The variant, which first appeared in Berlin in late June, has increasingly seen hundreds of cases in Germany, France, Denmark and Netherlands, according to a report by Australia-based data integration specialist Mike Honey.

The contagious nature of the new XEC COVID-19 variant is drawing attention. It has been found in China, Europe, and the United States. It is a hybrid of Omicron subvariants. Vaccines help prevent serious illness even though they may not offer complete protection against infection,

A new COVID-19 variant, XEC, has arrived just before fall. The new variant has sprouted from the omicron variant that developed in late 2021. Although XEC is new, Francois Balloux, director of the Genetics Institute at University College London, told the BBC that he would be surprised if it became the dominant variant throughout winter.