Alpha B.1.1.7 Variant of COVID19 coronavirus thread

[Okieman]

Boris Johnson calls crisis meeting over new Covid strain

Boris Johnson summoned ministers for an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss how to tackle mounting concerns about the new strain of coronavirus identified in parts of south-east England.

<snip>

It is understood that government scientists have subsequently presented new evidence to ministers about the behaviour of this variant. A government official said: “There are concerns that it is more transmissible than the existing strain – and that sense is hardening.”

<snip>

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/18/boris-johnson-calls-crisis-meeting-to-discuss-response-to-new-covid-strain

[sharon sanders]

bump this

[Okieman]

COVID-19: PM holds Cabinet talks as scientist warns new variant 'real cause for concern'


Reports suggest this could include travel restrictions being imposed on the South East and London.

Sunita Patel-Carstairs
News reporter @SunnyNadal

Boris Johnson is holding talks with his Cabinet this lunchtime amid warnings from scientists over the new strain of COVID-19 and surging infections.

<snip>

Mr Johnson said on Friday he hoped that England would not need to go into a third lockdown after Christmas, which a number of experts have warned is possible.

However, he held an unscheduled meeting late into the night the same day to discuss whether action may need to be taken more swiftly.

<snip>

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-new-coronavirus-variant-real-cause-for-concern-and-extra-caution-scientist-warns-12166858

(Okieman Comment: So PM had a meeting late into the night Friday and another at lunchtime Saturday. So....this is probably of the highest priority for the UK Government at this time.)

[Okieman]

Also from the article posted above:

The prime minister is hosting a cabinet call and will hold a news conference at 4pm with England's chief medical officer Chris Whitty and the chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, Downing Street has said.

[Okieman]

Londoners ‘face possible travel ban’ as ministers weigh measures to curb spread of mutant covid 19 strain

By Lizzie Edmonds
@lizzieedmo
3 hours ago

Tough new travel restrictions for London and other parts of the south-east are reportedly being considered by Downing Street as ministers try to combat the spread of a new strain of Covid-19.

Boris Johnson reportedly held unscheduled talks about the new “highly contagious” mutated strain, with limits to travel between the capital and the rest of the UK apparently being considered to curb the spread.

According to reports, Mr Johnson held an unscheduled meeting of ministers on Friday amid “growing concern” about the threat posed by the mutant strain – which is thought to be spreading fastest in London and Kent.

The Telegraph is reporting that ministers are considering “cutting off” the area from the rest of the UK, with possible bans between zones where the “highly contagious” coronavirus variant is high and elsewhere.

Scientists have warned the new variant is up to 50 per cent more contageous than any strain detected before. It is understood Mr Johnson was presented with new data about the new strain of the virus at the meeting on Friday night.

<snip>

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/covid-19-mutant-strain-london-travel-ban-boris-b384785.html

[Okieman]

Boris Johnson backtracks on relaxing Christmas rules after scientists warn new Covid-19 strain spreads faster

By Lindsay Isaac, Luke McGee and Arnaud Siad, CNN
Updated 11:53 AM ET, Sat December 19, 2020

London (CNN)Parts of Britain will go back into lockdown during Christmas after a newly identified strain of Covid-19 proved to spread more quickly than previous strains of the virus.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday announced a series of stricter coronavirus restrictions, tightening rules around household mixing that were due to be relaxed over Christmas in London and southeast England.

The PM broke the news Saturday that London and the southeast of England where cases are surging, will go into Tier 4 restrictions, similar to a lockdown, on Sunday.

"The spread is being driven by the new variant of the virus," Johnson said in a hastily called press conference. "It appears to spread more easily and may be up to 70% more transmissable than the earlier strain."

<snip>

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/19/uk/christmas-covid-strain-restrictions-intl-gbr/index.html

[gsgs]

I'm surprised, that noone talks about the stop-codon, the likely reduced virulence.
The German online press only now starts to mention it, 4 days delay.
Is USA talking about it ?
Scotland closes border to England, I just read

[gsgs]

paper by Rambaut et.al. :

https://virological.org/t/preliminar...-mutations/563


Preliminary genomic characterisation of an emergent SARS-CoV-2 lineage in the UK defined by a novel set of spike mutations


Outside of spike, the ORF8 Q27stop mutation truncates the ORF8 protein or renders it inactive
and thus allows further downstream mutations to accrue. Early on during the pandemic multiple
virus isolates with deletions leading to loss of ORF8 expression were isolated worldwide, including a
large cluster in Singapore with a deletion leading to both a truncated Orf7b and ablated ORF8 expression.
The Singaporean strain, which had a 382nt deletion, was associated with a milder clinical infection and
less post-infection inflammation, however this cluster died out at the end of March after Singapore
successfully implemented control measures (Young et al. 2020). Subsequent work has found that
the ORF8 deletion has only a very modest effect on virus replication in human primary airway cells
compared to viruses without the deletion, leading to a slight replication lag compared to viruses with the
deletion (Gamage et al. 2020). As ORF8 is usually 121 amino acids long it is likely the stop codon at
position 27 observed in lineage B.1.1.7 results in a loss of function.

