Thread by @chrischirp

THREAD on EUROPE:
Many headlines today about Europe's third wave, what it means for us and, in particular, international travel.

thetimes.co.uk/article/surge-…

Some thoughts about what it means... 1/11

Firstly, the current increases in Europe are because B117 (the Kent strain) has become dominant there - move than 70% in Denmark, NL, 50-70% in France, Belgium, Itlay, Germany & Austria. 2/11

As with us in Dec, they didn't act decisively to stop its spread - instead they've been in semi-restrictions (similar to our tier 3) - enough to bring *down* cases of old variant but not enough to stop B117.

B117 was only 5-10% in EU early Feb

https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1356676871124094976

3/11

As long as you have more old than new variant it LOOKS like cases are under control, but as soon as B117 becomes dominant cases start rising. This is what has happened & it was predictable. In fact, I said in early Feb that March could be bad in EU.

https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1357672391548301315

4/11

Low vaccination isn't helping either. If anything, cases have risen more slowly in EU than in UK because they hospitality has largely been shut there for months & many places have curfews, mixing restrictions and strong masks mandates. But B117 is a tricky beast to control. 5/11

So what does that mean for us? Well, we're not going to get a new wave *because* of the current wave in EU in that we already have 98% of cases being B117 - we've had our B117 wave. If we get a new wave it will because of one of two things: 6/11

1) we open up too quickly without enough mitigations (and it will need more than just the vaccines) so that B117 surges again - as I said it's a tricky beast to keep contained. I'm worried that we've forgotten that because lockdown has been so effective. 7/11

2) we import new variants from EU that can resist our vaccines & start a wave of a new variant in what would effectively be much less "vaxxed" pop'n.

The SA variant (5-10% of cases in France) is already semi-resistant & SAGE are v worried about it.
theguardian.com/world/2021/mar… 8/11

As there are tens of thousands of new cases every day in Europe over next few weeks *and* millions of people vaxxed, conditions are created for new, more resistant, variants to emerge and spread. We definitely don't want to import those... 9/11

This is why international travel this summer is not a good idea.

If we can get people fully vaxxed, keep variants out this yr & give scientists time to produce boosters for new variants, we can boost people over winter ready to travel next year.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-564678… 10/11

That is the best bet for avoiding another wave here - and avoiding illness, death & more restrictions.

Restricting our travel will mean much more chance of an open life here in the UK for this year. 11/11

PS thanks to @lukemshepherd for the plots!

PS Europe also shows why half measures just don't work - they damage the economy a lot but are just not enough to stop the new more transmissible strains (SA and Brazil also more infectious than the old variant) - and so things just drag on and on.