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The World Health Organization has its eye on a new COVID variant thought to be driving a new surge of cases in India—at a time when reported cases are down in much of the rest of the world. XBB.1.16, dubbed “Arcturus” by variant trackers, is very similar to U.S. dominant “Kraken” XBB.1.5—the most transmissible COVID variant yet, Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 technical lead for the WHO, said earlier this week at a news conference. But additional mutations in the virus’s spike protein, which attaches to and infects human cells, has the potential to make the variant more infectious and even cause more severe disease. For this reason, and due to rising cases in the East, XBB.1.16 is considered “one to watch,” Van Kerkhove says. (Prater, 3/31)

At a Mar 29 press briefing, Maria Van Kerkhove, PhD, the WHO's technical lead for COVID-19, said XBB.1.16 has a similar profile to XBB.1.5 but has an additional changes in the spike protein. She said XBB.1.16 has replaced other circulating subvariants in India. So far, there are about 800 sequences from 22 countries, mostly from India. Van Kerkhove said in lab studies, XBB.1.16 has shown signs of increased infectivity as well as potentially increased pathogenicity. "So this is one to watch. It's been in circulation for a few months," she said. "We haven't seen a change in severity in individuals or in populations, but that's why we have these systems in place." (Schnirring, 3/31)

California officials boast that the state’s extended pandemic lockdowns and health mandates saved tens of thousands of lives from COVID-19, compared to states like Florida that reopened early. But a major study of all U.S. states’ pandemic performance found that while masks and social distancing drove down infection rates, they didn’t influence death rates, which were driven more by population age, health, poverty, race, education, health care access, vaccination and public trust. (Woolfolk, 4/2)

The coordinator of the Biden administration’s Covid-19 response team called on doctors to take a leadership role with patients to battle medical misinformation and disinformation, linking the continuing death toll in part to such erroneous messaging. Speaking to an audience of physicians at a conference near Boston Friday, Ashish Jha reminded them they are skilled at dealing with uncertainty, just as when they explain to a patient they don’t know whether what a medical scan shows will be terrible or not, but that they will guide them through it. The uncertainty of the pandemic is no different, he said, but since people have so many different sources of information to consult now, doctors need to step up. (Cooney, 4/2)

Beginning Monday, California will no longer require masks for COVID-19 prevention in health care settings — leaving isolation for those who test positive as the last vestige of the state’s formerly mandatory COVID rules. (Echeverria, 4/2)

A numbing procedure usually used to treat pain and post-traumatic stress disorder is being tested as a way to restore smell and taste in people with long Covid. (Edwards and Dahlgren, 3/31)

Researchers who compared rates of long COVID symptoms in young people with and without a history of mild SARS-CoV-2 infection found prevalence was equally high in the control group, suggesting contributions of other factors. Researchers from Norway using a prospective cohort study design examined patients ages 12 to 25 from two counties who were enrolled between Dec 24, 2020 and May 18, 2021, a time when the Alpha variant was circulating. They included 404 people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and 105 who tested negative. The team published its findings yesterday in JAMA Network Open. (Schnirring, 3/31)