A recent scientific paper included an antigenic map, comparing the immune status of individuals vaccinated with a range of vaccines "… vaccinated sera", against a collection of significant variants "Virus …".

The map was very informative, so I built a quick dataviz project.
🧵 The map shows starkly that BA.3.2 "Cicada" is a wild outlier, way out on its own in the south-west corner. This suggests the current vaccines and/or disease-acquired immunity will not offer strong protection against infection.
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Here's the latest variant picture for Europe (excluding the UK), to late November.

BA.3.2.* "Cicada" is showing a very strong growth advantage of 7.9% per day (55% per week) over XFG.* "Stratus", which predicts a crossover in late December.

#COVID19 #EUR #BA_3_2 #Cicada #XFG
🧵 To include the latest BA.3.2.* samples, I have rolled my reporting window forward an extra week or so. So the most recent data is even less representative than usual. The picture for those dates might change as more data is shared.
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Here's the latest variant picture for the United Kingdom, to late November.

For the UK, BA.3.2.* "Cicada" is showing a strong growth advantage of 5% per day (35% per week) over XFG.* "Stratus", which predicts an imminent crossover.

#COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #UK #BA_3_2 #Cicada
🧵 To include the latest BA.3.2.* samples, I have rolled my reporting window forward an extra week. So the most recent data is even less representative than usual. The picture for those dates might change as more data is shared.
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A recent scientific paper explored the impact of mass SARS-CoV-2 infections on Lymphocytes (crucial to the body’s immune system).

I noticed the authors had shared the data behind their charts in the Appendix Supplementary materials, so I built a quick dataviz project.
🧵 Above, I’ve re-cast the data behind their Figures 3 and 5 in terms of % change from the baseline. Hopefully this is useful to help compare the subsets, whose results vary in scale.
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Australian Influenza update:

It became clear during November that a unusual second wave is underway in Australia, driven by the new "clade K" (H3N2 clade 2a.3a.1, subclade K).

Tasmania, New South Wales and South Australia are currently the hardest-hit.

#Influenza #Australia
🧵 Western Australia had been spared the worst of this second wave until the last week or so. But now there’s a signal of a sharp change in case momentum there also.
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Here's an animated map showing the spread of the BA.3.2.* variant, nicknamed "Cicada".

The other main hotspots have been South Africa, Western Australia (since July) and Germany (from mid-October).

Locations are approximate - typically country and state/province.
🧵 Audio credit:

Crickets Cicada Catbirds Ephemeral Wetland by KevinSonger -- -- License: Attribution 4.0
🧵freesound.org/s/687109/

Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to early November.

The XFG.* "Stratus" variant continued it’s dominance, roughly flat at 83% frequency.

NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" was down slightly to 7%.

#COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #USA #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus
🧵 XFG.1.1 is emerging as a new contender. It is characterised by a reversion to Spike W452R, which captured the attention of the Variant Hunters.

XFG.1.1 finished at 4%.
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Here's the latest variant picture with a global scope, to early November.

BA.3.* (mostly BA.3.2.2) has started showing significant signs of growth. Recent samples have mostly been reported from Germany and Australia.

#COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Global #BA_3_2 #XFG #Stratus
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Note I have rolled my reporting window forward an extra week, to capture this development. So recent samples are even thinner than usual.
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I’ve used WA Health’s COVID-19 wastewater surveillance page to estimate the number of infections of BA.3.2.

I estimate ~400 BA.3.2.* infections in Perth for the latest week, and ~4,600 over the 9 weeks since BA.3.2.* was first detected.

#BA_3_2 #Australia #WA #Perth
🧵 WA Health revamped their dashboard using Power BI, so it is more interactive now and a bit easier to get precise values. However they paused the wastewater variant analysis for 3 weeks, so I’ve estimated the values in that gap.

🧵 health.wa.gov.au/articles/n_r/r…

With the NB.1.8.1.* "Nimbus" and XFG.* "Stratus" variants carving up dominance around the globe, it is time to ponder which variant might drive the next wave.

The leading contenders at this point are PY.1.1.1 and XFV.

#COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #PY_1_1_1 #XFV #XFZ
🧵 Both are at low frequencies globally, but are already remarkably widespread geographically. New entrant XGA might be flattered by the low recent sample volumes.

I added some other contenders for monitoring, although they are less significant: XEC.27.2(.1), XFW, XFY and XFZ.
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For context, using Figure 17 we can estimate the number of infections of BA.3.2.

