EU Officials Say New COVID Variant Is Expected to Rise Across Continent

Officials have forecast that it is not expected to produce a significant risk to public health.

This scanning electron microscope image shows the novel coronavirus (orange), which causes COVID-19 disease, isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells (green) cultured in the lab. Photo published on Feb. 13, 2020. NIAID-RML

Officials in the European Union said that a new COVID-19 variant is expected to rise across the EU in the coming weeks.

The variant, NB.1.8.1, spread across mainland China earlier this year and has now reached the United States, where it accounts for more than a third of all COVID-19 cases, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention update issued on June 13.

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control officials said, however, that the variant “is not expected to cause an increased risk to public health compared to other recently circulating Omicron-descendant SARS-CoV-2 variants.”

“No clinical studies are currently available for COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness for NB.1.8.1, but no significant impact on vaccine effectiveness against severe disease is anticipated based on its mutation profile and early laboratory studies,” the EU health body said on June 13.

“NB.1.8.1 is currently circulating at low proportions in the EU/EEA but is expected to rise in the coming weeks,” the statement added, referring to the European Economic Area.

It also said that “slow increases” in the virus that causes COVID-19 have been seen in the EU or EEA in recent weeks but that “levels remain low” and there has been “no significant impact on secondary care, or on the number of deaths” so far.

From May 25 to June 7 in the United States, the NB.1.8.1 variant was the second most prevalent strain by just 1 percentage point, following the LP.8.1 strain, according to a CDC update issued on June 13. A previous CDC update showed that NB.1.8.1 wasn’t being tracked in the country as of late May.

A map released by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data shows that the variant has been found in Hawaii, California, Washington state, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

Last month, the World Health Organization deemed NB.1.8.1 a “variant under monitoring” because of its rapid spread throughout several regions, namely in parts of Asia. But it noted that the variant doesn’t appear to be causing more severe illness.

The variant appears to be driving most of the COVID-19 cases in China, as instances of the virus were up by 160 percent last month, according to data released by Beijing, although outside China, experts have questioned whether data released by the Chinese regime on COVID-19 infections are accurate.

Tang Jingyuan, a U.S.-based physician and current affairs commentator, told NTD, sister outlet of The Epoch Times, earlier this month that regime officials are likely downplaying the impact of the latest COVID-19 variant.

“I think their purpose of saying it is to avoid panic among the public that there will be a larger-scale outbreak this summer,” Tang said. “This wave of epidemic is still developing, and it is difficult for us to draw the conclusion that this ... has already reached its peak.”

Doctors in China, meanwhile, have told media outlets that one novel symptom related to the variant that has been reported so far is a sharp, sore throat.