A new COVID-19 variant is spreading across the commonwealth and research suggests it’s the best variant at resisting antibody treatment.
Last Thursday, the Omnicron subvariant BQ.1.1 made up 39% of the COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts, according to a projection from The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Boston Globe reported.
Together BQ1.1 and its sister variant BQ.1 accounted for 46.2% of COVID cases last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, the BA.5 COVID strain which was once dominating the country in cases, made up a little over a quarter of cases last week.
BQ.1.1 could pose an increased risk to immunocompromised people and people that develop severe infections, according to the Globe. The two current antibody medicines – bebtelovimab which treats COVID-19 and Evusheld which prevents the virus – are both unlikely to work against the BQ1.1 and the BQ.1 variants.
Both Pfizer and Moderna have stated that their booster shots do trigger an immune response against the BQ.1.1 and BQ.1 variants, according to CNBC.
Despite the health hazards of the two new variants, a spike in infections in Massachusetts is unlikely as the number of cases in the commonwealth has been relatively steady in the past month, state data show. Furthermore, as of last Thursday, the state’s wastewater data from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority shows low levels of the COVID virus.