-------------------------------

now they quarantine South England .... then they realise the new strain is milder ....
then they reopen South England and support its spread ...

[sharon sanders]

Please see:

UK - Government expands London tier 4 lockdown tomorrow through December 30 - trains packed with people leaving - December 19, 2020

[sharon sanders]

hat tip gsgs for idea:


Travel between Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales banned over Christmas as border closed


The First Minister has announced some major changes to the lockdown rules over the festive period, with travel between UK countries forbidden

• 18:23, 19 DEC 2020
• UPDATED18:46, 19 DEC 2020

snip

"Unfortunately, and I am genuinely sorry about this, that ban will remain in place right throughout the festive period.

"We simply cannot risk more of this new strain entering the country if we can possibly avoid it. That means people from Scotland not visiting other parts of the UK and vice-versa.

"Cross border travel for all but the most essential purposes is not permitted.

https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/scotland-england-travel-border-closed-19490450

[sharon sanders]

posted with permission


London Put in Emergency Lockdown as U.K. Fights New Strain (2)
2020-12-19 17:27:48.831 GMT


By Tim Ross and Eddie Spence
(Bloomberg) -- Boris Johnson imposed a full lockdown on
London and southeast England in a desperate attempt to stop a
new coronavirus strain spreading rapidly over the U.K.
After emergency talks on the virus mutation with his top
officials, the prime minister canceled his plan to ease pandemic
rules for five days during the holiday. Household mixing will be
banned in London and the south-east and socializing restricted
to just Christmas Day across the rest of England. Residents
across the country were told to stay in their local areas.
The premier announced a new top tier of pandemic curbs will
be brought in for the hot-spot regions around the capital from
Sunday, with all non-essential shops closing and millions of
people ordered to stay at home.
“When the virus changes its method of attack we must change
our method of defense,” Johnson said at a news conference
Saturday. “Without action the evidence suggests infections would
soar, hospitals would become overwhelmed and many thousands more
would lose their lives.”

Major Blow

The new measures will be a major blow to retail businesses
at what is usually their busiest time of year. The U.K. has
already suffered its deepest recession since the Great Frost of
1709 and ministers have been forced to extend crisis loans and
wage support programs amid fears that unemployment will rocket.
The dramatic escalation in Johnson’s pandemic response was
triggered by a new strain of the virus that is virtually unique
to the U.K. Emerging scientific evidence suggests the new
variant can spread significantly more quickly than previous
strains in circulation and is behind a huge surge in infections
in recent days.
Covid-19 case rates nearly doubled in London over the past
week, with almost 60% of these infections attributed to the new
strain of the virus, according to government officials. Existing
Tier 3 measures in the county of Kent -- the toughest rules in
place at the moment -- have failed to stop the spread. That led
Johnson to introduce a new top level of infection controls, Tier
4.
*T
================================================== ==============
Tier 4 London Lockdown Rules from Dec. 20
================================================== ==============
People must stay at home, unless they must travel for work,
education, health careHouseholds are largely banned from mixing,
there will be no Christmas bubblesAll non-essential shops,
indoor leisure and entertainment, and personal care such as hair
salons will closeSocializing limited -- one person can meet one
other from a different household, in a public space outside.
Exceptions apply for support bubblesPeople will be advised not
to enter Tier 4 areas and residents in Tier 4 areas must not
stay overnight away from homeForeign travel should be avoided
for all but essential tripsTier 4 applies to: whole of London,
Kent, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, most of Surrey, Bedfordshire,
Luton, Hertfordshire, most of EssexRules apply for two weeks,
will be reviewed on Dec. 30
*T
England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said that the
new variant was faster spreading, and likely behind the alarming
climb of case numbers around the capital and southeast of the
country.
“There is no current evidence to suggest the new strain
causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and
treatments, although urgent work is underway to confirm this,”
Whitty said. “Given this latest development it is now more vital
than ever that the public continue to take action in their area
to reduce transmission.”
As recently as Friday, Johnson refused to rule out a third
U.K. lockdown to control the spread of the virus. Britain joined
Italy and Austria in tightening curbs during the holiday season,
with all three countries facing rapidly rising case numbers.
The situation has deteriorated dramatically across Europe,
with French President Emmanuel Macron contracting the illness
and countries like Italy and Germany introducing new measures
during the festive period.

