Over the nearly five years since COVID first emerged, you’d be forgiven if you’ve lost track of the number of new variants we’ve seen. Some have had a bigger impact than others, but virologists have documented thousands. The latest variant to make headlines is called XEC .
This omicron subvariant has been reported predominantly in the northern hemisphere, but it has now been detected in Australia too. So what do we know about XEC? Is COVID still a thing? People are now testing for COVID less and reporting it less. Enthusiasm to track the virus is generally waning.
Nonetheless, Australia is still collecting and reporting COVID data . Although the number of cases is likely to be much higher than the number documented (around 275,000 so far this year ), we can still get some idea of when we’re seeing significant waves, compared to periods of lower activity. Australia saw its last COVID peak in June 2024 .
Since then cases have been on the decline. But SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, is definitely still around. Which variants are circulating now? The main COVID variants circulating currently around the world include BA.
2.86, JN.1, KP.
2, KP.3 and XEC. These are all descendants of omicron.
The XEC variant was first detected in Italy in May 2024. The World Health Organization (WHO) designated it as a variant “ under monitoring ” in September. Since its detection, XEC has spread to more than 27 countries across Europe, North America and Asia.
As of mid-September,.