A new variant of the continually mutating COVID-19 virus has health officials on alert as it spreads rapidly worldwide.
Despite the uptick in illness, the WHO considers the overall public health risk from XFG to be low, and current data does not suggest that this variant leads to more severe illness or deaths than other variants in circulation.
“In most parts of the United States, we are in a pretty good place regarding respiratory illness, and most people should be enjoying their summer activities without too much worry,” says Mark Rupp, MD, a professor in the division of infectious diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Current COVID-19 Symptoms May Now Include Hoarseness
Experts expect XFG to cause symptoms similar to many previous variants, says Amy Edwards, MD, an assistant professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases.
Dr. Edwards, however, doesn’t view hoarseness as particularly unique to XFG. “There are a number of variants that have been causing sore throat or hoarse voice,” she says. “All respiratory viruses can do this, along with all the other usual symptoms, such as cough, runny nose, and fever.”
Fewer People Are Reporting Their COVID-19 Infections
The CDC cautions that due to the low number of infections reported, precision in the most recent reporting period is low. Walgreens also offers a tracker of respiratory illness trends based on its consumer data, but Dr. Rupp warns that Walgreens’ tracking suffers from some of the same limitations as the CDC’s system and does not offer detailed sequencing information.
“As most folks with COVID do not get tested, or they use home test kits that are not reported, the data we have in the public health sequencing system is pretty scant and lags behind,” says Dr. Rupp.
COVID-19 Can Still Make You Unpleasantly Sick
The WHO stresses that the Stratus variant does not appear to cause more severe illness than recent previous strains.
Edwards suspects that COVID-19 cases may rise as the summer continues, but she doesn’t expect the situation to be any worse than last year.
Also, while COVID may not be causing as many life-threatening illnesses as in the past, she says that even a mild-seeming infection can be fairly bad compared with other respiratory illnesses. “This is probably because by now everyone has had COVID at least once or had multiple vaccines, so the virus is no longer novel to the body’s immune system,” says Edwards.
The agency also urges all people to protect themselves with these habits:
- Practicing good hygiene, including regular hand-washing
- Staying home and away from others, including people you live with who are not sick, if you have respiratory symptoms
- Seeking healthcare promptly for testing or treatment if you have risk factors for severe illness
- Wearing a mask can help lower the risk of transmission