{"id":2132,"date":"2023-01-10T11:22:48","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T17:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=2132"},"modified":"2023-01-10T11:22:50","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T17:22:50","slug":"why-covids-xbb-1-5-kraken-variant-is-so-contagious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/01\/10\/why-covids-xbb-1-5-kraken-variant-is-so-contagious\/","title":{"rendered":"Why COVID\u2019s XBB.1.5 \u2018Kraken\u2019 Variant Is So Contagious"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/why-covids-xbb-1-5-kraken-variant-is-so-contagious\/\">Scientific American<\/a>) A new variant of the virus that causes COVID has mutations that make it more transmissible, but vaccines are still likely to protect against severe disease.  A new, rapidly spreading variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, means a rise in new infections could be around the corner. And while it likely won\u2019t skirt immunity completely, the variant could dodge some of our defenses thanks to a mutational boost. XBB.1.5\u2014unofficially nicknamed \u201cKraken\u201d by\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TRyanGregory\/status\/1611778593478017024\" target=\"_blank\">some scientists<\/a>\u00a0online\u2014is an Omicron subvariant that has caught the attention of virologists in recent weeks because of its significant advantage in how fast it spreads.\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/blab\/rt-from-frequency-dynamics\/tree\/master\/results\/pango-countries\" target=\"_blank\">Research<\/a>\u00a0by computational virologist Trevor Bedford and his team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle suggests XBB.1.5 currently has a reproduction number of around 1.6, meaning that every person infected by this subvariant will, on average, go on to infect about 1.6 other people.<\/p>\n<!-- <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" title=\" sTHf\"> sTHf<\/a> --><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Scientific American) A new variant of the virus that causes COVID has mutations that make it more transmissible, but vaccines are still likely to protect against severe disease. A new, rapidly spreading variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, means a rise in new infections could be around the corner. And while it likely [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":2133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Screenshot-2023-01-10-at-12.22.24.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2134,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132\/revisions\/2134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}