by Jemma Geoghegan, David Welch and Joep de Ligt, The Conversation Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A new hybrid COVID-19 variant dubbed XE has sparked fresh concerns recently. XE is a combination of the highly transmissible BA.1 and BA.2 omicron variants and was first detected in the UK in mid-January. Its spike protein derives from BA.2, which is...