Multiple cases involving a new COVID-19 variant driving disease numbers higher in Asia have been reported in international travelers arriving in California, Virginia, Washington state, and the New York City areas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s airport screening program has revealed.
The cases are linked to the NB.1.8.1 variant of the virus, which is linked to a large surge of the disease in China, reports CBS News Friday, about records uploaded by Ginkgo Bioworks, the CDC’s airport testing partner.
The cases are being reported among travelers from several countries between April 22 and May 12, according to sequencing results published on the GISAID, or Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data, virus database.
The countries include China, Taiwan, Japan, France, South Korea, Thailand, the Netherlands, Spain, and Vietnam, the records showed.
Cases of the variant have also been reported by health authorities separately from the airport cases in the states of Ohio, Rhode Island, and Hawaii.
The earliest cases involving the new variant were reported in California and Washington state, dating back to late March and early April.
The news comes as top Food and Drug Administration officials this week announced new requirements for yearly COVID vaccines that will not allow them to be routinely approved for children or healthy adults 64 and younger.
Meanwhile, the latest variant is causing COVID cases to spike in Asia and China. Authorities in Hong Kong said that COVID rates are at the worst levels seen in at least a year, with a “significant increase” in emergency room visits and hospitalizations, but added that there is no evidence that the new variant causes more severe illness.
Taiwan health authorities are also reporting a rise in deaths and emergency room visits, and are stockpiling vaccines and antiviral treatments.
In China, researchers say the NB.1.8.1 variant has a higher ability to bind to human cells, potentially making it more transmissible.
Meanwhile, early data presented to the FDA by Pfizer and Moderna are suggesting switching this year’s vaccine to a JN.1 descendant that has been dominant in recent months, which could protect against the new strain.
The committee backed recommendations that the coming virus should target a JN.1 variant, with some saying they favored allowing vaccine makers to use last season’s shot while others want to target the descendant Pfizer and Moderna prototyped.
“Although one can’t predict evolution, and you don’t know how this is going to keep diversifying, the overwhelming odds are that what does come and predominate in the next few months, the next six months, next year will come from something that’s circulating now. It won’t come from something that doesn’t exist any longer,” Jerry Weir, director of the FDA’s division of viral products, said.
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