A new COVID-19 strain is taking center stage, dubbed Stratus.

According to health officials, this strain has soared to a new dominating level in countries like the UK, with experts warning that it might give rise to new waves of infections.

Stratus, which is scientifically known as XFG, is said to be more infectious than past COVID strains, thanks to mutations that help it evade the immune system.

Now, data from the British Security Agencies portrays how it’s better known as the dominant COVID strain in England.

The variant has gone from accounting for about 10% of all COVID cases in the month of May to nearly 40% in just three weeks later in mid-June.

Stratus, which is a descendant of the already super-virulent Omicron, is known as Frankenstein or a recombinant strain.

This means it emerged when a person was infected with two COVID strains at once, which slowly then became the latest hybrid variant.

A top virologist from the University of Warwick shared how both strains are rapidly spreading across the country. As a result, there’s an increased competitiveness of XFG and XFG-3 that is most likely due to a rise in mutations, which make the variants more likely to evade immune responses.