One of the lines of evidence on transmission is in this tweet. One of the mutations in the new variant (deletion of amino acids 69 & 70 in spike) by coincidence causes 1 of the 3 channels of a widely used PCR test to drop out, giving us a way to track it in real time. (thread)
https://twitter.com/The_Soup_Dragon/status/1340349639946629120
First, an important note: this assay has probes in two other parts of the SARS-CoV-2 genome, and they are not affected by the new lineage. Since not all three channels have to "light up" to declare a positive, this doesn't significantly affect test sensitivity.
Our sequencing data lags by about 2 weeks, but this read-out at test sites only lags by 24 hours, so we can see how fast the variant spreads in real time. Figuring this relationship out in the past few days was one thing that clarified the seriousness of the situation.
There are also sophisticated models (briefly mentioned at the presser) about exactly how much faster this variant spreads. But this graph looks a lot like the most recent xkcd comic: xkcd.com/2400/
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