Pandemic: Lauterbach worried about coronavirus variant XBB.1.5
Pandemic
Lauterbach worried about coronavirus variant XBB.1.5
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) photo
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
The variant discovered in October is more easily transferrable than any of the previously known variants, the WHO also warns.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) is concerned about the new Coronavirus-Variant XBB.1.5. “Hopefully we can get through the winter before such a variant can spread to us,” he wrote on Twitter that night.
“We monitor whether and how strong XBB.1.5 occurs in Germany.” The new variant leave in the north-east of the United States the number of hospital admissions is increasing. At the beginning of the year, the US health authority CDC estimated that XBB.1.5 accounted for around 40.5 percent of all new infections in the USA in the week before the turn of the year.
Yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) expressed concern about the new coronavirus variant. The variant discovered in October is as easily transferrable as none of the previously known variants, it said. According to the available gene analyzes of the virus, it is spreading mainly in the USA and Europe and has already been detected in 29 countries. It is a subgroup of the omicron variant that has been circulating since the end of 2021. A risk analysis is in progress and will be published shortly.
