This article, on the arrival of B.1.617 (et al) in the U.K. is important, but is missing some really important context. Notably, we expect clusters, even in vaccinated people. It’s how *many* there are when compared with unvaccinated that matters 1/n theguardian.com/world/2021/may…
Look at this. No deaths. That’s not the usual story when it comes to this virus and care homes. I don’t want to draw strong positive conclusions from small numbers, but nor should we draw strong negative ones 2/n 
It’s actually rather like this. Again an outbreak, but nowhere near as bad as we’d have expected in the absence of vaccination cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7… 3/n
To be clear, the suggestion that public health communication has been delayed because of elections is really shocking. And it’s important to investigate clusters. But the fact of clusters or community spread is less important than whether or not there’s more than you’d expect 4/n
The U.K. has very low incidence right now largely as a result of hard work in the first three months of the year. However population immunity at present is not sufficient to avoid exponential growth following any return to ‘normal’ 5/n
The story of the next few months in the U.K. will be the virus growing back from a low base, slowed by vaccines and likely the weather, and whatever else can be put in its way. I suspect it might be quite slow and the worst consequences blunted by vaccines. I hope I’m right 6/end
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