Even as the highly contagious Omicron subvariant BA.2 is increasingly dominating California and the U.S., an even more potentially contagious subvariant, XE, has attracted the attention of global scientists. There have not been significant numbers of the XE subvariant in countries outside of Britain, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Tuesday. XE likely developed from someone who was co-infected with BA.2 and the earlier Omicron subvariant, BA.1, Chin-Hong said. It’s also possible XE could fizzle out, such as the so-called “Deltacron” subvariants — mishmashes of the Delta and Omicron variants — that gained attention last month but faded from the public view. “There is still too little data to draw conclusions about growth advantage or other properties of this variant,” Ferrer said.

Source: Los Angeles Times April 07, 2022 21:01 UTC