The COVID variants circulating right now are not significantly more dangerous than the strains from the past year or two. All dominant lineages in the U.S. trace back to the Omicron JN.1 branch, and the 2024–2025 season was the first since the pandemic began without a major strain replacement. That said, COVID still caused an estimated 290,000 to 450,000 hospitalizations and 34,000 to 53,000 deaths in the U.S. between October 2024 and July 2025. The virus remains a serious threat for older adults and certain vulnerable groups, even if it’s no longer producing the dramatic surges of earlier years.
Which Variants Are Spreading Now
As of spring 2026, the XFG family of variants dominates in the United States. XFG.1.1 alone accounts for about 32% of sequenced cases, with the parent XFG lineage and several of its offshoots (XFG.14.1, XFG.6, XFG.2.5.1) making up another roughly 20% combined. Other lineages like PQ.17, NB.1.8.1, and newer recombinants XFY and XFZ each hold single-digit shares. The landscape is fragmented, with no single variant running away from the pack the way Delta or early Omicron once did.
All of these variants are descendants of the JN.1 lineage, which itself came from Omicron. The mutations that give newer variants their edge tend to be small, incremental changes to the spike protein that help the virus dodge antibodies slightly better. For example, KP.3.1.1 gained dominance in late 2024 with just a single deletion compared to its parent. XEC, a recombinant that spread through Europe and North America, carried only two additional spike mutations. Lab studies found that while these variants infected cells somewhat more efficiently than earlier JN.1, the differences among them were not statistically significant.
Severity Compared to Earlier Waves
The pattern that started with Omicron continues: widespread infection, but lower per-case severity than Delta or the original strain. The estimated 34,000 to 53,000 deaths over the 2024–2025 season are still substantial, but the vast majority of infections resolve without hospitalization. Among recorded COVID deaths during this period, 88.4% were in adults 65 and older. Only 0.5% were in children and adolescents under 18, and 10.8% were among working-age adults 18 to 64.
Hospitalization rates tell a clearer story about who faces real danger. Adults 75 and older were hospitalized at a rate of roughly 933 per 100,000 people. That’s more than three times the rate for adults 65 to 74 (274 per 100,000) and nearly nine times the rate for those 50 to 64 (105 per 100,000). Infants under 6 months also had notably high hospitalization rates (around 244 to 286 per 100,000, depending on the surveillance network), making them the most vulnerable pediatric group by a wide margin.
Symptoms You Can Expect
The symptom profile hasn’t changed dramatically. The CDC lists fever or chills, cough, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, fatigue, muscle aches, and headache as the most common symptoms. Shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and loss of taste or smell remain possible but seem less prominent than in earlier waves. For most people, current variants feel like a bad cold or flu that lasts several days to a week.
How Well Vaccines and Treatments Work
The 2024–2025 updated COVID vaccine provides moderate protection, particularly against the worst outcomes. Among all adults 18 and older, effectiveness against emergency department or urgent care visits was 33% in the first four months after vaccination. Protection against hospitalization was stronger for the group that needs it most: 45% to 46% for adults 65 and older without immune-compromising conditions, and 40% for those with weakened immune systems. These numbers are far from the 90%-plus effectiveness of the original vaccines against the original virus, but they still meaningfully reduce your risk of ending up in the hospital.
Current antiviral treatments remain effective against circulating variants, though researchers are tracking signs of emerging resistance. Lab testing of a newer antiviral compound showed it worked against strains that had developed resistance to existing treatments, which suggests the therapeutic pipeline is keeping pace with the virus for now.
Long COVID Risk With Current Variants
One of the more reassuring trends is that long COVID appears less common with Omicron-era variants than with earlier strains. A large analysis pooling 35 studies across 19 countries found the overall prevalence of long COVID was about 29%, but this broke down sharply by variant era: 35.5% for pre-Omicron infections versus 22.8% for Omicron infections. The Beta wave carried the highest long COVID risk at nearly 60%.
The nature of long COVID symptoms has also shifted. Pre-Omicron infections were more closely tied to shortness of breath and loss of smell, while Omicron-era long COVID is more associated with brain fog and unusual nerve sensations like tingling or numbness. The timeline is consistent regardless of variant: roughly 27% of people reported lingering symptoms before the six-month mark, and about 30% still reported them after six months, suggesting that for those who develop long COVID, it tends to persist.
Who Should Be Most Concerned
If you’re under 65, in reasonable health, and have some immune history through vaccination or prior infection, the current variants pose a relatively low risk of severe illness. That’s not zero risk, but the odds of hospitalization or death are small.
The calculus is different for adults over 75, who face hospitalization rates roughly nine times higher than middle-aged adults. It’s also different for infants under 6 months, who can’t yet be vaccinated and are hospitalized at rates comparable to elderly adults. People with weakened immune systems face both higher infection risk and somewhat lower vaccine protection (40% versus 45–46% against hospitalization). For these groups, staying current on vaccination and having a plan for early antiviral treatment remain the most practical ways to reduce danger from whatever variant happens to be circulating.