Scrutable

“Britain is the only country in which it has taken off in this way and I still would not rule out its growth being a chance demographic event,”

“We shouldn’t be blaming the virus for what is going on in the UK,” said Gupta. “It is because we have fundamentally failed to control transmission, and that is because kids are vulnerable, they have not been vaccinated, they are back at school, they are spreading virus among themselves and they are feeding it into their families.”

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:52 am

Who could possibly have predicted such an outcome?

Sounds like Alpha and Delta are having cute babies, just in time for winter.

lpm wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 19, 2021 1:53 pm

Steady now.

There's been loads of these OMG VARIANT events.

jimbob wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 19, 2021 3:05 pm

lpm wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 19, 2021 1:53 pm

Steady now.

There's been loads of these OMG VARIANT events.

And a couple - Alpha then Delta, were significantly worse than the prevailing strains.

This looks to be making headway against other Delta variants, so is concerning at the least.

Prof Francois Balloux, director of University College London's Genetics Institute, said: "It is potentially a marginally more infectious strain.

"It's nothing compared with what we saw with Alpha and Delta, which were something like 50 to 60 percent more transmissible. So we are talking about something quite subtle here and that is currently under investigation.

"It is likely to be up to 10 percent more transmissible.

"It's good that we are aware. It's excellent that we have the facilities and infrastructure in place to see anything that might be a bit suspicious.

"At this stage I would say wait and see, don't panic. It might be slightly, subtly more transmissible but it is not something absolutely disastrous like we saw previously."

lpm wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 19, 2021 1:53 pm

Steady now.

There's been loads of these OMG VARIANT events.

lpm wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 19, 2021 4:15 pm

Yeah, we killed a lot of people with those two, our bad.

But those were events without a vaccine. Variants of a very different Covid-19.

Herainestold wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:44 pm

Is there any evidence for how vaccines perform against this new variant?

Martin_B wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 22, 2021 1:26 am

Herainestold wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:44 pm

Is there any evidence for how vaccines perform against this new variant?

A bit difficult to get historical data on how vaccines perform against a new variant

Delta sub-lineage AY.4.2 designated as a Variant Under Investigation by UK Health Security Agency

Martin_B wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 22, 2021 1:26 am

Herainestold wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:44 pm

Is there any evidence for how vaccines perform against this new variant?

A bit difficult to get historical data on how vaccines perform against a new variant

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 22, 2021 8:39 pm

Delta sub-lineage AY.4.2 designated as a Variant Under Investigation by UK Health Security Agency

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/covi ... -in-the-uk

While evidence is still emerging, so far it does not appear this variant causes more severe disease or renders the vaccines currently deployed any less effective. As is routine for any new variants under investigation, UKHSA is carrying out laboratory and epidemiological investigations to better understand the properties of this variant.

SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England
Technical briefing 26

That discovery, published today in Science, is “a big deal,” says Michael Summers, a structural biologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County—not just because it helps explain Delta’s ravages. The new system, developed by Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna of the University of California (UC), Berkeley, and her colleagues, is a powerful tool for understanding current SARS-CoV-2 variants and exploring how future variants might affect the pandemic, he says. “The system she has developed allows you to look at any mutation and its influence on key parts of viral replication. … That can now be studied in a much easier way by a lot more scientists.”

AY.4.2. continues to increase in prevalence slowly in England. There is an increased growth rate for AY.4.2. compared to other circulating variants in 2 separate models, and this is now consistent across regions of England. There is a small increase in secondary attack rate and in household transmission risk, though both these analyses have limitations as they are derived from routine testing and tracing data systems. There is also a slowly increasing prevalence and an increased growth rate for AY.4.2 in incoming travellers to the UK. However, there is as yet no other country reporting the same effect through domestic surveillance and there is some conflicting evidence from community survey data. Confidence in this finding therefore remains low.