Stop jumping at shadows, scientists told amid new Covid variant warnings

Scientists have been told to “stop jumping at shadows” amid warnings of a “more contagious” variant of the Covid virus “spreading rapidly across Europe.”

Experts are raising alarm over the new variant, dubbed XEC, which has now been identified in over 500 samples from 27 countries, including Poland, Norway, Luxembourg, Ukraine, Portugal and China.

Last week Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, Doctor Eric Topol, warned Covid XEC is “just getting started” and is “taking charge.”

He added: “It would be surprising if this doesn’t turn out to be the next challenge.”

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Dr Topol said:

“It’s going to take many weeks, a couple of months, before it really takes hold and starts to cause a wave”.

Newspapers were also urging people to consider wearing masks in public, and buying covid test kits to protect themselves. 

Professor David Livermore, a former Laboratory Director Public Health England said:

“If you keep looking for variants in one common cold virus – which is what SARS CoV-2 has now become – then you will keep finding them. If you looked at the four other common cold viruses right now you would find variants there too. Covid isn’t special anymore and there is no reason to wear masks or do tests.”

Prof Livermore, a Collateral Global associate added:

“If you have a respiratory infection of any sort, use common sense and avoid people at risk.”

Professor Robert Dingwall, former government advisor on viral threats said:

“Viruses evolve and mutate. We can’t keep jumping at shadows, especially when there is now a high level of population immunity. It is not news that influenza appears in a novel strain most winters. It is time that Covid variations were just as unremarkable.”