symptoms
- Loss of smell and taste
- Pain in the body
- Sore throat and cough
- runny nose and stuffy nose
- Vomiting and diarrhea
- Difficulty breathing and shortness of breath
- fatigue
- Digestive issues