The World Health Organization has declared a new sub-variant of Covid called EG.5 – unofficially named “Eris”

EG.5 is another off-shoot of the Omicron variant of Covid. According to the WHO, it was first seen in February 2023 and cases have been increasing steadily but it poses a low risk to public health, with no evidence that it causes more severe disease than other variants circulating at the moment. Some tests suggest it can evade our immune systems more easily than some circulating variants but this has not been translated into people becoming more seriously ill. The best defense against covid remains the vaccine.