With ‘Eris’ rising and now ‘Fornax,’ when are COVID cases likely to peak again? A look at what may lie ahead for fall and winter

(Credit: Getty Images)

With new variant “Eris” EG.5.1 rising in the U.S. and globally, you may wonder what the future holds for COVID in the U.S., particularly this fall and winter.

As of Friday, another new player is more officially in the mix: “Fornax,” or FL.1.5.1, an Eris relative named after a constellation in the southern hemisphere. That’s according to Ryan Gregory, a biology professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, who has been assigning “street names” like Kraken to high-flying variants.