CDC Projects New Variant Could Make Up One In Three US Cases Of COVID-19

CBS News (6/13, M. Moniuszko, Cohen) reported the CDC projected last week that the “new COVID-19 variant NB.1.8.1, which was linked to a large surge of hospitalizations in parts of Asia, could now make up more than 1 in 3 cases across the United States.” The agency’s airport surveillance program last month “had detected cases of the variant in arriving international travelers from several countries. The agency now says that nearly half of the COVID infections detected in that program the last week of May were the NB.1.8.1 variant.” The CDC cautioned that “precision in the most recent reporting period is low” for its estimates, but the projected increase “in prevalence in the U.S. highlights the variant’s high transmissibility – something experts had warned about as soon as it began spreading in this country.”