Let this sink in—
The more contagious #P1 variant from Brazil has now invaded N America—British Columbia🇨🇦 has a sudden cluster of 215+ new #P1 cases sequenced by one Vancouver lab.
#P1 is more contagious, has reinfection risk and possibly more severe.🧵
2) 215 identified by one lab in Vancouver — and not all even included in public reports by BC health Dept yet (they are much slower reporting than CTV news)
BC 🇨🇦 has added 20-30 daily #P1 cases per day for the last 4 days (again not including all the #P1 above)
3) And are these new #P1 cases due to international travel or were they local transmission?
The BC health Dept report few days ago said the initial 84 cases were all community transmission!! Zero international travel. This is a bad sign — so many at once and no travel.
4) One Brazil @obscovid19br study puts #P1 transmission at 2.5x faster than old common strain. This 150% increase is much faster than even #B117 if it holds up.
5) Meanwhile, another UK group at MRC Imperial puts #P1 at 2x (100% increase) more transmissible than older common strains— but with even larger reinfection potential.
Keep in mind #b117 from UK is only 40-60% faster than old common. Both studies imply #P1 is faster than B117.
6) And is there early data suggesting #P1 is more severe?
“an increase in CFR for almost all age groups observed. All groups above 20 years of age showed significant increases in CFR (Case Fatality Ratio)”
when comparing February 2021 vs January 2021...
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
7) Notably:
📌Patients aged 20-29 years experienced a tripling of their CFR
📌aged 30-39, 40-49, 50-59 experienced ~CFR doubling
➡️”Individuals between 20-29 years of age in February 2021 had an over 3-fold higher risk of death compared to January 2021.”
8) “findings suggest significant increases in CFR in young and middle-aged adults after identification of a novel SARS-CoV-2 strain circulating in Brazil, and this should raise public health alarms” ⚠️
9) British Columbia’s recent #P1 spike isn’t the first outside Brazil 🇧🇷. As alluded to in the video (top post), there are surges also in neighboring Paraguay and Uruguay— where ICU hospital beds are now maxed out. see thread 🧵 below.
10) We need to all prevent #P1 from causing more clusters and hotspots around the world. Because we cannot repeat the crisis in Brazil 🇧🇷 right now. See detailed #P1 thread below.
11) Head scratching frustrating — I don’t know why BC health chief keeps dismissing the variants of concern (B117 P1 and B1351) as not different than older strains. That is clearly false (see above) and well known for months. @CDCofBC 🇨🇦 needs to wake up.
12) UPDATE—after some weekend pressure, BC 🇨🇦 health chief Bonnie Henry finally admits there is a serious issue with #P1 variant - now announced discovery of 270 cases in BC! And she finally admits P1 is a problem. BC now on short circuit breaker.
13) Bad update— another 100 new cases of #P1 variant logged in BC 🇨🇦 today. This is exponential.
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