Thread by @alexandraphelan

Public Health England has just released their updated report on the UK #SARSCoV2 variant

"Investigation of novel SARS-CoV-2 variant: Variant of Concern 202012/01"

I'll do a quick summary thread below & link to report:

A cluster was identified & used to assess increasing incidence of the Variant of Concern (designated as such 18 Dec) in Kent, UK:
- 4% (255/6130) of Kent cases had available genomes
- in Kent: 117 genomically similar cases identified (10-19 Nov)
- in UK: 962 genomes of VoC(8 Dec)

Out of that 962 UK wide, epi data was available for 915 individuals.

As of 20 Dec, VoC present mainly in London, South East & East of England regions.

The report goes into the details of how the VoC testing is carried out.

Here's the first critical part: "VOC is significantly associated with a higher reproduction number"

(Experts on modelling will be able to comment on this more specifically – it's not my area)

*Potential* impact of VoC on transmissibility:

*Potential* impact of VoC on antigenicity:

Conclusion of PHE's report:
"We have assessed this variant as having substantially increased transmissibility with high confidence. Further studies are underway to characterise the variant and updates will be provided."

Here's the report in full:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…