It has been a year since the end of the three-year COVID period. Everyone also thinks that the new crown epidemic is gone, but they don't know that a new strain of the new crown is being invincible abroad, and "China News Network" also reported that this virus has entered China.
On December 19, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a preliminary risk assessment and singled out the JN.1 strain as a "Variant of Interest" (VOI) because of its "significant transmissibility advantage". The virus has been detected in 41 countries around the world since it was first detected in Luxembourg on August 25 this year, and is evolving into the world's most dominant circulating strain.
In terms of time, it has only been more than three months from its discovery to becoming a mainstream virus. In terms of transmission speed, the JN.1 strain currently ranks first among the variants circulating in the Americas, Europe and the Western Pacific, and will soon become a new generation of "new crown kings".
Scientific studies have found that the JN.1 strain is a second-generation subclade of the Omicron BA.2.86 variant of the new coronavirus, but JN.1 also has an additional L455S mutation in the spike protein, which means it may have a stronger transmissibility advantage. Therefore, T. Ryan Gregory, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Guelph in the United States, said that JN.1 is more competitive than the current global major epidemic variant XBB, and it is likely to become the "leader" of the spread of the next new crown series of viruses.
So in addition to the stronger transmissibility of JN.1, is there anything terrible about this new strain? Judging from the performance of people who have been infected with this virus in European and American countries, the virus is easy to cause high fever, and some Chinese Canadians say that they feel almost "burned" when sharing their infection symptoms; the damage to the larynx is also relatively serious, and children's immunity to it is low, and many children have difficulty swallowing, and their voices are hoarse, as if they are "mute" by the virus In general, many kindergartens have more infected people, and most children are on sick leave at home, resulting in some kindergartens being "empty".
The WHO also said that the proportion of JN.1 in the global circulating strain is increasing rapidly, in the week of October 30 to November 5, it accounted for only 3.3% of the new crown series of viruses, but in the week of November 27 to December 3, its proportion has been as high as 27.1%, a sharp increase of more than 8 times, and has become the most mainstream new crown virus in many countries.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said that the JN.1 variant only appeared in the United States in September, but the infection cases now account for 20% of the country's new cases, and the strain has dominated in the northeastern United States, and it is likely to become the dominant variant in the United States in the near future.
During the same period, the share of new JN.1 cases soared from 1.4% to 72.7% in Singapore and 45.5% in France, while the proportion of JN.1 variants also increased rapidly in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Italy in Europe, as well as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam in Southeast Asia and India in South Asia, forcing some countries to reactivate some of the measures used during the pandemic.
In Singapore, for example, there were 56,043 new confirmed cases of the new crown in the week from December 3 to 9, an increase of nearly 75% from the previous week, and 60% of these cases were JN.1 infections, so the Singapore health department "strongly recommends" people to wear masks indoors, in crowded places or when interacting with high-risk groups. Indonesia, on the other hand, has re-activated instruments such as infrared thermal imaging thermometers at airports and ports.
At present, this new coronavirus variant has also come to the mainland, as of December 10, 7 cases of the JN.1 variant have been monitored in the mainland's local cases, but the proportion of detected cases in the actual existing cases is very small, and people. At present, there are no precautions taken against the new coronavirus, so the spread of this strain in the country is almost unstoppable.
In fact, there is no need to worry too much, although the JN.1 variant is more transmissible, it is not more difficult to deal with than other new coronaviruses, although its immune evasion ability is enhanced, but the new crown vaccine against the XBB variant is still effective against it.
The WHO also said that the additional risk to global public health posed by the JN.1 variant is currently low, but its epidemic in the northern hemisphere is in winter, which may increase the burden on national public health systems to deal with respiratory infections.
Source: "China News Network" reported on December 21 "What is the origin of the JN.1 variant introduced into China?"