Why experts are concerned about the JN.1 variant responsible for latest COVID wave

Geoff Bennett:

The U.S. and other parts of the world are in the midst of another COVID-19 wave. Infections and hospitalizations are on the rise this winter. And a new variant is responsible for a majority of those cases.

John Yang has the latest and a look at whether we need to change our approach to the virus.

John Yang:

Geoff, the World Health Organization said yesterday that, in December, nearly 10,000 COVID deaths were reported in Europe and the Americas. In the United States, hospital admissions are on the rise, up 56 percent last week from the month before. But they're still far lower than they were in previous years.

In Europe and the Americas, ICU admissions are up 62 percent from the month before. The director general of the WHO said public health officials need to be vigilant.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General:

Although COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, the virus is still circulating, changing and killing. Data from various sources indicate increasing transmission during December fueled by gatherings over the holiday period and by the JN.1 variant, which is now the most commonly reported variant globally.

John Yang:

So, what do these current trends mean?

Dr. Eric Topol is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. He's been warning about the risk of this new variant.

Dr. Topol, how concerned are you about this current uptick?

Dr. Eric Topol, Scripps Research Translational Institute:

Well, good to be with you, John.

I think the main thing here is that we're seeing a massive number of infections, second most throughout the entire pandemic after Omicron. And so while the hospitalizations are not as bad, and you mentioned already the death toll, that's reassuring because of some of the immunity we have built up.

But this virus has evolved, and it's markedly different than previous versions we have seen, and that's a challenge for the spread and for the infections and the potential of long COVID in many of those people as well.

John Yang:

Talk about that evolution.

This new variant, JN.1, is it more dangerous? Is it more infectious? What — tell us about it.

Dr. Eric Topol:

Right.

So, in the course of the pandemic now, the beginning of our fifth year here, there's only been two times when a variant came along with more than 30 new mutations in the spike protein. Usually, a variant has a couple, a few, but this is — we call it an Omicron event, because that was the first time we saw one.

And then, of course, back in the fall, we started to see the rise of the precursor to JN.1 with another 30-plus mutations in the spike protein. And so when you have this many new mutations, the virus has essentially found a way to work around, bypass our normal immune response.

And so it gets to be very infectious, easily getting people who have already been infected, no less those who have not had COVID before. So it's good that we have four years of built-up exposures and vaccinations and boosters, but it's bad that this virus is relentless in finding ways to basically reinvent itself and to get into our upper airway and then all the other potential things that can happen after that.

John Yang:

You mentioned long COVID. You have been very vocal about this, about the need to understand long COVID, understand who's at risk for long COVID.

Explain your concerns and also whether or not repeated infections play any role.

Dr. Eric Topol:

Right.

Well, there's no question that repeated infections introduce a higher risk of long COVID. And the problem, John, with long COVID is, we don't know who's going to get this. Over time, since the beginning of the pandemic, it looks like the incidence has dropped some. And that's partly because vaccinations are quite protective, 40 percent or 50 percent reduction of long COVID, as well as with boosters.

But the problem is, even with vaccinations or without, some people can have this terrible long-term problem of their immune system getting totally out of sorts and having self-directed antibodies and so many markers of inflammation across the body, throughout every organ system, no less a disabling set of symptoms.

So, even if that is just a couple percent of people in this current wave, this big global surge, that's still a lot of people who we have added to the tens of millions of people currently suffering from long COVID around the world, and we don't have any treatment for it. We know some things that can prevent it, but we have nothing yet that's been substantiated to treat long COVID.

John Yang:

You had an op-ed column in The Los Angeles Times last week.

In it, you wrote: "It's crickets from the White House on COVID now, with no messaging on getting the updated booster or masking. The Biden administration has done far too little to accelerate research on effective treatments for long COVID."

What would you like to see the administration do?

Dr. Eric Topol:

Well, a lot more than it's doing.

In the first year of the pandemic, we saw that Operation Warp Speed, and we took this virus as an existential threat and pulled out all the stops.

But, right now, John, we need oral or nasal vaccines to stop infections, to stop spread, to be variant-proof, whatever this virus mutates to in the times ahead. And we have a small amount of funding towards that end, but not enough.

And the messaging has been poor. That is, even the people at highest risk, about 35 percent of them have had the updated booster that's been available since September. That's the highest-risk people of advanced age. We had 90, 95 percent of those same high-risk people getting the initial primary series of the vaccine.

So we're not doing enough. We have known this was coming. We have seen countries in Europe that had wastewater levels of the virus that were unprecedented, even exceeding Omicron. And it isn't like they stay — the virus is going to stay there. We knew it was coming since September, October, and only in recent weeks have health systems started to get masking back as a policy.

We're just not doing enough to prepare or manage this big surge.

John Yang:

Dr. Eric Topol of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, thank you very much.

Dr. Eric Topol:

Thank you, John.