New COVID variant JN.1 surges to 44% of cases, CDC estimates — even higher in New York, New Jersey

The new COVID-19 variant that scientists call JN.1 now makes up about 44.1% of COVID-19 cases across the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Friday, marking another week of the fast-spreading variant's steep rise in the U.S.

The increase is more than two times larger than the 21.3% that the CDC now estimates the strain made up of infections for the week ending Dec. 9, after Thanksgiving.

Among regions with enough data reported from testing labs to produce these latest projections, the CDC estimates that JN.1's prevalence is largest in the Northeast region spanning New Jersey and New York, where the strain is 56.9% of cases in those states.