Covid infections are on the rise again in several countries, especially in China which saw over 250 million cases in just 20 days in December. Fresh Covid wave fears linger across the world, including India. While the BF.7 variant of the Omicron virus is a cause of concern in China and India, the Omicron subvariant XBB accounts for 18.3 per cent of the Covid-19 cases in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This marks an increase of 11.2 per cent as the XBB variant continues to drive up cases in Singapore. Omicron subvariants BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for about 70 per cent of new cases in the US. The total number of confirmed Covid cases in the US have surpassed 100 million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, since the pandemic broke out almost three years ago, with a total of more than 1 million deaths.