Highly mutated COVID variant ‘Pirola’ JN.1 is spawning. Its descendants are climbing the charts, as the global death toll mounts

The global wave occurs after holiday gatherings, as expected, and comes as JN.1 dominates worldwide, the organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at a Wednesday news conference in Geneva.

Reported COVID hospitalizations increased by 42%, Ghebreyesus said, and ICU admissions by 62% in December, when compared to November.

The numbers are certainly underestimates, he added. That’s because only a quarter of the world’s countries are still providing COVID data to the WHO—less than 50 of 193 nations, most located in Europe and America.

“Although 10,000 deaths a month is far less than the peak of the pandemic, this level of preventable death is not acceptable,” he said. 

‘Pirola’ JN.1 spawn take off

The global trends mirror those in the U.S., where COVID deaths were up 12.5% week-over-week and hospitalizations were up more than 20% as of Dec. 30, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the U.S., too, JN.1 dominates, comprising an estimated 62% of cases as of Jan. 6, according to the latest CDC projections.

The highly mutated variant’s spawn are already climbing the charts, according to Raj Rajnarayanan—assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., and a top COVID variant tracker.

JN.1.4—a “child,” so to speak, of JN.1—was the No. 3 most commonly reported variant in the U.S. on Thursday, comprising 11.5% of sequences, Rajnarayanan told Fortune, citing data from GISAID, an international research organization that tracks changes in COVID and the flu virus.

It’s responsible for 11% of sequences globally, he added.

Other Pirola spawn topping the U.S. variant chart…