COVID mutant strain XE: A new mutant strain of Omicron has come into the limelight. Global health agency WHO has warned about the ‘XE’ variant of Omicron, which it says is more transmissible than any other variant seen so far during the coronavirus pandemic. In a COVID-19 update issued last week, WHO said that mutant XE was a recombinant of two strains of Omicron – BA.1 and BA.2. What this means is that this hybrid mutant emerged when a patient was infected by both BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron strains. The global health body has also said that the observations regarding this strain are still at a very nascent stage and added that it was continuing to monitor the situation closely.
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While WHO did not unveil much about this mutant strain, it did state that the XE variant had first been detected on January 19 in the UK and since then, over 600 sequences have been reported as well as confirmed. Up until the week before this, the BA.2 strain of Omicron was known to be the fastest in terms of transmission. However, now, WHO has said that the XE mutation has a growth rate about 10% faster than that of BA.2, which would make it the fastest transmitting mutation. To confirm this, though, WHO said more findings are required. For the time being, the global health body has also kept the strain under the Omicron variant category itself until it is able to observe and establish any major differences in terms of transmission, severity or any other characteristics between XE and Omicron.
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The development has come at a time when the world is just on the cusp of removing special restrictions necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic. The third wave of the pandemic, triggered by Omicron between December 2021 and February 2022, saw many more cases, but much less severity in cases that were reported. In most of the confirmed cases of Omicron, people were largely only suffering from common cold, cough and fever, a drastic change from the Delta wave a few months prior, in which not only were the symptoms more severe, but many fatalities were also reported.
Noting this massive decline in severity, health authorities and governments all over the world have been slowly resuming international travel and removing stringent COVID-19 protocols. This marked the beginning of the world’s return to normal as we knew it. In India, as well, a total of five states and UTs, including Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra, Telangana and West Bengal, have removed the mask mandate in public places, indicating a slow but sure move towards pre-COVID times.
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However, now that a new mutation has emerged which has the potential of spreading faster than any of the variants seen so far, the world is again at a risk of all the progress made towards re-establishing the normal coming undone. Since the new mutation is, for now, seemingly similar to Omicron, there is a chance that it might not be severe enough to lead to a lot of fatalities. Still, if it spreads fast, the authorities might be left with little option but to close their doors to other nations and reinstate COVID-appropriate behaviour to prevent any untoward consequences due to a new wave, if any.
