XBB.1.5: All you need to know about the new 'Kraken' COVID strain

While most of us would rather forget about COVID-19 entirely, the virus is carrying on moving through the world’s population - and mutating along the way.

The numbers of COVID-related deaths and hospitalisations have dropped in most countries in recent months compared to the height of the pandemic in 2020, though a big question mark still looms over the number of current infections in China.

But a new Omicron subvariant, which has emerged in countries including the UK and the US, is now raising the question of whether we should continue to worry about the latest COVID-19 strains.

This new subvariant is officially called "XBB.1.5" and is the result of fragments from two other variants merging together - what is called a "recombinant subvariant".

"Two different strains of the BA.2 Omicron have kind of converged together to create this," Sheena Cruickshank, a professor at the Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation at the University of Manchester, explained.

"But actually it's just a descendant of XBB and XBB.1. I mean, it's like a grandchild of XBB, which in and of itself came from two different versions of BA.2".

The subvariant, which has been renamed the "Kraken" (like the legendary sea monster) is estimated to have originated between November and December 2022 in or around New York state in the US.

The strain is now considered to be behind a rise in infections across the country, where it's estimated to be the cause of 41 per cent of current COVID-19 cases, according to data from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

After the US, the new strain has been reported across Europe, Australia and parts of South East Asia.

In the UK, where the strain has also been detected, Cruickshank says that the