It is four years since the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV, later renamed as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 or SARS-CoV2) was first reported on December 31, 2019 from China. In the months which followed, it caused severe COVID-19 waves in nearly every country, across the world. Alongside, at end December or early new year, there would be news of a new variant or sub-variant, or of a surge in cases in some countries. At the end of 2021, it was an Omicron variant (BA.1.1.529), and by the end 2022, the COVID-19 case surge in China made news. Now, a new subvariant of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the JN.1, is making news.
Virus behaviour
The JN.1 sub-variant of Omicron has been reported from multiple countries and designated as a variant of interest (VoI) by the World Health Organization. This has raised some concerns and caused some worries. But is it really cause for concern? The short answer is a no. The reason is that the reporting of a new variant or sub-variant is on expected lines. In fact, in May 2023, while declaring the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO had highlighted the need for continuous tracking of the virus and its variants. The rationale was simple. The pandemic is over, but SARS-CoV-2 was and is circulating in all countries and all settings and will continue to do so for long, and possibly forever. That is how most viruses behave. Therefore, there is always the possibility of some seasonal changes in the number of cases, at unpredictable intervals. A linked feature is that the genetic material of the circulating viruses — especially of the respiratory virus — keeps changing over a period. These changes in genetic structure (genome) result in the designation of new variants and sub-variants.
