Entry of dangerous XBB.1.5 variant of Corona in India

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A new variant of Corona XBB.1.5 has been found in America which is very dangerous as compared to other variants. American health expert of Chinese origin Eric Feigel Ding has said that it spreads the infection 120 times faster than the previous BQ.1 variant. The matter of concern is that the entry of this variant has now been done in India. A case of this variant has also come to light in Gujarat.

Ding has said that XBB.1.5 is a super variant of Corona. Due to this, the rate of hospitalization of people is continuously increasing. Ding has said that a scientist has studied the model of this variant spreading in New York. It specializes in dodging the human immune system faster than all the earlier variants.

Three special things of the new variant revealed in the study

• XBB.1.5 is the ‘super variant’ of Corona. XBB.1.5 is infecting as many people within 17 days as BQ.1 was infecting in 26 days.
• Its R value ie reproduction value is more than BQ.1. The R value shows how many people are getting or can get infected from one person infected with corona
• .
  XBB.1.5 was spreading 108% faster than BQ.1 before Christmas. This speed has increased to 120% after Christmas
• New variant infection cases increased by 40% in December

Health expert Eric has claimed that the CDC did not release the correct figures of the XBB.1.5 variant in the last 2 weeks. He alleged in 17 tweets one after the other that like China, America is also hiding the data of the new variant of Corona.

Ding has shared photos of some figures from the Center for Disease Control of America. According to him, these figures of Corona were not released by the CDC. Eric claimed that the center showed a jump from 1% to 40% in cases linked to the new variant. There has been a 40% increase in the cases of this new corona variant in the US in the month of December.

XBB.1.5 started spreading in October

The expert said that the XBB.1.5 sub-variant originated in America only. Which spreads 96% faster than the XBB variant found in Singapore. According to him, this new corona variant started spreading in New York in October itself.

Health experts have warned that after the new variant, the rate of admission of corona patients to the hospital will not come down quickly. The biggest reason behind this is that the new variant is not like Omicron but it is a special recombination. Which is made up of two corona variants that have already mutated.

XBB.1.5 spreading rapidly in many US cities including New York

In many US cities, the XBB.1.5 variant has started dominating the other variants. An increase in its cases has also been recorded in Connecticut city, New England, USA. There too, the rate of hospitalization has increased due to this.

Health expert gave information on XBB.1.5

Bhaskar has spoken to Professor Ram Shankar Upadhyay of Harvard Medical School regarding the spread of the new variant XBB.1.5 variant of Corona in America. He told that no country can be completely trusted in releasing the data related to Corona. The same thing applies to America as well.

On how deadly the new variant can prove to be, expert Ram Shankar Upadhyay said that all the new strains coming so far are all variants of Omicron. Omicron affects the upper respiratory tract of our body. There is a type of immunity in this part of human which is called mucosomal immunity.

Because of this, when the virus attacks the upper respiratory system, this anti body becomes active immediately. Because of which the virus is not able to create much panic. Although the expert said that if the new sub-variant of Omicron affects the lungs like XBB.1.5 delta, then it will prove fatal.

He said that if the US does not take immediate action to stop XBB.1.5, then the virus will host a large number of people. As is happening in China after the zero covid policy was withdrawn.

Will the vaccine prove effective on the new variant?

Eric has told in response to this question that America’s bivalent BA5 and UK’s bivalent BA1 vaccine can prove to be effective on this. However, it is difficult to predict how effective these two vaccines will be. This is because this variant is made up of several sub-variants of Omicron.

What does a high R value of a variant mean?

The R value is directly related to the rate of increase or decrease in cases. If the R value is increasing then it means that the cases will also increase and if it is decreasing then the cases will also decrease. The R value must be less than 1 for cases to be low. At present, where the R value is high, the cases have also started increasing. A similar trend was observed during the first and second wave as well.

More than 40% of Covid-19 cases in the United States are now caused by Omicron XBB.1.5, the unreleased data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed.https://t.co/mOaJAPCHem

— Mint (@livemint) December 31, 2022