CDC and WHO Monitoring New COVID Variant with Large Number of Mutations

 NBC News | By Aria Bendix

Global disease experts are monitoring a new variant, BA.2.86, that carries a large number of mutations — meaning it looks significantly different from the original version of Omicron and the previously dominant strain targeted by upcoming Covid booster shots this fall.

It's still unclear how transmissible BA.2.86 is, though experts said it seems capable of sidestepping vaccine protection to some degree.

"We have not seen a new variant [in humans] with this many new spike mutations happening all at once since the emergence of the original Omicron,” said Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at Fred Hutch Cancer Center.

Mutations in the spike protein, one of three main parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, could make it easier for the virus to invade human cells.

So far, only a handful of cases of the new variant, BA.2.86, have been identified globally. In addition to one case in Michigan, the variant has also been spotted in Denmark, Israel, and the UK, according to sequences uploaded to GISAID, a global virus database…

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