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.

A new covid-19 variant called XEC may spread more easily than past variants, but current vaccines are still effective against it

A new COVID variant, XEC, has arrived just before fall. The new variant has sprouted from the Omicron variant that developed in late 2021. Though XEC is new, Prof 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.