The JN.1.* +FLiRT variants now make up 20% of sequences and XDK.* which is recombinant of JN.1.1.1 and XBB.1.16.11 has made an appearance at 5%. Graph tools by @mike_honey_ 🧵 1/
FLiRT is a nickname for variants with F456L & R356T mutations which seem to provide an advantage over the JN.1 Pirola variants without them. You can see the current FLiRT variants here from @dfocosi 2/
JN.1 #Pirola has dropped to around 20% frequency and JN.1.4 is hovering at 14% while the FLiRTs are gaining: KS.1 at 10%, KP.1.1 at 4%, KP.2 at 3% and XDK.1 at 4%. 3/
@mike_honey_ is now automatically generating new variant reports when he updates his data for various locations so it is easy to just click on a link and get the latest PDF version of the report instead of having to navigate through his tool.
How well can people with previous vaccines and/or infections neutralize these JN.1 +FLiRT variants? Pre-print studies are starting to come out evaluating this. XBB infection on its own provides almost no neutralization against the FLiRTs ( https://twitter.com/yunlong_cao/status/1782775678343205220 ). 5/
The results show someone infected with JN.1 only has half the neutralization with the KP.3 FLiRT variant and people who had a previous XBB infection was worse at 2.4x lower.
These neutralization levels are quite low (NT50 around from 51 to 177) compared to the levels we used to get with the original vaccines vs original (WT) virus so you don't want to start off behind using JN.1 for a fall vaccine. 6/
These results are the mutations we are seeing today. In another 6 months when a new vaccine is supposed to be deployed, results could be a lot worse than 50% lower than an already low number so new vaccines should at least catch up with current escape mutations. 7/
Despite many hospitals declaring the end of the respiratory virus season in Ontario and relaxing or removing mask requirements already, there is still a lot of viral activity going on.
COVID is not seasonal, it spreads throughout the year, the only difference is when a new variant runs out of people to infect easily the wave goes down until a short time later when a new variant with mutations to escape those antibodies moves in and starts a new wave. Sometimes waves peak in summer and sometimes they don't just depends on the variant landscape.
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