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Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
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9 Jan, 6 tweets, 3 min read
“Because #B117 can grow exponentially even in communities that are keeping #SARSCoV2 under control, the situation is extremely urgent. If we want vaccination to win this new race, we have to slow down the new virus while it’s still rare.”
Read @mlipsitch!
statnews.com/2021/01/09/we-…
And @kesvelt, of course. Was missing space there...
What to do right now on #b117?
1. “find the enemy”: Test for the variant!
2. “redirect resources to the new and faster-spreading threat”
3. “consider diverting doses of #Covid19 vaccines to any region with large clusters of cases for whole-community vaccination”
This, on second point:
“as soon as the first person is diagnosed with #B117 in a community, local contact tracers should drop everything else in order to map the complete chain of transmission of the new strain using every resource available”
I think third point from @mlipsitch and @kesvelt is crucial.
We have a tool we didn’t have last year: vaccinations. We should at least discuss whether we deviate from previous plans to target this new, urgent threat right now.
We have a shot here! In both senses of the word.
Also:
Develop diagnostics for other variants of concern.
And long-term: increase genomic surveillance. A lot.

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More from @kakape

Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
11 Jan
"One year ago, the first death from #COVID19 was reported”, says @DrTedros at @WHO presser. Now: almost 2 million deaths.
"And while we are hopeful about the safe and effective vaccines that are being rolled out, we want to see this sped up and vaccines allocated equitably."
@DrTedros @WHO "I call for a collective commitment so that within the next 100 days vaccination for health workers, and those at higher risk in all countries are underway”, says @DrTedros.
@DrTedros @WHO A @WHO team is in China now, says @DrTedros, "working with producers of the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines to assess compliance with international quality manufacturing practices ahead of potential emergency use listing by WHO”.
Read 6 tweets
Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
7 Jan
"Without increased control to slow its spread, there will be an increased impact on already stressed and pressurized health facilities”, @hans_kluge said at @WHO_Europe press conference this morning, talking about #B117.
@hans_kluge @WHO_Europe "It is our assessment that this variant of concern may over time, replace other circulating lineages, as seen in the United Kingdom, and increasingly in Denmark”, @hans_kluge said. “With increased transmissibility, and similar disease severity, the variant does ... raise alarm."
@hans_kluge @WHO_Europe He urged countries to act by:
1. "investigating unusually rapid transmission and unexpected disease presentation or severity”
2. “increasing the sequencing of systematically selected subsets of #SARSCoV2 infections”
3. sharing this data
Read 5 tweets
Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
6 Jan
I’ve said before that I’m watching Denmark closely for clues on #B117, so a short update.
The Statens Serum Institut @SSI_dk has an interesting note here on the spread of B.1.1.7 (I’m using google translate):
ssi.dk/aktuelt/nyhede…
@SSI_dk While cases in Denmark are declining and percentage of #B117 is still low, experts there expect that percentage to keep growing and estimate that the new variant could make up half of all infections in Denmark in 40-50 days. Image
@SSI_dk If that is true and #B117 takes over Danish experts expect cases in the country to rise again. By how much depends on how low the reproduction number R is.
The scientists estimate that reducing R to 0.7 (for the old variants) would keep the new variant from spreading too. Image
Read 5 tweets
Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
5 Jan
I’ve written a lot in the last two weeks about #B117 and the uncertainty surrounding its exact effects.
So let me talk about something that we can be pretty certain about: what we should be doing.
New story is here: sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/v…
Quick thread to come.
First: How good is the evidence that #B117 is more transmissible? It’s still far from a slam dunk. But as @AdamJKucharski told me: “We're relying on multiple streams of imperfect evidence, but pretty much all that evidence is pointing in the same direction now.”
At this point we probably have to look to countries other than the UK for confirmation that #B117 is more transmissible.
“The dynamics and the spread of this strain internationally is probably going to be the strongest evidence we will have”, @EvolveDotZoo told me.
Read 12 tweets
Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
5 Jan
"We have entered a new phase of the pandemic where solidarity is needed like never before”, says @DrTedros at @WHO presser on #covid19.
"We are in a race to save lives right now."
@DrTedros @WHO “Case loads are so high in several countries that hospitals and intensive care units are filling up to dangerous levels”, says @drtedros. People mixed more indoors during holidays, he says. “New variants which appear to be more transmissible are exacerbating the situation."
@DrTedros @WHO "We are in a race to prevent infections, bring cases down, protect health systems and save lives, while rolling out highly effective and safe vaccines to high risk populations”, says @DrTedros. "his is not easy. These are the hard miles, we must tread together."
Read 18 tweets
Kai Kupferschmidt Profile picture
2 Jan
We’re in a new year and we have also entered a new phase of this pandemic. So I thought I’d start off the new year with a quick catch-up thread on the UK variant B.1.1.7 and where we are at in this pandemic.
The variant caught scientists' attention in early December based on a surge in cases around Kent and sequencing data showing it carried a host of mutations. (I wrote about this and how a quirk in the PCR is helping track it here: sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/m…).
CAVEAT: The pace at which we have learnt about this new variant is astonishing. But it’s important to realize that a lot of crucial lab experiments take longer. Most data now is looking at noisy epidemiological data and making inferences based on that.
Read 19 tweets

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