COVID-19

[TimW]

Marvellous story in the Standard, Londoners ‘face possible travel ban’ as ministers weigh measures to curb spread of mutant covid 19 strain.

Earlier today it said: Scientists have warned the new variant is up to 50 times more contageous than any strain detected before.

Now it says: Scientists have warned the new variant is up to 50 per cent more contageous than any strain detected before.

I think that's meant to be a "correction", even though it's still 100 per cent unreliable.

[lpm]

And now, coming to you specially for Christmas, a new arrival who is already making a big splash, it's...

TIER 4!!!!

[lpm]

Wait wait, Tier 4 fears, has anyone done that yet? Geddit? Tier 4 fears? Well, OK, you're probably too young but there used be a band and this is a good joke honest.

[AMS]

Has anyone explained what "50% more infectious" actually means?

[shpalman]

Probably it means that cases are increasing with 50% more increaseriness than would have been expected from the normal covids.

It's known as VUI-202012/01 if you want to google it.

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4857

[egbert26]

Bojo has just announced that the UK has the best genome sequencing in the world! It brought a tear to my eye.

YEEES! TAKE THAT BARNIER!

[lpm]

Official statement is 70% more infectivicity and adds 0.4 to R

[Woodchopper]

Official statement is 70% more infectivicity and adds 0.4 to R

Ouch.

Will the rest of the world quarantine the UK, or is it too late?

[raven]

Official statement is 70% more infectivicity and adds 0.4 to R

See, I would've thought that adding 0.4 to R made it 40% more infectious. (You know, 10 people who would've infected 10 more at R=1 for the old strains, now infect 14 more.)

[TimW]

Will the rest of the world quarantine the UK, or is it too late?

We'll probably have to leave the EU.

[shpalman]

The great news is that the EU will soon be able to stop people from the UK coming here.

[raven]

Official statement is 70% more infectivicity and adds 0.4 to R

See, I would've thought that adding 0.4 to R made it 40% more infectious. (You know, 10 people who would've infected 10 more at R=1 for the old strains, now infect 14 more.)

What Johnson said, if I heard it right, was 70% more transmissable. (That's ability to spread between hosts.) Infectivity is ability to infect more hosts, which according to Wikipedia is subtly different. Somehow. I am a bit confused as to how.

Just caught the Naked Scientist guy on Al-Jazeera, and he says the mutation makes it 'stickier'. So more likely to stick to cells and infect someone. And that it's accounting for 60% of cases in London, which seems rather dramatic if correct.

[Bird on a Fire]

The great news is that the EU will soon be able to stop people from the UK coming here.

Not me! I'm bringing my atestado da residência with me just in case.

Unless they do a general travel restriction I suppose. Humph.

[shpalman]

I have a residency attestation, I used it to get my passport renewed, and it should get back to me on Monday. However, I also have a national identity card and I don't know why the guidelines on the UK Gov website don't just say to get one of those.

[sTeamTraen]

Wait wait, Tier 4 fears, has anyone done that yet? Geddit? Tier 4 fears? Well, OK, you're probably too young but there used be a band and this is a good joke honest.

And "Everybody Wants to Rule The World" also perfectly describes how every politician of every stripe is in on the conspiracy to take away our freedum. So I think you could be on to something.

[badger]

Probably it means that cases are increasing with 50% more increaseriness than would have been expected from the normal covids.

It's known as VUI-202012/01 if you want to google it.

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4857

Catchy

[TimW]

I'm bringing my atestado

Never leave home without them.

[Bird on a Fire]

I'm bringing my atestado

Never leave home without them.

Spectacles, atestado, wallet and watch.

@shpalman EU citz don't get proper cards here, so my wife has one and I don't. I'm not sure if that'll change next year. There's a certainly irony that my easiest route into the EU might be through marriage to a Mexican

[Gfamily]

I'm bringing my atestado

Never leave home without them.

Spectacles, atestado, wallet and watch.

@shpalman EU citz don't get proper cards here, so my wife has one and I don't. I'm not sure if that'll change next year. There's a certainly irony that my easiest route into the EU might be through marriage to a Mexican

EU residency, andale!

[Bird on a Fire]

The only way is arriba.

[bob sterman]

Probably it means that cases are increasing with 50% more increaseriness than would have been expected from the normal covids.

It's known as VUI-202012/01 if you want to google it.

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4857

Here's the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium report that describes it...

https://www.cogconsortium.uk/wp-content ... ations.pdf

[Millennie Al]

Official statement is 70% more infectivicity and adds 0.4 to R

Taken at face value, that means R was 0.57 and became 0.97 (0.97 is a 70% increase over 0.57).

But I think what it really means is that the official statement reveals a lack of understanding by whoever compiled it. The handling of covid-19 reveals ongoing failure caused by linear thinking meeting an exponential reality.

[shpalman]

Official statement is 70% more infectivicity and adds 0.4 to R

See, I would've thought that adding 0.4 to R made it 40% more infectious. (You know, 10 people who would've infected 10 more at R=1 for the old strains, now infect 14 more.)

What Johnson said, if I heard it right, was 70% more transmissable. (That's ability to spread between hosts.) Infectivity is ability to infect more hosts, which according to Wikipedia is subtly different. Somehow. I am a bit confused as to how.

Just caught the Naked Scientist guy on Al-Jazeera, and he says the mutation makes it 'stickier'. So more likely to stick to cells and infect someone. And that it's accounting for 60% of cases in London, which seems rather dramatic if correct.

I suspect that if it's 'stickier' from a more effective spike protein then they should be talking about its infectivity, because transmissibility would relate to how well it can aerosolize or survive on external surfaces or something, but what do I know, I'm not the moron who invented "four weeks behind Italy".

[AMS]

See, I would've thought that adding 0.4 to R made it 40% more infectious. (You know, 10 people who would've infected 10 more at R=1 for the old strains, now infect 14 more.)

What Johnson said, if I heard it right, was 70% more transmissable. (That's ability to spread between hosts.) Infectivity is ability to infect more hosts, which according to Wikipedia is subtly different. Somehow. I am a bit confused as to how.

Just caught the Naked Scientist guy on Al-Jazeera, and he says the mutation makes it 'stickier'. So more likely to stick to cells and infect someone. And that it's accounting for 60% of cases in London, which seems rather dramatic if correct.

I suspect that if it's 'stickier' from a more effective spike protein then they should be talking about its infectivity, because transmissibility would relate to how well it can aerosolize or survive on external surfaces or something, but what do I know, I'm not the moron who invented "four weeks behind Italy".

If it's more effective at invading cells, it may in turn need a smaller dose of inhaled virus to catch it. That might mean it can transmit more easily via some combination of shorter contact times, over longer distances or from cases shedding less virus, without any need to change how well it aerosolizes.

[shpalman]

If it's more effective at invading cells, it may in turn need a smaller dose of inhaled virus to catch it...

... which is why I would have expected the correct term to be "infectivity".

Increased "transmissibility" may just be describing that it rapidly became more prevalent since it was first noted in September, when at that stage before analysis of the sequence the mechanism by which it had become more prevalent wouldn't have been known. (If the mutation somehow related to its ability to stay viable in the air or on surfaces for longer than "transmissibility" would still be the correct term.)

I'm still trying to find a proper explanation somewhere but it's a bad sign if even wikipedia just says it's a bit more complicated than that.

Even knowing what the mutation does to the spike protein, it appears that the effects of these mutations is being pieced together from experimental work carried out earlier this year rather than from having performed experiments with this actual variant of the virus or its spike protein, because that's obviously going to take longer.