Alpha B.1.1.7 Variant of COVID19 coronavirus thread

[gsgs]

I'd assume it grows better in human respiratory cells.

several possibilities :
More viruses per cell
Replicates faster
More successful to find new cells
Escapes better the antibodies
...

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wrt. the more infections in younger people - I now read this could just have been
because of lockdown with schools open.

 

[Okieman]

Doctors warn intensive care units are filling up with younger, fitter patients as new Covid-19 variant spreads

Almost 6,000 more Covid patients were admitted to hospitals in England in the eight days from Christmas Day to January 2, latest official figures show.
By Paul Gallagher
January 3, 2021 4:43 pm
Updated January 3, 2021 4:45 pm

Intensive care doctors are warning the public their units are filling up with younger patients than during the first wave of coronavirus cases amid the surge in hospital admissions.

Rupert Pearse, an intensive care consultant at the Royal London Hospital, said: “The situation in London is now much worse than the first wave and still deteriorating. Sad to see long queues of ambulances outside the hospital where I work. Almost all my patients are less than 60 years old and previously fit. If you think this disease can’t touch you, then think again.”

<snip>

https://inews.co.uk/nhs/doctors-intensive-care-units-filling-up-new-variant-815898

 

[sharon sanders]

med-Rxiv - SARS−CoV−2 Variant Under Investigation 202012/01 has more than twofold replicative advantage

 

[sharon sanders]

Denmark: Statens Serum Institute (SSI) Estimate Of COVID Variant B.1.1.7 Growth

 

[gsgs]

Neil Ferguson: UK's Covid situation is 'bleak' as control measures may not work http://dlvr.it/Rq1hSG
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Luxembourg: 2% (3/141) Dec20-Dec29
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[gsgs]

how could SARS2 have missed that advantage for so long ?
How many other advantages are there lurking in its genome

 

[kiwibird]

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/statu...19003278389249

https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/0...ction-tracker/

https://watermark.silverchair.com/ci...1MeBf0V_mcQ9QA

SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (using the Roche anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgM/IgG assay detecting antibodies targeting viral nucleocapsid ‘N’ antigen) were detectable on 6 occasions between the 4th June 2020 and 13th November 2020 with no evidence of antibody waning seen.

and yet this case was reinfected with the new B117 variant. Should imagine this is very bad news for the immunisation program - with the current vaccine. The vaccine program will remove the old - less virulent - strain from the circulating program and lead to a higher percentage of the B117 variant - or will it just ensure fewer people are infected and end up in hospital. Either way - people who have been vaccinated should still be vulnerable to the new variant.

 

[kiwibird]

We have detected a confirmed case of reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 with the second episode due to
the ‘new variant’ VOC-202012/01 of lineage B.1.1.7. The initial infection occurred in the first wave of
the pandemic in the UK and was a mild illness. 8 months later, during the second wave of the
pandemic in the UK reinfection with the ‘new variant’ VOC-202012/01 was confirmed and caused a
critical illness.

 

[kiwibird]

Confirmed Reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 Variant VOC-202012/01
David Harrington, Beatrix Kele, Spiro Pereira, Xose Couto-Parada, Anna Riddell, Suzanne
Forbes, Hamish Dobbie, Teresa Cutino-Moguel
Barts Health NHS Trust
London, UNITED KINGDOM
Corresponding author:
David Harrington

Thank you to the authors of this paper.

 

[kiwibird]

https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/08/pfizer-biontech-vaccine-mutation-contagious/

In the study, scientists engineered a version of the virus to include the mutation called N501Y. The mutation is found in variants that seem to transmit faster than other forms of the virus, including one first identified in the United Kingdom that is now spreading in other countries, including the United States.

The scientists then compared how well blood taken from 20 people who had received the vaccine fended off the mutated form of the virus versus an earlier form. Their finding: there was “no reduction in neutralization activity against the virus” with the mutation, they wrote.

 

[Emily]

I don't understand why they have to piecemeal engineer the new variant. Why not test the actual circulating virus since that is what we need to know about? They could do the single mutation testing later though essentially that is more dangerous since they are creating new viruses. Just because it has only one of the 8 mutations does not mean it is less dangerous.

