Explained: The new XEC Covid-19 variant - and why a summer wave is likely

Another Covid-19 wave is likely this summer, a modeller says, as a new mutant coronavirus variant emerges overseas. Experts tell Jamie Morton what Kiwis need to know. What’s Covid-19 doing in New Zealand right now? Several months on from New Zealand’s last bump in Covid-19 cases , the Institute of Environmental Science and Research’s (ESR) wastewater and case surveillance suggests coronavirus activity is at its lowest in years.

The dominant variant since the middle of the year has been KP.3 - an Omicron offshoot that descended from the lineage JN.1, which fuelled our last summer wave .

More recently, ESR’s genomics and bioinformatics science leader Dr David Winter said, that’s branched off into another subvariant named KP.3.1.

1, which has slowly been taking over..