A new strain of Covid has been dubbed the Nightmare Variant after it rapidly doubled the number of new infections in a matter of days in countries where it has been detected. The strain, known as XBB, has been found in more than 17 countries in Asia and Europe, with a handful of cases now found in the USA.
The new variant, dubbed Nightmare by some media in Asia because of its rapid spread, appears able to more easily evade protection granted to most people by Covid vaccines and previous infections, but there are no signs it causes more serious illness.
UC Berkeley infectious disease expert John Swartzberg told San Francisco Chronicle : “We are seeing a slew of new variants that are using a similar approach to survive — they are finding ways to evade the way we get immunity from vaccines and previous infection with changes on the spike protein,” he said. “XBB is no different from the others.”
XBB was first found in India in August and has since been found in Bangladesh, Japan, Singapore and at least 13 more countries - including Australia and Denmark.
It has also been found in Hong Kong. Singapore Ministry of Health said XBB went from being responsible for 22% of cases to being responsible for 54% of cases in one week. 79% of people in Singapore are fully vaccinated.
Singapore’s health ministry said there is no evidence that XBB causes more severe illness, although it appears resistant to treatments. Singapore saw the number of new cases of Covid double from 4,719 on 10 October to 11,732 on October 11, according to Johns Hopkins’s Coronavirus Resource Center.
Singapore health minister Ong Ye Kung said the country is likely to see 15,000 daily cases on average by mid-November.
XBB is a mutation on Omicron BA.2. 23 cases of XBB have been detected in the USA,
Natalie Thornburg, CDC lead respiratory virus immunology specialist said: “XBB is a chimera. I think there have been a couple of sequences identified in the United States. But it’s way, way, way, way below that 1% threshold. I mean, it’s really like a handful of sequences.”
