New Covid variant has been identified and is already spreading in 25 states [View all]

Source: The Independent

Tuesday 24 March 2026 13:31 EDT


A new Covid variant is spreading across the U.S. and it may be able to evade protection from current vaccines.

The variant, known as BA.3.2, has been detected in nasal swabs taken from four American travelers and clinical samples from five patients in four unidentified states. It’s also been found in three airplane wastewater samples and 132 wastewater samples taken in more than 20 states, suggesting that its reach is actually far more widespread than what scientists see right now.

Descended from omicron, BA.3.2 was first detected in South Africa in 2024 and in the U.S. in June 2025 in a traveler from the Netherlands. The variant began really surging in September 2025 and has since been reported in 23 countries.

Its evolution was similar to the variant BA.2.86, which emerged in 2024 and later evolved into JN.1: the dominant Covid variant in 2024.But the new strain is “genetically distinct from the JN.1 lineages that have circulated in the United States since January 2024,” researchers warned in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/health/covid-variant-us-travelers-wastewater-b2944619.html