#15,676
Adding to our growing list of analyses of the UK COVID Variant virus is the following report from the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, that finds the new variant is expanding rapidly, that it has a 50%-75% transmission advantage over past strains, and that it is affecting a greater proportion of those under the age of 20.These finding are based on observational data, and as such must be taken with some degree of caution, but they are fairly consistent with what others have reported in the past couple of weeks:
Scientific Brief: Implications of the Emerging SARS-CoV-2 Variant 202012/01
UK PHE Technical Briefing #2: Investigation of novel SARS-CoV-2 variant
PrePrint: Estimated Transmissibility & Severity Of UK SARS-CoV-2 Variant - CMMID
I've reproduced the abstract below, but follow the link to read the paper in its entirety.
Report 42 - Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Lineage B.1.1.7 in England: insights from linking epidemiological and genetic data
Date:
31 December 2020
Authors:
Erik Volz1, Swapnil Mishra, Meera Chand, Jeffrey C. Barrett, Robert Johnson, Lily Geidelberg, Wes R Hinsley, Daniel J Laydon, Gavin Dabrera, Áine O’Toole, Roberto Amato, Manon Ragonnet-Cronin, Ian Harrison, Ben Jackson, Cristina V. Ariani, Olivia Boyd, Nick Loman, John T McCrone, Sónia Gonçalves, David Jorgensen, Richard Myers, Verity Hill, David K. Jackson, Katy Gaythorpe, Natalie Groves, John Sillitoe, Dominic P. Kwiatkowski, COG-UK, Seth Flaxman, Oliver Ratmann, Samir Bhatt, Susan Hopkins, Axel Gandy, Andrew Rambaut, Neil M Ferguson1
1Correspondence:
e.volz@imperial.ac.uk
neil.ferguson@imperial.ac.uk
Download the full PDF for Report 42 See all reports
WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics (J-IDEA), in collaboration with the Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, University of Edinburgh, Public Health England (PHE), the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of Birmingham and the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium+.
Summary
The SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7, now designated Variant of Concern 202012/01 (VOC) by Public Health England, originated in the UK in late Summer to early Autumn 2020. We examine epidemiological evidence for this VOC having a transmission advantage from several perspectives.First, whole genome sequence data collected from community-based diagnostic testing provides an indication of changing prevalence of different genetic variants through time. Phylodynamic modelling additionally indicates that genetic diversity of this lineage has changed in a manner consistent with exponential growth.Second, we find that changes in VOC frequency inferred from genetic data correspond closely to changes inferred by S-gene target failures (SGTF) in community-based diagnostic PCR testing.Third, we examine growth trends in SGTF and non-SGTF case numbers at local area level across England, and show that the VOC has higher transmissibility than non-VOC lineages, even if the VOC has a different latent period or generation time.Available SGTF data indicate a shift in the age composition of reported cases, with a larger share of under 20 year olds among reported VOC than non-VOC cases
