According to experts, JN.1 does not seem to cause severe illness in most people, but even a mild case can make you feel unwell for a few days. Symptoms of a JN.1 infection are similar to those caused by previous Covid variants, including cough, fever, body aches, and fatigue.
To protect against severe infection and illness, experts continue to recommend wearing masks, improving indoor ventilation, staying home if sick, and getting the latest Covid vaccine.
Preliminary research shows that the updated COVID-19 vaccines released in September produce effective antibodies against JN.1, a variant related to the XBB.1.5 variant for which the vaccines were designed. While people may not build up as many antibodies against JN.1 as they do for XBB.1.5, the levels should still reduce the risk.
“Among those who have recently been infected or received a booster dose, cross-protection against JN.1 should be quite decent, our laboratory studies show,” said David Ho, a virologist at Columbia University who led the research on JN.1 and Covid vaccines, which was published as a preprint article in early December. Rapid testing also remains a valuable tool, and the CDC says tests already on the market work well at detecting the JN.1 variant.
There are signs that COVID-19 cases are on the rise once again. The week of Dec. 10, there were just under 26,000 coronavirus-related hospitalizations, a 10 percent increase from nearly 23,000 the previous week. But Covid hospitalization numbers are still much lower than during the height of the first Omicron wave in January 2022 and, so far, are only half of what they were during the peak of the ‘tripledemic’ last winter, when cases of COVID-19, influenza, and RSV emerged at the same time.
