Talk of the new Covid variant – known as XEC – is currently rife, with reports emerging that the variant, first detected in Germany in June, is spreading across the United States and the rest of Europe.

XEC, a sublineage of the omicron variant, was first reported in Berlin, Germany, in June and is now spreading “quite rapidly” across Europe, North America and Asia, according to Covid data analyst Mike Honey. Slovenia had high rates of infection with this variant in August as over 10 per cent of Covid case samples from the country contained XEC.

The XEC variant is a hybrid of the earlier omicron subvariants KS.1.1 and KP.3.3, which is currently dominant in Europe. But XEC’s mutations could help it spread more easily this autumn, experts have told multiple news outlets.