Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yacolp.co.j

That's Y-A-K-U-L-T-C-O-J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

Hi, and welcome to COVID quickly, a scientific American podcast series.

This is your fast track update on the COVID pandemic. We bring you up to speed on the science behind the most urgent questions about the virus and the disease. We demystify the research

and help you understand what it

really means. I'm Tanya Lewis. I'm Josh Fishman. And we're scientific American senior health

editors. Today we're going to discuss the new alphabet soup of variants and sub-variants likely to

be around this winter. And we'll talk about ways that boosters add protection, even if

you've already had COVID. We're heading into another pandemic winter. Although no completely new

variant of the COVID virus has emerged yet, there are several new Omicron sub-variants. And you call them

Halloween scarians, Tanya. What do we know about them so

far? That's right. Well, the Omicron variant first appeared last fall, and for the last year,

COVID cases have mostly been driven by different versions of Omicron. First, there was B1.1.529,

then there was BA1, BA2, and BA3, then BA4 and BA5. Now there are some new kids on the block.

There's BA4.6, which descended from BA4 and makes up about 12% of COVID cases in the U.S.

And there's BQ1 and BQ1. Which together make up more than 11% of cases, according to the CDC's

variant tracker. And these proportions are steadily growing. Meanwhile, in Singapore, a sub-variant called

XBB has been driving a surge in cases, and maybe the most immune invasive variant we've seen yet.

So at least four newbies. How worried should we be? Anthony Fauci, Biden's chief medical advisor,

...