As the US approved new COVID-19 booster shots, a recent report revealed that the majority of cases of the BA.2.86 variant of SARS-CoV-2 in England were a result of a nursing home outbreak. This demonstrates that the virus can spread easily in nursing homes and long-term care communities, according to the UK Health Security Agency (HSA), which shared numbers last week.
A nursing home in Norfolk, England had an unusually high number of people who became ill around the end of August. Of 43 samples tested, 28 had the BA.2.86 variant. The virus infected 86.6% of residents and 12 staff members.
Of the 33 residents who tested positive for the variant, 29 were vaccinated in the spring. Four residents who were negative also had the vaccine in the spring.
“It is clear that there is some degree of widespread community transmission, both in the UK and globally, and we are working to ascertain the full extent of this,” said Renu Bindra, MD, the HSA’s incident director.
In the US, indicators of COVID-19 show that it’s slowly rising. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that hospitalizations from COVID-19 have been going up the past nine weeks. A few parts of the country with higher infection rates include counties in eastern Montana and some at the Alabama-Mississippi border.
But other indicators showed slight declines in COVID-19 activity. Emergency department visits for COVID-19 decreased 1.5% from the previous week.
On Monday, the US Food and Drug Administration gave the green light to new COVID-19 vaccines aimed at the omicron variant named XBB.1.5. Even though that one isn’t as common now, the FDA says the newer vaccine should be good against current strains circulating.
The news comes as the new RSV vaccine is available and officials urge older adults to get that vaccine along with COVID-19 and flu shots.
