Expert: XBB strain may hold sway
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The CDC recently released data showing that it estimates that 40.5% of new coronavirus infections in the United States that week were caused by the highly infectious Omicron subtype strain XBB.1.5. Scientists say XBB.1.5 has rapidly replaced BQ.1.1 and BQ.1 as the number one prevalent strain in the United States due to its high “immune escape” ability. Now that the XBB strain has been discovered in China, is it possible that it will have a dominant position in subsequent transmission?
Liu Feng, a researcher at Ruijin Hospital and the National Center for Translational Medicine, affiliated with Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, said that since Shanghai is one of the cities with the most domestic and international exchanges, the current situation in Shanghai can somehow roughly reflect a nationwide situation. That is, there will be several strains and epidemics in the short term, and there will also be a situation where some foreign strains are gradually introduced into the country. Some foreign epidemiological findings show that there are some new strains like XBB.1.5 or BQ.1.1, which are relatively new and seem to be more infectious. So they may become the dominant strains for some time after they enter the country. But this possibility needs to be followed and judged by our regular genomic analysis.
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