They found that across a range of different types of immunity, people were able to neutralize BA.2.86 as well as, and sometimes more effectively than, other circulating variants. The people with the highest neutralizing antibodies were those who had recently recovered from an XBB infection.Īt the other lab, Dr. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS/Getty ImagesĮarly testing suggests variant BA.2.86 has been detected in US wastewater, CDC report says Then they took plasma, the clear part of the blood, from 66 Americans who had been vaccinated with monovalent vaccines only, who had gotten bivalent vaccines or who had recently recovered from an XBB infection, and tested how well their antibodies neutralized 10 Omicron subvariants including BA.2.86.īinaxNOW COVID-19 test kits were made available to students at Whitney Young High School, Feb. “If there wasn’t so much hype about BA.2.86, that would actually be the focus of the paper,” Barouch said.īarouch and his team used pseudoviruses: They built the spikes of the BA.2.86 virus and attached them to the body of a different virus. In lab testing, it was the most immune-evasive.
This fast-growing descendant of the XBB recombinant variant has a constellation of mutations that have raised the eyebrows of variant trackers. In short, this one seems to be a “scariant.”īut another variant, FL.1.5.1, which is causing an estimated 15% of new Covid-19 infections in the US, may be a different story. Taken together, the data suggests that BA.2.86 will not be as troublesome as experts had feared. Their results align with earlier experiments by labs in China and Sweden. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and leader of one of the labs, told CNN. “Two independent labs have basically shown that BA.2.86 essentially is not a further immune escape compared with current variants,” Dr. This suggests that this fall’s updated Covid-19 vaccines, which are designed to fight off XBB.1.5, will provide added protection against a range of circulating Covid-19 lineages, including BA.2.86. What’s more, people who had the most robust responses against BA.2.86 were those who were within six months of an infection with the XBB subvariant. Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters/Fileįirst lady Jill Biden tests positive for Covid-19 First Lady Jill Biden poses for a photograph as she meets with Namibian President Hage Geingob (not pictured) at the State House in the capital Windhoek, in Namibia, on February 22.
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