“Flirt”: what is this new variant of Covid which is progressing and raising fears of a new wave?

Four years after the start of the Covid-19 crisis, we no longer count the number of mutations of the virus, nor the successive epidemic waves. This summer of 2024 could, however, see new ones arriving in France. A strain of the Covid-19 virus, nicknamed “Flirt”, is indeed progressing in Europe and particularly in Spain, after having already become dominant in the United States last May.

Its progression is closely scrutinized by the scientific community, mainly due to two factors.

What are we talking about ?

“Flirt” is actually an acronym that refers to a family of new variants of the SARS-Cov-2 virus that have become dominant in the United States and are emerging in Europe, including the dominant KP.2 variant. The latter comes from the JN.1 variant, derived from the Omicron family and today the cause of the majority of infections in France.

As a benchmark, in the United States, the “Flirt” variant represented 1% of cases in mid-March, 3.8% at the end of March, and now represents more than 28% according to the New York Times, making it now the dominant strain in the United States. Less active in Europe for the moment, it has nevertheless already been spotted in 14 countries, including Spain, and particularly in Catalonia.

Should we be worried?

If it is closely monitored by scientists, it is because the “Flirt” variant seems more contagious and resistant to vaccines than the previous strain, raising fears of a significant increase in cases during the summer. However, according to Columbia University virologist David Ho, its differences with the previous variant could make it “more effective in evading our immune defenses”.

“While it is still too early to say (…) KP.2 and its relatives will probably cause an increase in the number of cases, but (my) intuition is that it will not be a big wave,” writes in particular Dr Eric Topol, executive vice-president of the American biomedical research center Scripps Research, by the Time Magazine. And to detail: “The virus has not mutated enough to become significantly different from previous strains.” Regarding the symptoms, researchers from Johns–Hopkins University in Baltimore also want to be reassuring in their analysis shared at the end of May, evoking already known manifestations of the virus. “We’re not seeing anything new or different. We’re still seeing mild illness. It’s probably not because the virus is milder, but because our immunity is now much stronger. After years of vaccinations and infections, the majority of the population is better able to fight off an infection.

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Taking these factors into account, the WHO has already asked pharmaceutical companies to adapt vaccines, according to the Catalan media El National.

Until then, experts must remain vigilant and continue with barrier gestures. As a reminder, in France, a new vaccination campaign aimed at the most vulnerable began on April 15.