In the U.S., many new Corona infections are due to the XBB.1.5 variant, which has recently become known. It may be more easily transmissible.
Most recently, China’s massive CoV infection wave caused a worldwide sensation. In the enormous wave of infections in China, 248 million people, or 18 percent of the population, became infected with Corona in the first three weeks of December, according to officially unconfirmed internal estimates.
Subvariants of the Omicron variant continue to circulate the world, and “we see Omicron doing what viruses do: picking up mutations along the way that help it escape immunity triggered by previous infection or vaccination,” said Andrew Pekosz, a microbiologist and immunologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “We haven’t seen any big leaps in the development of Omikron for quite some time, but it’s slowly getting to a stage where we need to continue to monitor it.”
More than 40 percent of Covid 19 cases in the U.S. are now caused by Omicron XBB.1.5, according to unpublished data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding posted the information on his official Twitter handle. The data shows that XBB.1.5 was 108 percent faster than the previous king variant, BQ1. But with more data, XBB.1.5 has accelerated further and is now 120 percent more quickly, he added. Feigl-Ding has dubbed Omicron XBB.1.5 a “super variant” and “next big variant” because of its highly contagious and immune-escaping nature. The XBB15 variant first appeared in the New York region in October. India has also reported its first case of XXB.1.5.
- source: heute.at/picture: pixabay.com
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