With the spread of "the most transmissible coronavirus we know of so far," New York City filed a defense!
New York City health officials said XBB.1.5, in addition to being by far the "most transmissible," may be more likely than other variants to infect people who already have COVID or have been vaccinated.
What you should know
You may have heard of the XBB.1.5 variant; it's the latest "most transmissible variant of the new coronavirus" that seems to be better at binding to human cells, which could make it better at infection
There is not enough evidence to suggest that the strain, a combination of two previous Omicron subvariants, is more lethal or more likely to cause COVID complications, but New York City health officials say variant XBB.1.5 may be more likely than other variants to infect vaccinated people and people who already have COVID
According to the CDC, variant XBB.1.5 is most prevalent in the northeastern United States, with hospitalizations and mortality rates, as well as the number of cases, climbing accordingly
The unprecedented contagious coronavirus XBB.1.5 variant prompted New York City health officials on Friday to renew calls for public caution, widely seen as the most dangerous descendant behind the latest wave of cases in the Greek alphabet 15th word Omicron, which now accounts for nearly eighty percent of all coronaviruses circulating in New York City's five boroughs.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams called on New Yorkers to wear masks regardless of vaccination status in indoor and crowded outdoor environments!
The New York City Health Department said the new strain was the "most transmissible" coronavirus disease, and XBB.1.5 now accounts for 73 percent of all COVID-sequencing cases in New York City. Omicron and its descendants, including XBB.1.5, are the only variants of concern that are still in circulation, public health officials said.
However, the health data only reflects the ordered cases in the first quarter of the year, with a relatively small share of positive cases going through the exhaustive process required to isolate the variants (according to the city's most recent week's available data, the city's unemployment rate is only 3% and is on a downward trend). This means that the actual prevalence of the XBB.1.5 variant may be much higher than reported.
New York Street View during the pandemic
The XBB.1.5 variant accounts for about 82.7 percent of COVID strains circulating in the New York area, including New Jersey, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, and likely accounts for 88.2 percent of cases, according to data updated Friday by the CDC. That's up from 72.7 percent of the baseline estimate and 81.2 percent in last week's report.
The Omicron Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 now accounts for 73% of all sequenced COVID cases in New York. XBB.1.5 is by far the most transmissible coronavirus we know of, and is more likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or already infected with the virus.
City health officials also noted that XBB.1.5 may be more likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or who have already had the coronavirus — a fact acknowledged last week by Dr. Ashish Jha, head of the White House COVID task force.
As Dr. Jha says, if you haven't been vaccinated since July 2022, or last vaccinated before the September bivalent vaccine update, "you don't have that much protection against XBB.1.5 infection." ”
New Yorkers in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic took to the streets to fight the epidemic
This is underscored by reinfection data from the state. This reinfection rate of 11.7 per 100,000 people, the previous week in New York City was comparable to the number of reinfections seen during the decline in the Omicron wave in January 2022. These numbers are the most pronounced on Long Island, with a reinfection rate of 15.8 per 100,000, the same as in mid-January 2022.
New York State's breakthrough data is incomplete and not broken down by region, but does reflect an increase in breakthrough cases through December, which may reflect the high actual reinfection rate of XBB.1.5, as we know that variants often circulate before they are detected. Although the number of breakthrough cases fell for the first week in a month in the state's latest report, breakthrough hospitalizations increased, reflecting lagging factors.
CDC official website data, this is the CDC New York area figures.
The NYC Department of Health's data is in line with this clear trend, which differs slightly from New York State due to reporting and other factors. The rolling average of cases reached its recent peak in December, but COVID hospitalizations and deaths hit new recent highs.
According to CDC data, Manhattan now appears to be struggling the most with the pandemic. In the past week, the weekly case rate in the district has increased by 13.41%, the weekly mortality rate by 37.93% and the detection rate by 14.54%, the report said.
In contrast, the death rate in Queens decreased by 5.36% and cases rose by only 2.87%. Testing in the district rose by 8.93%. Brooklyn's weekly mortality rate (down 3.23 percent) and number of cases (down 1.17 percent) also showed a downward trend, while tests rose 7.03 percent. Bronx's weekly case rate increased (up 4.81%), but the death rate decreased (down 2.94%) – COVID testing increased by 12.19% per 100,000 people in the last seven days.
According to the CDC, Staten Island saw the largest week-on-week decline in both cases (down 13.69%) and mortality (down 11.11%). Its testing rate has also gone up.
No matter how you look at it, experts say New York City's data on these three metrics — cases, hospitalizations and deaths — pales in comparison to the height of the first wave of Omicron, a testament to the power of vaccination, bivalent reinforcement, and proven mitigation measures like wearing masks, handwashing and regular testing.
Given this trend, masks remain the recommended option in New York City, regardless of vaccination status in indoor and crowded outdoor settings – a point that city, state, and federal public health agencies agree.
Encouragingly, the World Health Organization has recently released its first risk assessment for the Omicron XBB.1.5 variant. This sublineage has not been found to carry mutations known to alter the severity of pathogenesis.
In response to the Omicron variant sublineage XBB.1.5, which has recently received concern in the United States and Europe, the World Health Organization issued the first risk assessment on the 11th. The assessment notes that since 22 October 2022, WHO has received a total of 5288 genetic sequencings of the XBB.1.5 virus reported from 38 countries, of which 82.2% were from the United States.
Assessments suggest that this sublineage may be responsible for an increase in infection rates based on the genetic characteristics of XBB.1.5 and estimates of the rate of growth in its early spread. However, overall confidence in this assessment is currently low, as the data reflecting the growth of XBB.1.5 spread comes only from the United States.
At the same time, WHO says that the assessment of the severity of XBB.1.5 is still ongoing, and no known mutations in this sublineage have been found that may alter the severity of disease.
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