Finance
India has reported its first case of Omicron variant ‘XXB.1.5,’ which has been linked to an increase in coronavirus cases in New York. According to ET, the first case of XXB.1.5 has been confirmed in Gujarat.
Omicron XBB is now responsible for more than 40% of Covid-19 cases in the United States.
1.5, according to previously unreleased data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The information was shared on Twitter by epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding.
The new variant, according to Eric Feigl-Ding, is more immune evasive and more capable of infecting than BQ and XBB. According to him, multiple models show that the XXB15 variant has a much lower transmission R value and infection rate than previous variants.
“Ironically, probably the worst variant that the world is facing right now is actually XBB,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, in an interview with Reuters.
According to Reuters, Osterholm added that seven of the ten U.S. states where cases and hospitalizations are increasing are in the Northeast, which is also experiencing an increase in XBB cases.
For the week ending December 31, recombinants of the BA.2 variant, XBB and XBB.1.5 accounted for 44.1% of all cases in the country. According to Reuters, XBB.1.5 accounted for 21.7% of all cases in the week ending December 24.
Cases of the XBB variant have been increasing in parts of Asia, including Singapore. It accounted for 3.6% of all cases in the United States this week, down from 4.2% the previous week. This week, the agency began reporting data for the two subvariants separately.
Source:Mint
