New Covid-19 variant quickly spreading through NL; Biggest summer outbreak since 2021

The new COVID-19 variant FLiRT is rapidly spreading through the Netherlands, and the amount of coronavirus particles in the sewage is now even higher than in the “Dancing with Jansen” summer of 2021. But hospital admissions are barely increasing, so there is no reason to panic, virologist Marion Koopmans told AD.

The best indicator of how actively the virus is spreading is the sewage water measurements, Koopmans said. Currently, the number of coronavirus particles found in the sewage is 14 times higher than at this time last year. It is even higher than in the summer of 2021, when the Delta variant was spreading quickly, and the government’s over-enthusiasm for relaxing measures caused a wave of infections.

The current wave is in many ways incomparable to the 2021 situation, Koopmans, a professor of virology at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, stressed to AD. The current variants make people a lot less sick. “You now see that the number of hospital admissions is barely increasing despite the rising number of coronavirus infections.” Most people are also well protected against the virus through vaccinations and previous infections, resulting in often milder symptoms.

Despite this, Koopmans and the public health institute RIVM are stil concerned about Long Covid, when Covid-19 symptoms last for a year or longer. “The chance is gradually decreasing, but it is still there,” Koopmans said. “New cases continue to emerge. So that is something to take into account.”

FLiRT is a group of Omicron subvariants that are just different enough to bypass immunity. Officially, the subvariants are called KP.2, JN.1.7, but to keep things simple, scientists have named the group as a whole the FLiRT variant.