A new, highly mutated strain of COVID-19 that has popped up in Michigan does not appear to be more dangerous than other strains that are already present, but "it may be more transmissible than the strains that are circulating now, and in that case, it could overtake them," former Food and Drug Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday.
"I've talked to a number of virologists who are usually pretty staid, and they're pretty concerned about this," Gottlieb told CBS News' "Face the Nation." "Right now, it doesn't appear to be spreading widely. Seven strains have been identified and sequenced in five different countries, [including] the U.K., Denmark, Israel, and now in the U.S.
"We don't know whether or not this has been spreading quietly and we just didn't detect it, or it's something that's spreading very quickly."
The strains that have been identified are "genetically very similar," he added, so they are likely to be spreading simultaneously in multiple countries.
There will be more evidence available in upcoming weeks, but Gottlieb said to put matters in perspective, "this new variant is as genetically different from Omicron as Omicron was from the original strain that emerged in Wuhan, so this is a highly mutated variant."
The strain that is causing most infections at this time, however, is not the new strain found in Michigan, Gottlieb said.
"The two strains that are circulating causing most of the infections is what's called EG.5," he said. "People have probably heard about that. It's called the 'Eris' strain. And this other strain is FL. 1.5.1.
They both have a very similar mutation in them called a 456 mutation that allows them to pierce the immunity that we've acquired from prior infections and also from prior vaccination, so people are getting infected with that."
The good news is, though, there are "far fewer infections" now than there were last summer, said Gottlieb.
"We have probably roughly about 600,000 infections a day happening based on the modeling work that's been done looking at wastewater data, and there are about 10,000 people that have been hospitalized in the last week," he said. "To compare that to last year, last year at this point we had 40,000 people hospitalized, and we were running probably about 1.2 million infections a day."
Gottlieb sits on the board of Pfizer, which has said there is a booster shot coming to market soon for the strains that are causing the current illness, and said that the data looks like the new booster, based on BA.1.15, which was the strain that emerged last spring, looks like it will protect against these new variants.
"My guess is these new variants, this infection rate from this wave of infection from EG.5 is going to be coming down by the time the new vaccine is available, which is going to be mid-September," said Gottlieb. "It's going to be some point in mid-September that these will be widely accessible in pharmacies and other health departments, and so people can go out and get them."
He said there are also studies underway to determine if the new vaccine also covers this BA.2.86 variant found in Michigan, and the data on that should be out by the time the new vaccines are available.
Moderna and Novavax, in addition to Pfizer, will have vaccines available.
However, as fall approaches, federal emergency programs have largely stopped, meaning free vaccines will not be widely available as they were before.
"Insurers are going to cover these vaccines in the same way they cover flu vaccines for people who have insurance," said Gottlieb. "For people who are underinsured or uninsured, the administration has a program where people are going to be able to get these for free at pharmacies. That program should be up and running by the time these vaccines become available."
The shots will also be free at federally qualified community health centers and public health departments, starting on day one, he said.
But still, people must continue to "have a lot of humility" about COVID-19, as it's "continuing to surprise us," as it appears that the disease will be like the flu, with new variants merging every year.
Meanwhile, flu vaccines are available now, but Gottlieb said people should wait until at least mid-September to get the shots as there is very little flu circulating at this time.
RSV is another concern, but there are also vaccines available for that as well, said Gottlieb, so "we could protect ourselves from the three prevalent respiratory diseases that circulate each winter: RSV, flu, and now COVID."