{"id":7774,"date":"2024-10-02T08:34:32","date_gmt":"2024-10-02T13:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=7774"},"modified":"2024-10-02T08:34:36","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T13:34:36","slug":"3-things-to-know-about-xec-the-latest-covid-strain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/10\/02\/3-things-to-know-about-xec-the-latest-covid-strain\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Things to Know About XEC, the Latest COVID Strain"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yalemedicine.org\/news\/3-things-to-know-about-xec-the-latest-covid-strain\">Yale Medicine<\/a> Experts think this new, highly transmissible variant could soon take hold in the U.S. A new highly transmissible coronavirus subvariant is starting to spread in the United States. Experts say it could become the dominant SARS-CoV-2 strain just in time for winter, when&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yalemedicine.org\/conditions\/covid-19\">COVID-19<\/a>&nbsp;infections and hospitalizations tend to peak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The variant is called XEC. It\u2019s a subvariant of the SARS-CoV-2&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yalemedicine.org\/news\/5-things-to-know-omicron\">Omicron&nbsp;<\/a>strain, which has spawned multiple descendants since it surfaced in the U.S. in 2021. XEC first appeared in Germany in June 2024 before spreading rapidly throughout other parts of Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The good news is that so far there is no evidence that XEC causes different symptoms or more severe disease than other recent strains\u2014although a COVID infection is always a concern for certain people, including those who are older or immunocompromised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So far, XEC is responsible for 5.7% of COVID infections in the U.S.\u2014making it the fifth most prevalent strain here, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/covid.cdc.gov\/covid-data-tracker\/#variant-proportions\">estimate<\/a>&nbsp;at the end of September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOne reason for the concern is that XEC has moved quickly enough to outpace the growth of all other SARS-CoV-2 variants in a few areas in Europe,\u201d says&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yalemedicine.org\/specialists\/scott-c-roberts\">Scott Roberts, MD<\/a>, a Yale Medicine infectious diseases specialist. \u201cThe rate of infections from XEC they&#8217;re seeing in some countries rose pretty quickly compared to previous variants in those same places.\u201d By the end of September, XEC had been detected in at least 25 states in the U.S., he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The XEC COVID strain is also rising at a time when people are starting to get the updated\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yalemedicine.org\/news\/updated-2024-2025-covid-vaccines\">2024-2025 COVID vaccines<\/a>\u00a0that became available in the U.S. in August. Dr. Roberts is encouraging everyone ages 6 months and older to get vaccinated with the updated shot for protection against the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yalemedicine.org\/news\/3-things-to-know-about-xec-the-latest-covid-strain\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\"nfb pWWzfuA L \">nfb pWWzfuA L <\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yale Medicine Experts think this new, highly transmissible variant could soon take hold in the U.S. A new highly transmissible coronavirus subvariant is starting to spread in the United States. Experts say it could become the dominant SARS-CoV-2 strain just in time for winter, when&nbsp;COVID-19&nbsp;infections and hospitalizations tend to peak. The variant is called XEC. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7774","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=7774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7775,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7774\/revisions\/7775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}