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Lara Herrero, Research Leader in Virology and Infectious Disease, Griffith University

XEC is now in Australia. Here’s what we know about this hybrid COVID variant

Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock

Over the nearly five years since COVID first emerged, you’d be forgiven if you’ve lost track of the number of new variants we’ve seen. Some have had a bigger impact than others, but virologists have documented thousands.

The latest variant to make headlines is called XEC. This omicron subvariant has been reported predominantly in the northern hemisphere, but it has now been detected in Australia too.

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