Here’s what local experts are saying about new COVID-19 variants

PITTSBURGH — At a time when new COVID-19 infections are considered low, new variations, called FLiRT variants, are now starting to spread.

Doctor Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert with Johns Hopkins who is based out of Pittsburgh, says they evolved from Omicron.

“The most recent variants that are becoming dominant are called FLiRT variants. The word FLiRT has to do with technical ways of describing the mutations that are present in it,” Adalja explained.

Adalja says new COVID-19 variants are always to be expected.

“The virus that causes COVID-19 is going to continue to mutate in perpetuity, forever. That’s what viruses do, so there’s always going to be a new variant, whether that’s today, tomorrow, thirty years from now, there’s always going to be one variant rising, one variant falling, that’s how evolution occurs,” Adalja said.

According to Adalja, FLiRT will have similar symptoms to all previous versions of COVID-19 — cough, cold-like-symptoms, muscle aches and pains, fevers, headaches, and sore throat — but most people will have some level of protection from vaccines and/or previous infections.

“The key thing to remember is the immunity in the population, even though people might be getting infected and the virus is still evolving, that immunity still presents a wall to the virus, reducing its ability to cause severe disease, hospitalizations, and deaths,” Adalja said.

For the general public, Adalja says new variants do not pose too much concern but he warns high-risk people need to take them very seriously.

“It’s important for high-risk individuals to make sure that they’re up to date with their vaccines and that if they get infected they have a plan to call their doctor to get an antiviral, like Paxlovid, those are going to be important, but in and of themselves, these current FLiRT variants don’t really change the equation when it comes to COVID-19,” Adalja said.

When it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, Adalja says they will continue to evolve to handle new strains of the virus.

He says talks are happening now about what should be included in the next version of the vaccine.

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