{"id":5923,"date":"2024-05-10T14:38:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T14:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=5923"},"modified":"2024-05-10T15:24:50","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T15:24:50","slug":"what-to-know-about-new-covid-variants-flirt-symptoms-vaccines-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=5923","title":{"rendered":"What to Know About New Covid Variants, \u2018FLiRT\u2019: Symptoms, Vaccines and More"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Experts are closely watching KP.2, now the leading variant.<\/p>\n

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For most of this year, the JN.1 variant of the coronavirus accounted for an overwhelming majority of Covid cases<\/a>. But now, an offshoot variant called KP.2 is taking off. The variant, which made up just one percent of cases in the United States in mid-March, now makes up over a quarter.<\/p>\n

KP.2 belongs to a subset of Covid variants that scientists have cheekily nicknamed \u201cFLiRT,\u201d drawn from the letters in the names of their mutations. They are descendants of JN.1, and KP.2 is \u201cvery, very close\u201d to JN.1, said Dr. David Ho, a virologist at Columbia University. But Dr. Ho has conducted early lab tests in cells that suggest that slight differences in KP.2\u2019s spike protein might make it better at evading our immune defenses and slightly more infectious than JN.1.<\/p>\n

While cases currently don\u2019t appear to be on the rise, researchers and physicians are closely watching whether the variant will drive a summer surge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s expecting things to change abruptly, necessarily,\u201d said Dr. Marc Sala, co-director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Covid-19 Center in Chicago. But KP.2 will most likely \u201cbe our new norm,\u2019\u201d he said. Here\u2019s what to know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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