descendants. Worse, they potentially undermine a critical message: Covid vaccines still provide good protection against all of these variants.
Much of the recent hubbub arose because the Centers for Disease Control updated its estimates of circulating variants, noting that two — BQ.1 and BQ.1.1., both descendants of the by-now familiar BA.5 — combined now account for about 11% of infections in the US.
That’s up from less than 1% a month ago. Meanwhile, a variant called XBB has been making inroads in Asia. The reason for the panicked headlines is that these new omicron family members are capable of “immune escape" — a phrase that sounds very scary when taken out of context.
It makes it sound as if the virus has evolved past our currently available tools. In reality, the virus has mutated in a way that allows it to get around some of the front lines of our immune defense system, our neutralizing antibodies.