CLAIM: There are no longer new variants of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Public health officials continue to track and monitor emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. They can be seen on the World Health Organization website.
THE FACTS: The falsehood circulated across social media in recent days, with some suggesting variants are only used to distract from other issues.
“Anyone else find it odd we just stopped having new variants all the sudden?” reads one tweet migrated across platforms.
A video on Instagram, meanwhile, asks whether it was strange that “we went from variant to variant to variant to no more variants,” suggesting they had instead been replaced by a supposed “trans agenda.” The caption similarly suggests variants have “disappeared.”
But it’s simply not true that variants of SARS-CoV-2 have “stopped” or “disappeared.”
The WHO continues to monitor and designate variants as they emerge. The agency has in the initial months of 2023 designated several as “variants of interest” or “variants under monitoring.” One variant, XBB.1.16, was first documented in a sample in January 2023.
The WHO updated its tracking system in March to provide more granularity in monitoring sublineages of the dominant omicron variant and also said it would only use Greek letters for new “variants of concern” moving forward. It previously used them for variants of interest as well.
“SARS-CoV-2 variants do continue to appear,” John Lednicky, a virologist and research professor at the University of Florida’s Department of Environmental and Global Health, told The Associated Press in an email.
“The current variants of SARS-CoV-2 appear to be less virulent, as expected for a virus that is ‘adapting to its host,’” Lednicky said. But, he emphasized, it’s possible that more severe strains could emerge.
It is true that new variants have not commanded the same level of public concern as some earlier variants.
Andy Pekosz, a virologist and professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University, said in addition to changes in how variants are classified, “there is much less sequencing of viruses going on now, so we aren’t able to report on new variants as quickly as we used to.”
Emerging variants have also shown a “gradual accumulation of one or two mutations at a time” as opposed to variants with lots of new mutations, Pekosz said. He added that future COVID-19 booster shots may be updated to provide better protection from the changing virus.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
