1. Abstract Coronavirus disease 2019 has brought about a great threat to global public health. More than 762 million confirmed cases have been reported according to the statistics of the World Health Organization (WHO), including over 6 million deaths. By the end of February 2023, an XBB sublineage named XBB.1.16 emerged and was detected in various countries especially India, USA and UK. XBB.1.16 had an effective reproduction number (Re) that was 1.27 and 1.17 times higher than XBB.1 and XBB.1.5, respectively. Also, XBB.1.16 is very resistant to a variety of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies as well as XBB.1 and XBB.1.5. We conclude that we could face a new pandemic in the coming months.
