To learn how to create a Sankey diagram of variants circulating in your area, please read this guide ( https://mstdn.science/@jeffgilchrist/111737354908492086 ).

To learn how to see what variants are circulating in your area, please read this guide ( https://mstdn.science/@jeffgilchrist/110203494274348811 ). 8/

You can find weekly Ontario stats including variants at ( https://covid.gilchrist.ca/Ontario.html ).

The visualization tool for variants was created by @mike_honey_ and the source of this data can be found at ( https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNzE5YzczODItMDQzMS00M2EzLWFjNWYtMjg3OTY3NTNhZDM3IiwidCI6ImRjMWYwNGY1LWMxZTUtNDQyOS1hODEyLTU3OTNiZTQ1YmY5ZCIsImMiOjEwfQ%3D%3D ). 7/

@mike_honey_ is now automatically generating new variant reports when he updates his data for various locations so it is easy to just click on a link and get the latest PDF version of the report instead of having to navigate through his tool.

You can get the latest Ontario variant report here ( https://mike-honey.github.io/covid-19-genomes/output/Coronavirus%20-%20Genomic%20Sequencing%20-%20report%20Canada%20Ontario.pdf ).

You can get the latest Canada variant report here ( https://mike-honey.github.io/covid-19-genomes/output/Coronavirus%20-%20Genomic%20Sequencing%20-%20report%20Canada.pdf ). 6/

You can learn more about variant naming and mutations from this document ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q0g-fm2_2bt3Yduk59XNUwl8MQtHffn9nNB4CGJRk5M/edit?usp=sharing ).

It will be very interesting to see how Novavax LP.8.1 compares to Novavax JN.1 against the current XFG Stratus family considering LP.8.1.2 recombined with LF.7 to form XFG. 5/

The # of mutations alone can't tell you how different a variant will behave, sometimes just 1 key mutation can make the difference getting past current immune protections in a person who was vaccinated or infected with previous variants.

The X in XFG immediately signifies that it is a recombinant variant which means parts of two different variants combined with each other, in this case LF.7 and LP.8.1.2 which is why it has some mutations in common with the LP.8.1 variant. 4/

How different is LP.8.1 compared to the current XFG.5 variant circulating in Ontario?

You can see from the Venn diagram that LP.8.1 has 4 different amino acid mutations that aren't in the XFG.5 or JN.1 spike protein, and XFG.5 has 6 amino acid mutations not present in the other two ( https://cov-spectrum.org/explore/World/AllSamples/AllTimes/variants?nextcladePangoLineage=JN.1&nextcladePangoLineage1=LP.8.1&nextcladePangoLineage2=XFG.5&analysisMode=CompareEquals& ). LP.8.1 and XFG.5 have 5 amino acid mutations that are common between them in the spike protein so would be present in the fall 2025 LP.8.1 mRNA & Novavax Japan vaccine formulas. 3/

LP.8.1 is what this fall's Japan Novavax vaccine and the mRNA vaccines are designed for which is now almost gone and typical of how these things work with vaccine manufacturing timing while Novavax is providing the previous year's JN.1 vaccine formula for the USA again.

LP.8.1 is a descendant of JN.1 from several years ago which became KP.1 before it became LP.8 as seen in the Sankey diagram. Last year's mRNA vaccines were based on KP.2 which was a different branch of variants. 2/