Medical experts are panicking after confirming that the latest strain of Coronavirus taking over the world is “fast-growing” and has “increased immune evasion”.

The JN.1 strain of Covid has been sweeping the world for the last month, becoming the dominant strain in many countries – including the UK. And in the World Health Organization’s latest report into it, officials have also reclassified the strain as its own separate variant, rather than being a variant of interest connected to others.

The report states: “In recent weeks, JN.1 continues to be reported in multiple countries, and its prevalence has been rapidly increasing globally and now represents the vast majority of BA.2.86 descendent lineages reported to GISAID.

Due to its rapidly increasing spread, WHO is classifying JN.1 as a separate variant of interest (VOI) from the parent lineage BA.2.86.” The report goes on to state that the levels of risk posed by the variant are “high” as it is “fast-growing” across all WHO regions.

It adds: “It is estimated that JN.1 has increased immune evasion relative to its parent BA.2.86.1 lineage that had a similar immune evasion as EG.5 the current most prevalent variant globally.

“As there are only limited data on cross-neutralization of JN.1. Additional laboratory studies from different regions of the world would be needed to further assess the risk of antibody escape in settings with different population immunity backgrounds.”

The UK had actually seen a huge rise in positive cases at the start of December, in the seven days up to and including December 13. That seven-day period saw a whopping 1023.43 positive cases reported in England on a seven-day rolling average, totaling 7,164 actual cases which was up 36% on the previous seven days.