New COVID-19 variant BA.2.86 isn't in Florida yet, but you should get vaccinated anyway

Brandon Girod, Pensacola News Journal
·3 min read
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COVID-19 cases in Florida continue to remain up as a summer wave sweeps across the country. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has discovered a new COVID-19 variant, BA.2.86, which it says is capable of transmitting widely and may have been spreading undetected.

The highly mutated strain was first identified in the U.S. through U.S. National Genomic Surveillance in Michigan and Ohio and has since been identified in at least two other states including New York and Virginia.

The CDC is still working to better understand the new strain but says the current surge in cases and hospitalizations in the U.S. are likely being driven by infections with XBB lineage viruses, not the new BA.2.86 variant.

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Here’s what to know about the new COVID-19 strain.

Is the new COVID-19 variant BA.2.86 in Florida?

There have been 24 reports of people infected by the new COVID-19 variant BA.2.86 globally, according to the CDC’s Aug. 30 update. As of now, Florida has no reported cases of the new strain. Here’s a breakdown of where those cases have been found:

  • Denmark (10)

  • Sweden (4)

  • South Africa (2)

  • Portugal (2)

  • Canada (1)

  • Israel (1)

  • United Kingdom (1)

  • United States (3)

Note about U.S. cases: There have been three human cases identified. One case was found in Virginia through the CDC’s Traveler-based Genomic Surveillance and two others were identified in Michigan and Ohio through the CDC’s U.S. National Genomic Surveillance. The presence of the BA.2.86 variant was discovered in New York City from wastewater samples collected through the National Wastewater Surveillance System, but there have been no reported human cases.

How transmittable is COVID-19 variant BA.2.86?

The CDC is still working to figure out how BA.2.86 transmission compares to other variants. The new strain is believed to be relatively transmissible based on its detection across multiple continents, something not typically found in many other highly diverged lineages, but there’s not enough data to provide a concrete answer at the moment.

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Are current COVID-19 vaccines, medications effective against the BA.2.86 strain?

Scientists aren’t sure how effectively previous vaccines or past infections protect against COVID-19 variant BA.2.86. Other parts of the immune system that work with antibodies to protect people from severe outcomes of COVID-19 have been less affected by other strains, so scientists don’t predict they will be less active against BA.2.86.

Updated COVID-19 vaccines, which will be available in mid-September, are believed to be effective at reducing severe disease and hospitalization.

The CDC says that existing medications appear to be effective at treating the new variant.

Can COVID-19 tests detect the new COVID-19 variant BA.2.86?

Yes, the CDC says existing tests can detect BA.2.86.

Is COVID-19 variant BA.2.86 more severe than other strains?

It’s too early to tell whether or not BA.2.86 is more severe than other COVID-19 strains. Locations where the new strain has been detected have not seen increases in transmission indicators, but more data is needed to make a confident determination.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Is COVID-19 variant BA.2.86 in Florida? Not yet, here's what to know