The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) published, on Monday 9 January, an update of its assessment of the SARS-CoV-2 variant of interest XBB 1.5, a sublineage of XBB with a mutation in the spike protein: S486P. The previous ECDC assessment was on 6 January (see EUROPE B13094A2).
As of 9 January, 4,770 sequences belonging to XBB.1.5 with a mutation in the spike region have been deposited on the GISAID EpiCoV platform. Most of these notifications came from the USA...