To most Americans, COVID-19 now ranks with everyday risks like reckless driving, smoking and drinking too much...emerging new variants called FLiRT is a fresh reminder that the coronavirus still is circulating and evolving, even with hospitalizations at record lows.
But there's still the nagging fear that the combination of a few unfortunate mutations and a checked-out public could conspire to fill up emergency rooms, though no one expects we'll again approach anything like the worst of the pandemic.
A new variant, KP.2, accounts for a quarter of U.S. cases and just overtook JN.1 as the dominant strain, while a sister variant KP.1.1 is also rising and represents 7.5% of cases... the ongoing concern is that as people get more out of date with vaccination and the virus mutates, the likelihood of a summer wave becomes greater.
Less than 1 in 4 U.S. adults received the latest COVID shots made available last fall, which were targeted to earlier lineages of the omicron variant.
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