(First published date: December 10, 2023, Updated date: January 31, 2024)
Note: Information in this article is accurate at the time of original publication. Information about COVID-19 changes rapidly, so stay informed by visiting the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and your state and local government. is recommended.
As cold winter weather keeps people indoors and influenza, colds, and other seasonal respiratory viruses spread, SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is spreading. continues to mutate and spread. More recently, a strain called JN.1 has rapidly become the most widely circulating variant in the United States, accounting for an estimated 83% to 88% of all circulating variants at the end of January.
Although it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict the evolution of coronaviruses and their descendants, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicts that the number of JN.1 cases will continue to increase through the winter. . The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared it a “variant of interest.” According to the CDC, there is no evidence that JN.1 causes more severe disease, but its rapid spread may indicate that JN.1 is more transmissible than other circulating variants or evades the immune system. This suggests that they have an excellent ability to
Meanwhile, COVID-19 activity is increasing overall, said Heidi Zapata, M.D., an infectious disease specialist at Yale Medicine. (This includes infections caused by variants such as HV.1, which accounted for 5.3% of cases in late January.) “The most important thing people need to know is that this virus Similar to syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza, new subvariants indicate that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is still evolving. It’s there and you can’t ignore it,” she says.
Here, Yale Medicine answers three questions about JN.1.
