More than one new sublineage of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was identified after the retirement of top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, contrary to claims being shared online that no new variants have been discovered since his departure.
Examples of the claim can be seen (here) and (here) with the text, “Anyone else find it odd we just stopped having new variants all the sudden?”
A screenshot in one post (here) reads in part, “Seems like all the variants dried up when Fraudci retired.”
Comments on the posts include, “Well it’s because we are now generating a new pandemic,” The presidential election variant coming soon…” and “Fauci said there will definitely be another outbreak of something coming smh! How is he still able to push this BS!”
Fauci announced on Aug. 22, 2022, (here) that he would step down as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation and as chief medical adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden. He officially left the positions at the end of December 2022 (here).
Reuters reported on Jan. 5, 2023, (here) that the Omicron sublineage XBB.1.5, the most transmissible one to date, was already spreading rapidly in the U.S. in December 2022.
As of mid-April 2023, XBB.1.5 made up more than 88% of virus genome samples in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracking
