Should we be freaking out about the new COVID variants?
The Eris COVID variant has been spreading at an increasing rate and scientists are noticing a pattern during the warmer months. Here’s what we know about the variants spreading in the US this summer.
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00:00 Every summer, it seems like we think we're going to catch a break from COVID, and it never happens.
00:04 And scientists are starting to wonder if maybe the summer COVID wave is going to be a thing
00:10 into the future in 2024. Hi, I'm Hilary Brick. I'm a health correspondent at Insider.
00:15 Right now, there's two variants that we're going to talk about. One is Aries, which is the most
00:20 common, and the other one is BA.2.86. The Aries variant is named after the Greek goddess of chaos,
00:28 which is appropriate. And Aries was first discovered in China in February. That doesn't
00:34 mean that the virus originated in China, but rather they were the first ones to pick it up.
00:39 In May, it was responsible for less than 1% of infections. In June, it was 5%, July 15,
00:47 and August, almost a quarter of infections, 24%. So basically, it's taking over. It's more
00:55 infectious, and that's why a lot of people are getting COVID right now. So the symptoms of the
01:00 Aries variant are nothing we haven't seen before. It's the sore throat, the runny nose, the
01:05 congestion. If you're feeling sick, it's a good idea to get tested and take it easy. Incubation
01:11 period is always a tricky question because it can vary a little bit from person to person. But what
01:16 scientists have been noticing over time is that new COVID variants have a shorter incubation
01:22 period. So whereas it maybe in the past used to take five or even seven days to test positive,
01:28 people are now testing positive sometimes in just two days. So it is getting shorter.
01:33 Hospitalization rates have been going up. It's nothing like it was in 2020 or even 2021,
01:42 but hospitalization rates and death rates have been going up just a little bit. Right now,
01:46 the World Health Organization is calling Aries a variant of interest. Basically, what that means
01:52 is that the WHO has noticed these variants are taking over. It's causing more infections,
01:58 and more people are getting sick. Another variant that people and scientists in particular are
02:03 starting to talk about is VA.2.86. And this variant seems to have a large number of mutations on the
02:10 spike protein. Scientists think that it probably incubated somewhere in a person who was immunocompromised,
02:17 so it had a long time to mutate and get a lot of weird mutations on it that we haven't seen before.
02:23 So they're concerned about that because while we don't know yet what it means, it could mean
02:29 it's more contagious or it's more able to evade our defenses that we've already built up the immunity
02:36 we already have. It's hard to say how fast this variant is spreading. It's been sequenced in
02:42 several different countries, which suggests that it is quite widespread, but there's only been
02:47 two sequences completed in the U.S., and it's still pretty early days for figuring out what
02:54 this virus is capable of. For now, the World Health Organization is calling VA.2.86 a variant
03:01 under monitoring, which is even a lower tier than a variant of interest like ARIS. So they're
03:07 watching it, but they're not sure exactly if it's going to do anything notable yet.
03:11 As far as we know, COVID tests still work. That being said, we still have a lot to learn about
03:15 this new variant VA.2.86, and there's always room for discrepancies from person to person.
03:23 Some people don't test positive, and if you test too early or too late, that can change the outcome
03:28 of your test. They still work, but they might not work every day, every time for every person.
03:33 Both Pfizer and Moderna are working on updated boosters for the fall, and those should be ready
03:39 by mid-September. So there's a good chance that those vaccines will work better against what's
03:47 circulating now, similar to the way that the flu vaccine is remodeled every year to coincide with
03:53 the flu strains that are circulating. So it looks like it's going to be another fall of the
03:59 double-jab COVID flu vaccine. But it's also important to remember that, unlike three years
04:06 ago, 97% of us now have some immunity to COVID. We're in a better position to fight against the
04:13 virus than we used to be. I don't think the emergence of these new COVID variants is going
04:18 to impact travel too much. Just the other day, we had China lifting its testing requirement for
04:24 entering that country, and most other countries have lifted their testing requirements as well.
04:29 So travel is going to continue as long as COVID doesn't do anything crazy. These days, the answer
04:39 to whether or not you should wear a mask really depends. It depends on you. It depends on the
04:44 situation. It depends on what the virus is doing. If you have a big event coming up and you know
04:49 you're going to be in a crowded space with bad ventilation, a concert, a train, whatever it
04:55 might be, maybe you decide to wear a mask because you know you don't want to get sick, you know,
04:59 even without COVID with the flu or with another virus. There's definitely a possibility for more
05:05 infections in the fall as people go back to school and everybody comes indoors. But scientists are
05:10 starting to wonder if COVID waves will be a repeat phenomenon every summer the way that
05:18 flu waves are a repeat phenomenon every winter.