CDC Confirms New COVID Variant on the Rise

KP.3.1.1 is ’very similar to other circulating variants in the United States,' an agency spokesperson said.

COVID-19 virus is seen in yellow, emerging from cells. NIAID

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the KP.3.1.1 COVID-19 variant is now the most common strain in the United States, but a spokesperson added that there is no evidence that it causes more severe symptoms.

The most recently updated CDC statistics show that the variant, an offshoot of the KP.3 strain, makes up about 27.8 percent of estimated cases for the two-week period ending Aug. 3. Next is the KP.3 variant, which makes up about 20 percent of all U.S. cases, followed by the LB.1 and KP.2.3 strains.

A spokesperson for the CDC told The Epoch Times on Wednesday that the KP.3.1.1 “is very similar to other circulating variants in the United States, and all current lineages are descendants of JN.1, which emerged in late 2023.”

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“At this time, we anticipate that COVID-19 treatments and vaccines will continue to work against all circulating variants,” the spokesperson said, adding that the agency will monitor the severity of variants and whether vaccines are effective.

But the CDC official said that there is no information “currently indicating that this variant causes more severe COVID-19,” and it is expected to cause similar symptoms as other variants.

Andy Pekosz, a molecular microbiology professor at Johns Hopkins University, said the KP.3 variant doesn’t appear to cause more severe symptoms. Antibodies provided through prior infection or vaccines have led to better outcomes in recent months, he said in an interview posted on the university’s website in May.

“You are contagious one to two days before you experience symptoms and a few days after symptoms subside. And as with previous variants, some people may have detectable live virus for up to a week after their symptoms begin, and some may experience rebound symptoms,” he said at the time.

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Wastewater data collected by the CDC show that COVID-19 levels are currently “very high” in about two-dozen states and “high” in about a dozen more. The agency said that for the most recent weekly reporting period ending Aug. 5, positive cases are up by 16.3 percent, emergency department visits have increased by 2.2. percent, and hospitalizations are up 3.1 percent.

But historical trends provided by the CDC show that deaths from the virus are at their lowest levels since the pandemic started in early 2020.

During a prior increase in COVID-19 in the winter of 2023–24, about 2,000 deaths were being reported on a weekly basis. And in the winter of 2020–21, upward of 25,000 COVID-related deaths were tallied each week, according to the CDC data.

The CDC reported that COVID-19 is no longer a top cause of death in the United States, with the disease being listed on 49,928 death certificates last year. That’s down from 86,552 in 2022 and a peak of 416,893 in 2021, according to agency data.

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COVID-19 fell to the 10th leading cause of death. Early in the pandemic, the virus was the nation’s third leading cause of death. It dropped to fourth in 2022.

The leading causes of death were heart disease, cancer, and a category of injuries that include gun-related deaths and drug overdoses.

There were nearly 3.1 million deaths last year in the United States, down from 3.3 million in 2022. For many years before the pandemic, deaths usually rose year-to-year, in part because the nation’s population grows. COVID-19 accelerated that trend, making 2021 the deadliest in U.S. history at 3.4 million deaths. But the number dropped in 2022 as the pandemic ebbed.

Meanwhile, an advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in June that major U.S. vaccine makers should now target any COVID-19 variants that are derived from JN.1. Those vaccines should be rolled out in the fall of 2024, officials said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.