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Dr Duncan Robertson Profile picture
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3 Jun, 7 tweets, 2 min read
What is the 'Nepal Variant'?

This is the Transport Secretary's statement just now, justifying why Portugal has moved from the green list of countries.

"a sort of Nepal mutation of the so-called Indian variant which has been detected"
This was featured prominently in today's Daily Mail.
The World Health Organization apparently do not know about it.

Variants will be circulating in Nepal and some will be detected in Nepal, and *presumably* the Transport Secretary is referring to a *significant* new variant.

I *assume* this will be analyzed in the next PHE variant technical report. Until then, it remains a public mystery.
Here's the PHE Variant Technical Report, just published

TL/DR: searching for Nepal brings up nothing new.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
*Here* is some analysis:

"It isn't, however, something that the average person should worry about right now."

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More from @Dr_D_Robertson

Dr Duncan Robertson Profile picture
3 Jun
Cumulative case numbers for variants published by PHE today, 3 June.

I think we all get the picture now that the Delta/B.1.617.2/'India' variant is becoming dominant.

Here are the charts.

And a final tweet linking to today's risk assessment of Delta, which isn't great news.
Logarithmic cumulative chart.
Heatmaps of weekly cases
Read 7 tweets
Dr Duncan Robertson Profile picture
3 Jun
The PHE risk assessment of Delta/B.1.617.2/'India' has been updated today, 3 June.

- *new* INFECTION SEVERITY risk assessed as RED (with Iow confidence)
- VACCINES risk still assessed as RED but now with HIGH confidence.

Previous versions linked below.

A thread.
TRANSMISSIBILITY BETWEEN HUMANS
RED risk
HIGH confidence

"Transmissibility appears greater than wild type (first wave) SARS-CoV-2Delta continues to demonstrate a substantially increased growth rate compared to Alpha, across multiple analyses. ...
"... Delta cases are rising whilst Alpha cases are declining. Secondary attack rates, including household secondary attack rates, are higher for Delta, but these are not yet corrected for vaccination status. There is in vitro evidence suggestive of increased replication in ...
Read 19 tweets
Dr Duncan Robertson Profile picture
3 Jun
The green/amber/red list and the role of the Joint Biosecurity Centre in those risk analyses.

Reminiscent of the JBC work on the CONTAIN framework for deciding which local authorities should be in which tiers.

A short thread.
The JBC is responsible for publishing a risk assessment that is used to determine which countries are on the green, amber, and red lists.

gov.uk/government/spe…
We can *assume* that these risk assessments have been conducted and have informed the reported move of Portugal from the green list to the amber list.

Here is how we are told they are completed

gov.uk/government/pub…
Read 10 tweets
Dr Duncan Robertson Profile picture
1 Jun
The Government's strategy has always been that, on repoening, cases would increase.

A short thread.
Cases are, indeed, increasing.

There appears to be an approximate constant rate of increase.

However, testing is very much dependent on who is tested and where testing is taking place, surge testing and the like.
The Government's Roadmap has depended on four tests.

None of these tests involve cases (directly).

Read 17 tweets
Dr Duncan Robertson Profile picture
1 Jun
On the WHO naming (a short thread with some comments on the new naming system.

1. Here it is. Good that it's here but it's far too late
who.int/en/activities/…
2. any scientist would have thought about using the Greek alphabet (because that's what scientists do) but probably discounted it because, well, it's a bit.. Greek (see point 1)
3. it's not future-proof.

10 Greek letters have been used up already out of 24. It's back to the drawing board for variant 25 (or at least another decision has to be made as to which e.g. alphabet to use)
Read 8 tweets
Dr Duncan Robertson Profile picture
27 May
PHE have published their data for Variants of Concern to 26 May2021

- B.1.617.2 is becoming dominant with 3,535 new cases
- But also increases in these variants of concern
P1 (+21)
B.1.351 (+32)
- New variant under investigation C.36.3 (+109)

cumulative chart excl B.1.1.7
Cumulative chart excluding B.1.1.7 and B.1.617.2

Over 900 cumulative cases of B.1.351 (South Africa)
Cumulative chart on an exponential chart
Read 15 tweets

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