Another Holiday COVID Surge In PA? New Virus Strain Raises Concerns

PENNSYLVANIA — Several emerging strains of COVID-19's omicron variant have public health officials on notice. And they're circulating right around the winter holidays — a period that brought massive pandemic surges to Pennsylvania and the nation during the past two years.

The CDC revealed Friday that it's now tracking a new variant of concern: XBB, which sparked a vast swash of infections across several South Asian nations and makes up a portion of cases in the Pennsylvania area, according to the agency.

XBB is considered more immune-evasive than other omicron descendants and could evade key COVID antibody drugs. But the Biden Administration remains hopeful that the COVID wave won't be as deadly as last winter, thanks to a combination of immunity from vaccination and prior infection.

"I feel very confident that if people continue to get vaccinated at good numbers, if people get boosted, we can absolutely have a very safe and healthy holiday season," said Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House's COVID-19 response coordinator.

XBB makes up 3.1 percent of the nation's COVID cases and 2.3 percent of infections in the Pennsylvania area, according to the CDC's latest estimates. (The CDC's most timely variant-proportion data is regional. Pennsylvania's region also contains Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.)

Health authorities continue to track new omicron variants across the country. Many evade the protection of antibody drugs offered to immunocompromised Americans, such as AstraZeneca's Evusheld.

But XBB doesn't appear more severe than other variants, Derek Smith, director of the Center for Pathogen Evolution at the University of Cambridge, told CBS News.

At this time last year, Pennsylvania's COVID hospitalizations surged to record levels. While Thanksgiving only just passed, the state's hospitalization totals have remained relatively consistent for much of the year, hovering between 900 and 1,300 COVID patients each day since June.

But this holiday season, there are new tools to combat COVID, including the updated booster and newly approved antivirals. Pfizer's bivalent vaccine looks to be effective at triggering better antibody responses against XBB, according to a preprinted study from the corporation posted earlier this month, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.

But emergency rooms around the country have been stressed, with COVID, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) straining health care providers. Related article: 'Tripledemic' Hammers PA Emergency Rooms, COVID Death Rate Spikes

"Boarding has become its own public health emergency," reads a Nov. 7 letter to President Joe Biden, from more than 30 medical and public health organizations."Our nation's safety net is on the verge of breaking beyond repair; EDs (emergency departments) are gridlocked and overwhelmed with patients waiting — waiting to be seen; waiting for admission to an inpatient bed in the hospital; waiting to be transferred to psychiatric, skilled nursing, or other specialized facilities; or, waiting simply to return to their nursing home."