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COVID-related hospitalizations have increased in the US for six straight weeks, with a 19-percent increase reported in the most recent week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The White House announced that First Lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID on Monday morning, Sept. 5, and is experiencing “mild symptoms."
Three school districts in Kentucky and Texas briefly suspended in-person classes after surges of COVID cases.
The concerns come as a newly identified COVID variant, BA.2.86, known as Pirola, has now been identified in five states: New York, Texas, Michigan, Virginia, and Ohio.
The strain was first detected in Israel around Sunday, Aug. 20, and cases have also been identified in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, and Portugal.
So far, a fever, one of the hallmark symptoms of the initial wave of infections when the pandemic started in March 2020, has not been associated with the Pirola variant, which is also the case with the Omicron strain.
In addition, no serious illnesses or deaths have been linked to the Pirola strain.
“So far, there does not seem to be increased severity with this strain of COVID, and the individual is not hospitalized," the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control said in a statement on the Canadian cases.
New York reported the presence of the variant last week after wastewater samples tested positive for the strain.
"While we have yet to find it in a specimen from a local resident, it is almost certainly circulating here," New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vassan stated on Tuesday, Aug. 29.
Vassan added: "Based on the degree of mutations – while vaccinated people continue to be protected against serious illness – this variant may be more likely to evade immunity that has developed from vaccination or prior infection than earlier variants. But there is currently no indication that it causes more severe illness."
Texas is the most recent state to report the presence of Pirola.
The Michigan case, the first in the US, was an older woman who had recently returned from Japan. She reportedly had mild symptoms.
At a World Health Organization (WHO) news briefing on Friday, Aug. 25, authorities said they consider BA.2.86 to be part of the Omicron variant family, but that could change if the strain spreads more widely even though Pirola's 30 mutations are from the BA.2 lineage, which was the dominant Omicron strain in 2022.
Currently, an Omicron subvariant known as Eris, whose official name is EG.5, is accounting for most COVID cases nationwide at about 21.5 percent, according to estimates by the CDC.
The emergence of Eris came after the Arcturus subvariant, officially known as XBB.1.5, was first identified in India in January of this year and began to spread in the US late in the winter.
Both Eris and Arcturus are Omicron offshoots.
Updated COVID vaccines targeting the XBB strain are expected to be available by the end of September.
Check back to Daily Voice for updates.
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