Ahead of the festive season, a new COVID variant has started spreading in the west and has infected around 600 people in as many as 27 countries like Germany, the UK, US and Denmark. Researchers say it is "just getting started".

A new covid-19 variant called XEC may spread more easily than past variants, but current vaccines are still effective against it

The U.S. is coming down from its biggest COVID summer surge yet as a new subvariant emerges—but new vaccines are here, too.

A CDC spokesperson said the current COVID-19 vaccines are expected to provide some protection against XEC and other circulating variants. A new COVID-19 variant, called XEC, is spreading rapidly in Europe.

The XEC variant was first spotted in the UK three weeks ago and is now the dominant variant in the country, accounting for 80.6 per cent of cases in the last week