Flirting with Covid

It’s rather ironic that the new Covid-19 variants have been dubbed FLiRT considering that one of the health protocols at the height of the pandemic was to avoid physical contact and maintain social distancing. It reminds me of Dionne Warwick’s old song with the lyrics that go, “What do you get when you kiss a guy? You get enough germs to catch pneumonia…”

But levity aside, what exactly are the FLiRT variants? Apparently, they are new variants that begin with either KP or JN and descended from the JN.1 variant that is very similar to the Omicron strain. The FLiRT variants have two more protein spikes than the JN.1 – and these added spikes enable them to evade immunity and may have a greater ability to transmit.

The nickname “FLiRT” came from Canadian professor of evolutionary biology Dr. T. Ryan Gregory who combined the first letters of the spike protein mutations (amino acid changes) of the new variants. “Each amino acid has its own letter abbreviation. FLiRT is F456L + R346T, or phenylalanine (F) to leucine (L) at position 456 and arginine (R) to threonine (T) at position 346,” Gregory wrote on X last March.

Experts have expressed concern about a possible uptick in Covid-19 cases during summer with people traveling more and going on holiday breaks – thereby increasing their exposure to the more highly transmissible FLiRT variants that are now circulating in many countries and are reportedly becoming the dominant strains in the United States.

Reports are coming in about rising cases of infections and hospitalizations in many places, among them France, with health authorities reporting a continued rise for the “sixth week running.”

Hawaii’s Department of Health dashboard is also showing an uptick in Covid-19 cases. In a statement issued last Wednesday, State Epidemiologist Sarah Kemble said that, “This week, the dashboard shows that COVID-19 test positivity is higher than expected and climbing, and that ED visits and hospital admissions for COVID-19 are also going up.”

Last week, the Health Ministry of Singapore announced that it was closely watching the recent increase in Covid-19 cases that reached 25,900 earlier in May. According to Health Minister Ong Ye Kung