A new family of COVID-19 variants, known as “FLiRT,” is now dominant in the United States.
The name comes from its mutation. It contains two new key mutations compared to the previous dominant variant JN.1. One mutation is “F456L,” representing an amino acid code change from “F” to “L” at the 456th amino acid of the spike protein chain. The other, “R346T,” represents the amino acid code change from “R” to “T” at position 346.
