A fresh sub-variant of COVID-19 called XBB dramatically revealed itself earlier this week in Singapore. New COVID-19 cases were reported to doubled in a day and XBB is almost clearly the reason why. The identical sub-variant just emerged in Hong Kong, also.
A highly contagious offspring of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused a record wave of infections starting around a year ago, XBB is in many ways the most destructive form of the virus yet. It’s more transmissible than any previous variant or sub-variant. It also evades the antibodies from monoclonal therapies, potentially causing a whole category of drugs ineffective as COVID treatments.
That’s the alarming news. The promising news is that the new bivalent vaccine boosters from Pfizer and Moderna appear to work just fine against XBB, even though the original vaccines are less effectual against XBB. They won’t stop infections and reinfections, but they should significantly decrease the chance of extreme condition potentially ushering to hospitalization and death.
As the novel-coronavirus develops to become more infectious and more immune to certain types of drugs, maintaining current on your boosters is the most effective thing you can do in practice for what might arrive.
Some professionals foresee a ripple of infections that will swell this month and rise in late December or early January. With testing at all-time lows, it’s generally accepted that cases numbers reported to the agency aren’t accurate.
Have yourself check if you have any flu-like symptoms before traveling. Book your PCR and Antigen test on www.PCRTest.sc to get an online discount of up to 20%.
