A day after the Maharashtra Health Department reported a possible case of the new ‘XE’ variant of COVID-19 in Mumbai, State Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Thursday said the Health Department was yet to receive any confirmation on this count from the Centre.
“According to information, the ‘XE’ variant is only 10% more infectious than the Omicron variant. Since we have not received a confirmatory report from the Centre or the National Institute of Biologicals (NIB), the Maharashtra Health Department cannot confirm it. We will talk more about it in detail after getting confirmatory reports,” Mr. Tope said, stressing that there was no cause for panic.
