More than 700 cases of mutant BQ.1 variant have been detected across the UK with 18 cases of the XBB variant, a report said. Both XBB and BQ.1 are immune evasive and may even be immune to vaccines, The Independent reported.
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Descendants of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, XBB and BQ.1 subvariants could lead to a fresh Covid wave across Europe by the end of November, experts told The Independent.
UK's health agency has said that studies are ongoing on the new variants and the situation is being assessed closely.
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“The trends we’re seeing at the moment are very different from what’s happened in the past,” computational biologist Cornelius Roemer told The Independent.
“Omicron was maybe the first variant that was good at evading immunity and that’s why it caused such a large wave. Now for the first time, we see many lineages, many variants emerging parallel that all have very similar mutations and that all manage to still evade immunity pretty well,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}“Omicron was maybe the first variant that was good at evading immunity and that’s why it caused such a large wave. Now for the first time, we see many lineages, many variants emerging parallel that all have very similar mutations and that all manage to still evade immunity pretty well,” he added.
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Virologist professor Lawrence Young had said last month that the subvariants are showing signs of being able to escape immunity.
“The biggest concern we’re seeing is that in early data these variants are starting to cause a slight increase in infections. In a way, this was to be expected but it does demonstrate that we’re not out of the woods yet at all with this virus, sadly,” Professor Young had said.