S. Korean health authorities reject baseless 'Omicron surge' warning

"Urgent alert! It's time to wear masks again. A healthcare worker acquaintance shared this information this morning," read a Korean-language Facebook post shared on January 11, 2025.

"A new Covid variant, Covid-Omicron XBB, is different from previous strains, more fatal and harder to detect."

The XBB variant is "five times stronger and more fatal than the Delta variant", with symptoms including joint pain, headache, sore throat, upper back pain, pneumonia and loss of appetite, it added.

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Screenshot of the false post, taken on January 22, 2025

Similar claims ricocheted across platforms such as Facebook, X, Instagram, Naver Blog and Naver Cafe as South Korea faced a spike in flu cases.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on January 10 that suspected flu cases reached 99.8 per 1,000 outpatients across 300 KDCA-run clinics earlier that month -- the highest rate since 2016 (archived link).

'Just another variant'

A KDCA spokeswoman said on January 14 that no Omicron XBB infections had been reported in South Korea recently.

Misinformation around the variant was likely fuelled by concerns about the recent outbreak of respiratory diseases such as flu, she said.

"We have not seen any evidence the XBB variant is more dangerous than other variants," she told AFP.

Amesh Adalja, an adjunct assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security in the United States, said he was puzzled by false claims exaggerating the dangers of the XBB variant since "it was not particularly notable in terms of its severity or impact" (archived link). 

In April 2024, the World Health Organization downgraded XBB's status as a variant under monitoring due to its decreasing prevalence (archived link).

"It is just another Omicron variant," Adalja told AFP on January 17.

AFP debunked similar rumours in November 2022 that XBB -- a dominant Covid variant at the time -- was "five times stronger" and "more deadly" than the Delta variant (archived link).

"The symptoms of infection remain similar to any other upper respiratory infection, and vaccination remains the most assured way of reducing any risk," Ian Jones, professor of virology at Britain's Reading University, told AFP at the time (archived link).

Another infectious diseases expert, Dr Thira Woratanarat from Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, also said the severity and mortality of the XBB variant was not significantly different from previous Omicron strains (archived link).