September 19, 2024 – A brand new one COVID-19 The variant called XEC is on the rise and there are experts tracking variants on alert.
Every time a brand new variant makes its way onto the tracking lists, health authorities take notice because it could mean there's a very important change within the behavior of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID.
Countries reporting increasing detections of XEC include Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, in keeping with Australian data scientist Mike Honey posted on Platform X last week.
According to CBS News, XEC's “signature mutations” have been discovered in not less than 25 states reportedwith labs in New Jersey, California and Virginia each reporting 10 or more cases. The New Jersey discoveries are not less than partly resulting from the CDC's testing program for international travelers at Newark Liberty International Airport.
Nevertheless, XEC has not gained enough traction in Europe, the United States, or another a part of the world to be listed as a standalone variant on official U.S. watch lists CDC, European Unionor World Health Organization.
However, Eric Topol, MD, executive vp of Scripps Research and editor-in-chief of Medscape, WebMD's sister site for physicians, believes that XEC is the following variant “to gain traction.”
The speed at which a brand new variant emerges doesn't all the time predict how severe it should be. This time last 12 months, health officials sounded the alarm about one other Omicron variant called BA.2.86, dubbed Pirola, that ultimately didn't make much waves.
“CDC is not aware of any specific symptoms associated with XEC or any other co-circulating SARS-CoV-2 lineage,” a CDC spokesperson said in a press release to CBS News.
The variant currently prevalent within the U.S. is named KP.3.1.1 and is estimated to account for 53% of U.S. COVID cases. Its parent lines are KP.2 and KP.3 and all belong to the Omicron family. The SARS-CoV-2 virus mutates over time, and scientists use the names and labels to discover groups of viral variants based on their similarities and the strains from which a mutated offspring comes.
KP.3.1.1 has been the predominant COVID variant since early August, when it topped the list at 19%, narrowly surpassing its parent variant KP.3. As the country enters respiratory illness season, which also typically sees increases in flu and RSV, the CDC said in its report Outlook for the 2024-2025 respiratory disease season Publication that officials don't expect any unusually serious impacts from the three major viruses.
“CDC projects that the upcoming fall and winter respiratory disease seasons will likely have a similar or lower number of combined peak hospitalizations due to COVID-19, influenza and RSV compared to last season,” the report said.
COVID levels within the U.S. remain high, in keeping with wastewater findings, a decline from the CDC's “very high” rating at the beginning of the summer. About 15% of COVID tests reported to the CDC are positive, and that rate is trending downward, as are COVID-related emergency room visits and hospitalizations.