RNS: XBB1.5 strain of coronavirus, which has been responsible for the recent spike in cases in the United States, was reportedly found in India on Friday.
JP Weiland was the first to notice XBB.1.5 a few weeks ago. It is the sublineage of the Omicron subvariant.
According to Weiland, “XBB.1.5 appears faster and more sustained than any of the variants since Omicron’s first wave [BA.1] in January of last year.”
“XBB.1.5 does not have a higher level of immune evasion than XBB, but it does have a higher level of transmissibility,” said Yunlong Cao, a biochemist at Peking University.
Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, told Reuters that “any time a new variant moves to a different geographic area, it does run the risk of sort of spawning a mini-outbreak in that area.” “Any time a new variant moves to a different geographic area,” he said.
“However, the XBB subvariant is not likely to create the kind of enormous surges that were seen in the original Omicron variant during the winter of last year,” added Pekosz.
