Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, suddenly breaks out like a horse from the gate, leaving the rest of the race behind. This time, it’s a variant called XEC (“Zek”), which is a recombinant — the result of two variants joining forces.
“We controlled [the virus] a little bit initially, but then let it rip, and once you have an uncontrolled spread, it does mutate. And also it recombines, like when somebody has [been] infected with two different things, like in this case KS.1.1 and KP.3.3 recombined to form this XEC variant”, explained Dr. Raj Rajnarayanan, associate professor and assistant dean at the New York Institute of Technology, in an interview with Salon.
