(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday estimated that the BQ.1 variant and closely related BQ.1.1 make up for 16.6% of the total circulating coronavirus variants in the United States.
The new emerging variants, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, have been spreading quickly in the country in the last few weeks, particularly in New York.
They each previously made up 5.7% of circulating variants in the United States in the week of Oct 15.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra and Khushi Mandowara in Bengaluru; Editing by Nancy Lapid and Arun Koyyur)
