As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to evolve, a new variant known as the Covid XEC variant is starting to spread rapidly across Europe, North America, and parts of Asia. First identified in Germany in June,

XEC’s prevalence is lower in the US and Canada and reached a high of 5.96% in European cases on 19 August. Slovenia had high rates of infection with the variant in August with over 10 per cent of samples from the country containing XEC.

Czechia's neighboring and nearby countries have all seen a spread of the new XEC Covid-19 strain, including Germany, Poland, and Slovenia.