Thread by @DrEricDing

⚠️“DOMINANT”… a new variant is worrying epidemiologists—called #B11529–it has just “becoming dominant” in South Africa, displacing even #DeltaVariant (HT @MoshabelaMosa). And our other variant #C12 also growing. B11529 has an “awful spike profile” says @PeacockFlu. 🧵 #COVID19

2) I talked about worried many fellow scientists are about #B11529– many expressed “real concern”, and that they ➡️ haven’t seen as worrisome of a variant since #deltavariant ⬇️ its got a lot of bad mutations in the spike. Way more than Delta.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1463765169830572039

3) this #B11529 variant is now in Hong Kong— caught while in quarantine.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1463766262417432578

4) Notably, it’s the first time that a variant has *2* furin cleavage site mutations. “variant contains not one, but two furin cleavage site mutations - P681H & N679K- this is the first time @PeacockFlu seen 2 of these mutations in a single variant.”

📌Furin site spells trouble.

5) A bad furin mutation was also what made #DeltaVariant — a 681 mutation in the furin cleavage site P681H.

Guess which variant also has another nasty mutation at the same 681 amino acid spot?➡️ The new Botswana #B11529 variant. 👀

nature.com/articles/d4158…

6) The variant was first spotted in Botswana, where three cases have now been sequenced. Six more have been confirmed in South Africa, and one in Hong Kong in a traveller returning from South Africa. github.com/cov-lineages/p…

7) The #B11529 dominant graph is from Kwazulu Natal region, where “almost all recent samples” are now #B11529 — the blue dots… 👀 seriously!

https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1463885550633590793

8) total #COVID19 positivity surging in the local area with the dominant #B11529 surge. This is another sign it’s bad.

9) seems #B11529 has a shortcut PCR test to use as proxy - our old S-gene dropout test works to rapidly identify it. It was used originally to find the Alpha Variant, but now that Alpha is nearly extinct, the S-gene dropout PCR can be used for B11529–but bad news is it’s surging.

https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1463885565221384202

10) there was a spike in S-gene (#B11529) cases yesterday in South Africa… it was across **all provinces** of South Africa!!! That’s a bad bad sign.

11) welp—UK now imposing travel restrictions because of #B11529.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1463978550743248899

12) Very very bad - #B11529 made its way to Hong Kong 🇭🇰 and then cross infected in hotel quarantine- and was negative on 3 PCR tests before finally showing up on a 4th PCR in 8 days. See thread 🧵—plus both were Pfizer vaccinated.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1463998740340121601

13) if the South African #B11529 data is true, this would be how bad it is compared to Delta. Let’s stay vigilant and take precautions.

14) Other model by @JPWeiland predicts the #NuVariant #B11529 could have a huge 500% competitive advantage over the original strain. This would be cataclysmically bad if true. Let’s wait to confirm further but let’s be precautions. Precautionary principle is key right now!