Thread by @DrEricDing

The new “double mutation” variant from India 🇮🇳 #B1617 is surging fast in UK—5x increase in % of #COVID19 cases in just 2 weeks. Same with the South Africa 🇿🇦 #B1351 variant. When did they increase? After schools reopened.

And keep in mind—it’s rising despite high vaccinations.

2) How does the India variant compare to #B117? It seems to be increasing faster than any other variant in the UK. It’s outcompeting it.

3) I know the variants are getting hard to keep track. But here is a handy shortcut info graphic.

4) UK is now able to track all of these carefully because it is sequencing 20,000 cases a week to identify variants. This is a huge volume given UK cases are relatively low. cogconsortium.uk

5) India cases are surging. And it’s spilling over to other country during international travel. Like on a flight to Hong Kong.

6) in India, some early data is showing that somehow #B117 is being outcompeted. The #B1617 is growing fast and becoming dominant. India doesn’t have enough reliable sequencing so this is just scratching at the surface.

7) Longer thread by @chrischirp on variants in the UK and India. Top figure was created by her.

8) is #B117 truly being outcompeted and declining in India? Unclear due to limited sequencing. But it’s definitely not surging like #b1617 is in India. That is worrisome. outbreak.info/situation-repo…

9) More mutation and variants = more problems.

10) WOW—nearly ever single flight from India to Toronto airport this past month has had at least a passenger carrying #COVID19. And 1/3 of all international flights landing in Toronto had Covid. We need border quarantines ASAP.

torontosun.com/news/local-new…

11) to be clear, since I wasn’t precise, the school reopening comment was directly referring to B1351 (mentioned in preceding sentence in my top post) for which there is some evidence it was school driven.