![]() “We see that it has almost replaced all other variants in India, and we think the same thing will be followed everywhere.” The XBB.1.16 lineage has displaced others that drove case surges in India several months ago, says Rajesh Karyakarte, a microbiologist at Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College in Pune, India. In March, scientists in India started seeing signs that a new SARS-CoV-2 variant was causing a rise in infections. It may be less seasonal than things we’re used to.” Victorious variant “It will be a continually circulating respiratory disease. “We haven’t slowed down in the last year, and I don’t see what factors would cause it do so at this point,” says Trevor Bedford, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington. But the relentless series of wavelets looks very different from the slower, annual circulation patterns of influenza and cold-causing coronaviruses, and it seems increasingly unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 will settle into a flu-like rhythm anytime soon, say scientists. Wavelets don’t always create a dramatic spike in hospitalizations and deaths their effects on health vary between countries. Instead, countries are starting to see frequent, less deadly waves, characterized by relatively high levels of mostly mild infections and sparked by the relentless churn of new variants.Īre repeat COVID infections dangerous? What the science says Scientists say that explosive, hospital-filling COVID-19 waves are unlikely to return. Welcome to the new normal: the ‘wavelet’ era. A growing proportion of tests in some countries are coming back positive, and new variants, most notably a lineage called XBB.1.16, are pushing aside older strains, fuelling some of the uptick in cases. ![]() Whether you call it a surge, a spike, a wave or perhaps just a wavelet, there are signs of a rise in SARS-CoV-2 infections - again. ![]() A woman is tested for COVID-19 in India, which has recorded a surge of infections driven by a SARS-CoV-2 variant called XBB.1.16. ![]()
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