There is certainly something going on in the UK and Ireland, but it's not a randomized controlled study designed to measure the infectiousness of the variants that have recently been sampled there.
(because it's exponential, higher infectiousness can be quite a lot worse than higher lethality)
There is. In the UK you are seeing a huge spike in infections at the same time the percentage of coronaviruses attributed to the new variant sky rocket.
Look here for how one of the lines is not like the others. (UK)
It should be noted that increased infectiousness will inherently result in a larger number of deaths, even if it is not "deadlier". i.e. the new strain may still only be fatal in 0.5% of cases, but if it infects more people that's more rolls of the dice. The original strain was only projected to infect 60-70% of the population (if left unchecked). A new strain being 70% more infectious drastically changes that figure.
Not to mention a similar uptick in serious cases and even just more people presenting to the hospital. Imagine the current situation, where some cities are already at 0% capacity, but 70% worse...
Just something worth noting when we say that a new strain is _just_ more infectious.
It's been rapidly becoming the dominant variant in places with various different kinds of measures so I think it's for sure more infectious at this point.
Just a reminder that greater infectiousness is worse than greater lethality.
Say you have two variants, variant S-spreader and variant L-lethal.
S kills 1 in 100 people and has a doubling time of 3.5 days
L kills 2 in 100 people and has a doubling time of a week.
First week L kills twice as many people of S.
Week 2 they kill the same number of people.
Week 3 S kills twice as many people as L
Week 4 S kills 4x as many people as L.
aqme28|5 years ago
https://www.who.int/csr/don/21-december-2020-sars-cov2-varia...
maxerickson|5 years ago
There is certainly something going on in the UK and Ireland, but it's not a randomized controlled study designed to measure the infectiousness of the variants that have recently been sampled there.
(because it's exponential, higher infectiousness can be quite a lot worse than higher lethality)
JamesBarney|5 years ago
Look here for how one of the lines is not like the others. (UK)
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS...
avl999|5 years ago
fpgaminer|5 years ago
Not to mention a similar uptick in serious cases and even just more people presenting to the hospital. Imagine the current situation, where some cities are already at 0% capacity, but 70% worse...
Just something worth noting when we say that a new strain is _just_ more infectious.
sbinthree|5 years ago
JamesBarney|5 years ago
Say you have two variants, variant S-spreader and variant L-lethal. S kills 1 in 100 people and has a doubling time of 3.5 days L kills 2 in 100 people and has a doubling time of a week.
First week L kills twice as many people of S. Week 2 they kill the same number of people. Week 3 S kills twice as many people as L Week 4 S kills 4x as many people as L.
elij|5 years ago
It's very important, specifically in the UK, to put N501Y in the context of political decisions that impact the R index.
https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1344774576371335175
graeme|5 years ago