Lisa Jarvis, Columnist

New Covid Variants Have Arrived. How Worried Should You Be?

The children of omicron are better at escaping antibodies, but we’ve still got T-cells and B-cells to protect us.

October 19, 2022 at 12:30 PM UTC

Corrected

October 20, 2022 at 10:17 PM UTC

Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News.

Time to get boosted. Again.
Photographer: Marco de Swart/AFP/Getty Images

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Some rather alarming headlines recently circulated about the newest members of the omicron family. “Nightmare Covid variant,” read one. “The most immune-evasive Covid variants yet.” Or, as one would-be pandemic influencer said in a tweet shared thousands of times: “MOTHER OF GOD… #COVID variants worse than CDC has been admitting.”

Apparently, it’s spooky season for Covid variants.