Jill Biden tested positive for Covid and is experiencing “mild symptoms”, per a 4 September statement from the White House.
New Covid boosters from Pfizer and Moderna designed to target the XBB.1.5 subvariant have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and are expected to be made available later this week.
Health officials say that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will now sign off on it amid rising cases of Covid across the US.
Last week Moderna released a statemen saying the company’s updated boosters are expected to work well against the BA.2.86 variant – unofficially called “Pirola”.
Covid-19 case counts are rising across the US, and public health authorities are monitoring the worrisome new variant. Some experts are urging Americans to wear a mask when necessary to slow the spread of the virus.
Doctors warned that Pirola may be cause for concern as it is a newly-designated, highly-mutated variant of Omicron which triggered a surge in cases in a number of countries including the US.
According to a Thursday bulletin in Yale Medicine, the new variant has more than 30 mutations to its spike protein - located on the outer surface of a coronavirus - which helps it enter and infect human cells.
CDC Covid tracker
18,871 hospitalisations from 27 August to 2 September
