The U.S. is experiencing a surge in COVID cases this summer.
Emergency room visits jumped more than 23% between June 16 and June 22, and COVID deaths increased 14.3% recently, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, the percentage of all COVID deaths across the U.S. remains at 0.8%.
The reason for the increase in COVID cases is due to the FLiRT variant, which stems from the omicron variant line.
Offshoots of the FLiRT variant, including KP.3, KP.2 and KP.1.1 or any others starting with KP or JN, are mostly responsible for the increase in cases this summer.
KP.2 and KP.3 make up more than 50% of cases across America, according to the CDC.
While the FLiRT variants don’t appear to cause severe illness like its predecessors, there are several symptoms that stand out among the variants:
- sore throat
- cough
- fatigue
- congestion
- runny nose
- fever or chills
- headache
- muscle aches
- new loss of sense of taste or smell
- nausea or vomiting
- diarrhea
“Some people have a very classic sore throat, runny nose, cough and low-grade fever,” Dr. Paul Sax, the clinical director of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told NBC News. “In others, it’s mostly nausea and diarrhea with very minimal respiratory symptoms. It can vary from A to Z and beyond.”
If you happen to come down with one of these COVID variants, current CDC guidance recommends that those infected stay isolated until their symptoms improve and they are fever-free for at least 24 hours.
After that, the CDC recommends that people take extra precautions for the following five days, such as wearing a mask in public.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
Katherine Rodriguez can be reached at [email protected]. Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips.