Health experts in UK and US are raising alarms as COVID-19 cases continue to climb, with the emergence of a concerning new strain-XEC. In the UK, hospitalization have risen to 4.55 per 100,000, up from 3.72 per 100,000 the previous week, with 59 reported acute respiratory incidents linked to COVID-19. The highest number of positive cases is among individuals aged 85 and older, according to Birmingham Times. What Are Symptoms Of This New Variant? Coughing fit, as per NHS, has been described as one of the many symptoms of XEC, which is spreading fast in the US and UK. Experts have advised that if you are experiencing this symptom and coughing a lot, you should isolate yourself and get checked. Other symptoms of this variant encompass fever, chills, cough, sore throat, runny nose and loss of taste and smell, difficulty in breathing, muscle and body pain, headache and diarrahea. Notably, recent variants of coronavirus show up mild symptoms and people may be even able to go to work and go out doing regular chores.COVID Could Be Powerful Risk Factor For Heart Attacks, StrokesCoronavirus could be a powerful risk factor for heart attacks and strokes for as long as three years of infection, a new study has found. The research, published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology (ATVB), analyzed medical records from nearly a quarter of a million people from the UK. Researchers identified more than 11,000 people who had a positive lab test for COVID-19 documented in their medical records in 2020, out of which nearly 3,000 were hospitalized for their infections (severe cases). These people were then compared to over 2,22,000 people in the same database who didn't get infected by coronavirus.The study found that people infected with coronavirus, before there were vaccines to blunt the infection, had twice the risk of a major cardiac event like a heart attack, stroke or death for almost three years after their illness, compared with the people who didn’t test positive. Moreover, if a person had been hospitalized for their infection, pointing to a more severe case, the risk of a major heart event was even greater – more than three times higher – than for people without COVID in their medical records. Additionally, for people who needed to be hospitalized, COVID appeared to be a potent risk factor for future chronic diseases like heart attacks, strokes, diabetes or peripheral artery diseases (PAD).