New family of COVID-19 nicknamed FLiRT cases is increasing across Australia as the weather gets colder.
Due to FLiRT cases and hospitalisations across the country are rising every time.
Between April 1 and April 30, 20,699 cases have reported across Australia, according to the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS).
For this month, the numbers increased of 4,724 to become 25,423 cases in May and still have days to go.
In 28 days until May 5, 2024, World Health Organization had reported 63 COVID deaths across Australia.
The rise of COVID-19 cases is due to the capability of the virus to continue evolving.
“What we have seen many times before and also at the moment is when the virus changes significantly, as is the case with the FLiRT mutation, protection from past infection and vaccination doesn’t work so well,” an infectious disease physician and clinical microbiologist at the University of Queensland, Paul Griffin said.
FLiRT is made of several similar subvariants called KP.1 and KP.2 and it is similar to JN.1.
Its common symptoms include; Fever or chills, cough, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, congestion nausea, and diarrhoea.
Since the start of the pandemic, people are urged to drink plenty of water and taking lots of rest, keep up to date with vaccinations, try to minimise the spread where possible, and get access to antivirals.