South Korea detected a new sub-variant infection XL

Expert Lee Sang-won, head of the agency’s epidemiological analysis team Korea (KDCA) information, the patient infected with sub-variant XL had a positive result on March 23. The patient has received the 3rd dose of COVID-19 vaccine, has no recent history of travel abroad, and exhibits mild illness.

XL is one of about 17 different combinations of Omicron’s BA.1 and BA.2 sub-variants that are at the forefront of the global outbreak.

South Korea’s first BA.2 infections were detected in the last week of January when the rate of new COVID-19 cases infected with the original Omicron strain BA.1 surpassed 50% and became the mainstream. BA.2 cases increased steadily to replace BA.1 by the 3rd week of March.

According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the incidence of recombinant Omicron variants in South Korea is low when there are “significant surveillance efforts”.

The KDCA does not provide a specific number on how many genome-wide sequences have been sequenced since Omicron dominated here.

Approximately 95% of the 15,635,274 known COVID-19 cases and 66% of the 19,850 COVID-19 deaths have been recorded in South Korea since Omicron was announced as the dominant strain in the country as of date. 26.1.