Explainer-Do I need to worry about COVID again?

investing.com:

By Deena Beasley and Julie Steenhuysen

(Reuters) — New data from scientists and vaccine makers Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) and Pfizer/BioNTech suggests that a newer, highly mutated variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 is not as alarming as some experts had feared when it was first detected several weeks ago.

Nicknamed «Pirola» on social media, the BA.2.86 Omicron subvariant is being tracked by both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

What is new about COVID?

COVID infections and hospitalizations have been rising in the U.S., Europe and Asia, but are well below previous peaks. The weekly U.S. hospitalization growth rate slowed for three consecutive weeks in August, according to CDC data for the week ended Aug. 26.

As of Aug. 30, CDC said the BA.2.86 variant was detected in at least four U.S. states in people or wastewater. Delaware on Tuesday said it had detected a BA.2.86 infection at a hospital. The WHO has reported finding BA.2.86 in at least six countries.

According to CDC data, the EG.5 subvariant, a descendant of the Omicron lineage nicknamed «Eris» on social media that originally emerged in November 2021, accounts for about a fifth of current U.S. COVID cases.

A variant nicknamed «Fornax,» officially FL.1.5.1, is the next largest at 14.5% of U.S. infections, and represents a growing share of East Coast COVID cases. A wide range of other variants account for smaller shares of the total, with BA.2.86 currently representing less than 1%.

Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, believes FL.1.5.1 will become the predominant COVID variant in the coming months, but he does not expect an