evidence: It's still unclear how transmissible BA.2.86 is, though experts said it seems capable of sidestepping vaccine protection to some degree. [...] So far, only a handful of cases of the new variant, BA.2.86, have been identified globally. In addition to one case in Michigan, the variant has also been spotted in Denmark, Israel, and the UK, according to sequences uploaded to GISAID, a global virus database. The World Health Organization labeled BA.2.86 a "variant under monitoring" on Thursday. The designation applies to variants with an unusually large number of mutations that warrant tracking of their global spread.