What to Know About the New Covid Variant and Free Tests

A new Covid variant is on the rise, this comes as cold and flu season is upon us too.

It's called the XEC variant and while it's fairly new, it accounts for 25-50 percent of current Covid cases and experts say it's a natural evolution of the virus. As Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations decrease around the United States, this new variant could put that to a halt. 

As Dr. Becky Dawson, Epidemiologist and Erie News Now Contributor explained, "This type of virus wants to change so it can get into our bodies quicker and so it, the virus itself can replicate faster and more efficiently.

So far, it has been mostly found in Europe, but it's quickly spreading.

"It can sneak into your body quickly and replicate really fast without your immune system knowing, so that's why we are seeing a lot of the new illnesses being caused by this variant", explained Dawson.

Health professionals said that this new strain has a lot of similar characteristics and symptoms of other variants. Dr. Graham Snyder, the Medical Director for Infectious Diseases at UPMC explained, "We know that these omicron variants are spreading person to person relatively easily in fact they are most readily spread like other respiratory viruses, through coughing or sneezing or contaminated surfaces."

While it should be taken seriously, doctors said people don't need to be alarmed about the new variant. "I don't expect this new variant or other variants currently circulating to be very different from what we have seen with omicron, it has the potential to make people seriously ill particularly people who are vulnerable", said Dr. Snyder.

Dr. Dawson said one of the best things people can do to fight the virus is to get vaccinated. "This new variant is different but the same, same family, a lot of the same characteristics. We are expecting a lot of the vaccines will be highly effective against these new variants", said Dawson.

This new variant comes as the government will be offering free tests once again at the end of the month. You can get them by heading to covidtest.gov once they become available.