Will The New COVID XEC Variant Cause Death in Europe ?

 Scientists have warned that a “more contagious” variant of the Covid virus, dubbed XEC, is spreading more rapidly across Europe and could soon become the dominant strain.

“At this juncture, the XEC variant appears to be the most likely one to get legs next,” Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, said in a post on X on Sunday.

Researchers predicted in August that this variant could take a few weeks to a couple of months to take off and spread more rapidly.

“XEC is definitely taking charge,” Dr Topol said.

XEC, a sublineage of the omicron variant, was first reported in Berlin, Germany, in June and is now spreading “quite rapidly” across Europe, North America and Asia, according to Covid data analyst Mike Honey.