I estimate ~25K BA.3.2.* infections in Perth that week.
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https://twitter.com/Mike_Honey_/status/1961323697861443726

If you match the current level of the navy blue line to the cases/100K scale on the left, it looks like ~2.5K cases per 100K population (from all variants).

Perth's population is 2.3M, so that scales up to ~58K cases.
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[heavy sigh]

With the NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" and XFG.* "Stratus" variants carving up dominance around the globe, it is time to ponder which variant might drive the next wave.

The leading contenders at this point are PY.1.1.1 and XFV.

#COVID19 #PY_1_1_1 #XFV
🧵 PY.1.1.1 is descended from "FLiRT" variant LF.7.9.1. PY.1.1 added the K679R mutation, then PY.1.1.1 added A435S (same mutation that characterised NB.1.8.1).

PY.1.1.1 is presumed to have originated from India, rising sharply to 14% frequency there in June.
🧵

Here’s the July 2025 update I just sent to my GitHub Sponsors.
I continued to share results from these projects, here and on other social media platforms
🧵
🧵mike-honey.github.io/sponsors/GitHu…

Here's the latest variant picture for the "Global - Other" countries, to early July.

The NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" variant remained dominant, but fell to finish at 42%.

XFG.* "Stratus" grew strongly to 40%.

#COVID19 #GlobalOther #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #XFG #Stratus
🧵 This perspective excludes all the high-volume countries and regions that I routinely report on: Australia, NZ, Europe, Canada and the US. The remaining countries are aggregated into this report.
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Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to early July.

The XFG.* "Stratus" variant continued it’s dominance, growing to 58% frequency.

NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" was fairly flat, finishing at 14%.

#COVID19 #USA #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus
🧵 Here are the leading US states reporting XFG.* "Stratus". New York state reported strong growth to 78%.
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Here's the latest variant picture for the "Global - Other" countries, to late June.

The NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" variant was fairly steady, finishing at 49%.

XFG.* "Stratus" grew strongly to 30%.

#COVID19 #GlobalOther #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #XFG #Stratus
🧵 The volatility is due to the ragged timing of submissions from various countries.

This perspective excludes all the high-volume countries and regions that I routinely report on: Australia, NZ, Europe, Canada and the US. The remaining countries are aggregated into this report.
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Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to late June.

The XFG.* "Stratus" variant grew to dominant at 40%, with LP.8.1.* at 28%.

Growth of the NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" variant is slower, at 16%.

#COVID19 #USA #XFG #Stratus #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus
🧵 For the US, the XFG.* "Stratus" variant shows a strong growth advantage of 5% per day (35% per week) over LP.8.1.*, with a crossover in mid-June.
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Here's the latest variant picture with a global scope, to late June.

The NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" and XFG.* "Stratus" variants are battling for dominance in an unclear picture.

XFG.* "Stratus" looks to have the best growth rate.

#COVID19 #Global #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #XFG #Stratus
🧵 Here are the trends across all the International Traveller samples. From that perspective, XFG.* "Stratus" is dominant at 48%.

This dataset (mostly arrivals in the US and Japan) is arguably more random, as it is not skewed by sequencing volumes.
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Here's the latest variant picture for the "Global - Other" countries, to mid-June.

The NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" variant was steady at 51%.

XFG.* "Stratus" grew to 21%.

#COVID19 #GlobalOther #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #XFG #Stratus
🧵 The volatility is due to the ragged timing of submissions from various countries.

This perspective excludes all the high-volume countries and regions that I routinely report on: Australia, NZ, Europe, Canada and the US. The remaining countries are aggregated into this report.
🧵

Here's the latest variant picture with a global scope, to late June.

The NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" and XFG.* "Stratus" variants are battling for dominance in an unclear picture. So far they have each been succeeding in different countries.

#COVID19 #Global #Nimbus #Stratus
🧵 Here are the trends across all the International Traveller samples. From that perspective, XFG.* "Stratus" is dominant at 45%.

This dataset (mostly arrivals in the US and Japan) is arguably more random, as it is not skewed by sequencing volumes.
🧵

Here's the latest variant picture for the "Global - Other" countries, to early June.

The NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" variant grew again to 53%.

XFG.* "Stratus" fell to 17%.

#COVID19 #GlobalOther #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #XFG #Stratus
🧵 The volatility is due to the ragged timing of submissions from various countries.

This perspective excludes all the high-volume countries and regions that I routinely report on: Australia, NZ, Europe, Canada and the US. The remaining countries are aggregated into this report.
🧵