Unpredictable Mutations

Leaders are also grappling with another set of challenges
just as vaccines are being rolled out.
Viruses tend to evolve or mutate quickly, particularly
those like flu that require new vaccines to be developed each
year because of changes in key proteins. SARS-CoV-2 also
changes, although generally at a slower pace than some other
viruses because it has a self-correcting mechanism that keeps
its genetic sequence relatively stable.
Other variants in the coronavirus have been reported in the
past, including one in minks, which are susceptible to the
virus. That was feared to be highly transmissible and was
reported to the World Health Organization. Millions of farmed
mink were culled, although as of Nov. 20 the WHO said the most
worrying strain linked to the animals is no longer circulating
in humans.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Tim Ross in London at tross54@bloomberg.net;
Eddie Spence in London at espence11@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net
Sara Marley, Neil Callanan

[Gert van der Hoek]

The Netherlands bans flights from UK to keep out new coronavirus strain

The Netherlands has banned flights from Britain from 6am on Sunday until January 1 at the latest, following the spread of a new, possibly more infectious variant of coronavirus in the south of England. The ban follows recommendations by Dutch public health institute RIVM which says movements between the two countries should be limited as much as possible to try to control the spread of the virus. Road, sea and train travel is so far unaffected, but the government is considering ‘additional measures regarding other forms of transport.’

Read more at DutchNews.nl

See also: Netherlands bans flights from UK over new Covid-19 strain - One case of mutant variant already detected inside Dutch borders

[gsgs]

WHO calls Europe to strengthen their measures because of B1.1.7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TWiV 696 somehow played it down, ridiculed https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-696/ 0:54:30 - 1:02:40
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NERVTAG opinion :
{ New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group , UK }
https://khub.net/documents/135939561...=1608470511452
4 deaths in around 1000 cases
4 re-infections among 915 cases
--------------------------------------------------------------------
ECDC : https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/public...united-kingdom
--------------------------------------------------------------------
German federal police gives a travel warning for UK
------------------------------------------------------------------
Merkel + Macron want to stop all air-travel from UK
--------------------------------------------------------------------
breaking : Germany plans travel-lock for whole Europe
------------------------------------------------------------------

[sharon sanders]

South Essex -


snip

The restrictions may have to remain for “the next couple of months”, he suggested.

“We know with this new variant you can catch it more easily from a small amount of the virus being present,” Mr Hancock said.

“All of the different measures we have in place, we need more of them to control the spread of the new variant than we did to control the spread of the old variant. That is the fundamental problem.

https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/18958155.matt-hancock-reveals-long-tier-4-lockdown/

[tetano]

Covid, the new variant is in Italy: the first case identified is in a patient in Rome

The Ministry of Health has announced that the new variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus - the coronavirus responsible for Covid-19 - is also present in Italy. The new variant was first identified in Great Britain, where due to its preliminary characteristics - in particular, its speed of transmission, which would be up to 70 per cent higher than the hitherto dominant variant - the government decided on a series of new containment measures.

'The Scientific Department of the Celio Military Polyclinic, which in this emergency is collaborating with the Higher Institute of Health, has sequenced the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from a subject tested positive with the variant found in recent weeks in Gran Brittany, ”the ministry wrote in a note. 'The patient, and his partner who returned from the United Kingdom in the last few days with a flight landed at Fiumicino airport, are in isolation and have followed, together with other family members and close contacts, all the procedures established by the Ministry of Health '.

https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_dicembre_20/covid-nuova-variante-italia-primo-caso-identificato-un-paziente-roma-b6fd9440-42f6-11eb-a388-78033ff67873.shtml

[Gert van der Hoek]

New mutation coronavirus from England also detected in Belgium

................................

Yet the new mutation has already been identified here. Virologist Marc Van Ranst has confirmed this based on data from his lab. “We encountered the variant 4 times in a sample of about 1,600 cases. So that's not much. For the time being, because once it occurs again, it can go quickly ”, says Van Ranst in Het Journaal.

“We live on a planet where there has been a lot of travel and a little bit. Then it is quite normal for virus strains to move from one place to another. ”

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