India, Aug. 31 -- A map has revealed how Covid-19 cases are rising nationwide, fueled by the Stratus variant, which is an emerging offshoot of the Omicron variant. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that the national test positivity rate hit 9.9 percent in the past week. This was up 1.4 percent from last week.

The U.S. South has had the sharpest rises, according to CDC data. There, test positivity rates in some states have hit 15 percent. "Currently, the most prevalent lineage in the U.S. is XFG, based on CDC's recent surveillance estimates," a CDC spokesperson told Newsweek.

This variant is reportedly most common in clinical specimens and wastewater data.

The Covid-19 Stratus variant, also known as 'XFG,' is a...