Thread by @ShellyMBoulder

1/ ICYMI paper on variant linking epic and genetic data: imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial… 1. the variant does appear to be more transmissible. From my read of the paper, it accounts for about a half to 2/3 of an additional infection per every additional transmission.

2/ SO for example if I have COVID and I give it to my husband, highly likely, then if I had this variant, I might also give it to 1/2-2/3 of another person - which is not physically possible, of course!

3/ I might also give it to my son resulting in 2 infections, but then the next person with the variant may only give it to one additional person, so between the 2 of us with the variant, the result is 3 additional infections instead of 2 if we were transmitting the non variant.

4/ 2. it appears that it is more transmissible in <20 year olds. however if you look at figure 4, you will see that this age group only accounts for 6-7% of the cases, compared to upwards of 15% for all other age groups.

5/ Thus it we had 100 new infections tomorrow, than the <19 age group would see 7 of those cases if it was the variant, compared to 6 of those cases if it was not. and then all the other new cases would be spread out in the >20 age category.

6/ what does this mean practically? It means you can’t let your guard down per @CorsIAQ. I recommend wearing masks at all times indoors and OUTDOORS. it means social distancing at all times. It means keeping air cleaners running and a window open a couple of inches every 30 min

7/ It means staying vigilant even when you are going to pick up food at a restaurant and take it home, or walking behind someone on the street. I would recommend these more stringent approaches even without the variant tho

8/ since we have terrible testing/tracing abilities & we are unable to get the cases down in the US. Possibly due to the variant, but also likely due to people’s behavior, poor mask wearing, not always having a mask on, sharing the air with others in your home without masks…