Vaccine-Resistant COVID Strains Could Fuel Surge In NJ

NEW JERSEY — For the second straight week, the CDC didn't recommend masking for indoor, public spaces in any of New Jersey's counties. But federal health officials warned of potential COVID-19 troubles as the weather cools and the omicron variant continues mutating.

The United States should prepare for a COVID spike this winter, according to White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha. Europe's current surge provides one of the first signs of trouble, he says.

"We are seeing this increase in Europe, and Europe tends to precede us by about four to six weeks," Jha told NPR. "And so it stands to reason that as we get into November, December, maybe January, we are going to see an increase in infections across much of the country."

New Variants Emerging

Just in time for fall, several omicron mutations have sparked concerns domestically and internationally: BQ.1.1, BQ.1, BQ.1.3, BA.2.3.20 and XBB. The BQ variants have shown remarkable abilities to spread and evade immunity, according to United Kingdom health officials, while the XBB strain has been linked to surges in Bangladesh and Singapore.

Experts say the XBB mutation is "immune evasive," Fortune reports, although it is not yet clear how effective the new bivalent booster will be in stopping it. The strain has not yet been detected in New Jersey.

The COVID vaccines substantially improve protection against substantial disease and infection, but the World Health Organization says more studies are needed to evaluate the duration of effectiveness of booster doses beyond six months.

It's one of several variants that federal officials are tracking. The extent of a future surge in the United States will heavily depend on vaccination rates and the precautions people take, Jha says.

"There are at least three subvariants that we're tracking very, very closely, all of which appear to have a lot more immune escape," Jha told NPR. "Now, the good news about them is while they seem to do a better job of escaping immunity, they are derived from BA.5 or BA.2, its closely related cousin, and the new vaccines we have, which protect you against BA.5, should really continue to work really quite well against these new variants."

As of this week, people 5 and older are eligible for the bivalent booster vaccine. The updated dose offers stronger protections against severe illness and death by targeting the original COVID strain and the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants, according to health officials. Find out more on vaccine eligibility and recommendations.

Only about 11.5 million Americans have received the updated booster, which became available in early September. But Jha expects that figure to ramp up, as officials observe annually with the number of people getting flu shots in October and November.

"My expectation is that as the rest of October goes along, and as we get into November," Jha said, "you're going to see a lot more Americans getting this new vaccine."

COVID By The Numbers In NJ

The CDC adopted the community-level metric — a metric based on hospitalizations and case rates — in late February. The agency updates its color-coded COVID maps each Thursday, recommending masks in counties with "high" community levels.

New Jersey has no counties in the high level as of Thursday — the second straight week in which none showed high community levels.

The map only showed one change from the prior week: Mercer County went from the medium to the low category.

The CDC's mask recommendations do not trigger any mandates in New Jersey. People may also choose to continue masking in any setting.

While mask recommendations are minimal, COVID levels continue to rise in the region's wastewater — a sign that the virus's presence has increased lately. COVID wastewater levels are measured by estimated gene copies per milliliters of sewage.

In the Northeast, which includes New Jersey, wastewater went from 794 copies/mL in late August to 1,313 copies/mL this week, according to Biobot Analytics, which monitors sewage as it relates to public health. Meanwhile, no other region of the country showed more than 456 copies/mL this week. See the data here.

Hospitalization totals remain relatively steady, typically ranging between 1,000-1,100 hospital patients with confirmed or suspected COVID, according to data from the New Jersey Department of Health. The state had 1,077 COVID patients in hospitals as of Thursday, one week after New Jersey officials reported 1,014 COVID patients.

The state's transmission rate continued its encouraging trajectory, totaling 0.91 as of Friday, according to state health officials. A transmission rate lower than 1 indicates that each existing infection causes less than one new infection — a sign that the virus's spread is slowing down.

True case totals became more difficult to calculate in recent months because of the prevalence of at-home tests that don't typically get recorded in COVID statistics. But New Jersey's reported case totals have trended downward since late September. The state had 2,506 infections per day the week ending Sept. 25 but averaged 1,823 daily new cases in the past week, according to federal data.

Thirty-nine people in New Jersey died from the virus in the past week, according to the CDC. Federal officials reported about 2,500 deaths from COVID complications around the nation in the past week.

For more coronavirus numbers, visit the state health department's COVID-19 dashboard, The New York Times data page for New Jersey and the CDC's data tracker.