Comment to the paper:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.07.425740v1
kunikoinoue • 3 days ago
The conclusion of this study is not strong with only in vitro binding
assay. The key problem is that they only use one mutation 501Y. The UK
B117 variant has 8 mutation including another key mutation 69-70del: which was found in strains that eluded the immune response in some immunocompromised patients.
To understand in clinical how severe COVID variant escape from
antibodies, Please look at UK paper published on Biorxiv 1-2 week
before . COVID variant spike deletion H69/V70 and D796H mutations
conferred reduced susceptibility to the convalescent plasma (CP) and
sera from multiple donors.
Curiously, the authors need investigate How many vaccinated people in their July Trial
were infected COVID including B117?

 

[Emily]

"Speaking about the long-term outlook for the pandemic, Professor Ferguson said: "Looking forward we’re going to be living with coronavirus indefinitely, we’re never going to eliminate it from the human population, it will evolve, and we may need to regularly update our vaccines.""

 

[gsgs]

but we may find antivirals. We may understand the surges and how to prevent them.
It may become less virulent (mutation, immunity)

 

[gsgs]

German 4-day R[t] went :
0.66, 0.61, 0.77, 1.15, 1.46, 1.52 in the last 6 days
despite hard lockdown since Dec.13 also maybe a surge in Spain, and in several African countries
I never saw such a thing

almost no actual virological testing in Germany.
Denmark gives 0.9%,1.9%,2.9% weekly B117 , next update in a few days
https://www.covid19genomics.dk/statistics

----------------------------
London has 3330000 confirmed positives in this wave so far , 3.8% of its population
to compare : USA had 15.3M confirmed positives in this wave , 4.6% of its population ,

 

[sharon sanders]

bump this

 

[sharon sanders]

Kai Kupferschmidt

@kakape
?
2m
New data shows #B117 still expanding in Denmark: Last weeks of 2020: 0.4% 0.8% 2.0% 2.4% First week of 2021 (initial data): 3.6% (Full report: https://covid19genomics.dk/statistics, h/t
@MadsAlbertsen85
)

 

[sharon sanders]

groan if proven to be true.....


snip

A new variant of Covid-19 that emerged in south-east England last year and spread around the world may be more deadly than coronavirus in circulation in the first wave of the epidemic, Boris Johnson has said.

Scientists on the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) have concluded that the new variant, named B117, may increase the death rate by a multiple of 1.3.

The increased lethality of the variant was confirmed by the prime minister at the No 10 press briefing on Friday.

Four teams of researchers at Imperial, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Public Health England and Exeter University assessed the variant’s lethality by comparing death rates among those who tested positive for the new variant with those who were infected with older variants.

more...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2..._medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1611335889

 

[kiwibird]

https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum...variant-of-concern-b-1-1-7-increased-severity

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ws-uk-variant-may-be-30-per-cent-more-deadly/

The government was briefed by researchers in the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, who are assessing the data on the variant, which appears to be about 30 per cent more deadly. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and at Imperial College London who analysed data on the new variant concluded it is between 29 and 36 per cent more lethal, whereas researchers at the University of Exeter put the figure at 91 per cent. The UK’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said the evidence on lethality “is not yet strong”, adding: “but it is obviously a concern”.

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article...#ixzz6kJEpfo8E

 

[sharon sanders]

more groan...I hope I am really screwing up the math.....

I saw a media article a couple of days ago where doctors were complaining that the age group was younger so I thought I would check it out.

from National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) who says their sources are official government numbers from various countries. link

According to their excel spreadsheets:


COVID-19 deaths weeks 1 through 38 (2020) in the UK in age group 44-64 = 5,049 / 38 weeks = 133 average deaths in the 44-64 age group per week

COVID-19 deaths week 1 (2021) in the UK, with the emergence of B.1.1.7, in age group 44-64 = 657 deaths in the 44-64 age group for week 1.

https://dc-covid.site.ined.fr/en/data/uk

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[blacknail]

Your math is probably good, I compared it to the proportion of US cases from this source https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm