Share this page!

Moritz Gerstung Profile picture
Twitter logo
25 Nov, 6 tweets, 2 min read
🧵 zur neuen B.1.1.529 SARS-CoV-2 Variante, die vor einigen Tagen von Wissenschaftlern in Südafrika entdeckt wurde.

TL;DR: Die Variante bringt nahezu alle besorgniserregenden Merkmale mit sich, die wir in den letzten 1-2 Jahren gesehen haben.

1. B.1.1.529 hat mehr oder weniger alle Mutationen, die wir aus Alpha, Beta, Gamma und Delta kennen, gleichzeitig und noch weitere dazu.

2. In Südafrika setzt sie sich dem Anschein nach rapide und in unterschiedlichen Regionen gegen Delta durch.

3. Der Anstieg des B.1.1.529 Anteils spiegelt sich bereits jetzt in steigenden Fallzahlen wieder, wenn auch noch auf niedrigem Niveau.

Das niedrige Ausgangsniveau ist ein Quäntchen Hoffnung, mehr nicht.

Das @rki_de sollte daher Südafrika und Nachbarländer unverzüglich auf die Virusvariantenliste setzen und alle Einreisenden verpflichtend PCR testen.

Dadurch verschafft man sich Zeit um Impflücken zu schließen und booster zu verabreichen.

Großbritannien und Israel haben bereits reagiert.

Schnelles Handeln ist entscheidend.

theguardian.com/world/2021/nov…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Moritz Gerstung

Moritz Gerstung Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @MoritzGerstung

Moritz Gerstung Profile picture
26 Nov
Some thoughts about the punctuated evolution of variants of concern including B.1.1.529 in Southern Africa. 🧵

A shared characteristic of all known VOCs is that they appeared suddenly with a large number of mutations, many more than the incremental changes we see normally. Image
These mutations recurrently cluster in certain functional sites of the virus’ genome.

This is the signature of selection — while mutations occur more or less randomly, we preferentially see the subset that makes the virus fitter.

But why so many concomitant mutations at once?
While we will never know the exact circumstance of each VOC emergence, we do know that a similar pattern occurs in immunocompromised patients who have chronic infections.

This includes patients with leukaemia, but also AIDS

medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Read 10 tweets
Moritz Gerstung Profile picture
18 Nov
An update on 🦠 SARS-CoV-2 variants in England.

Today: AY.4.2.1, AY.98 and other introductions.

TLDR: It seems to be ok.
Background: The list of Delta sublineages has gotten longer – more than 121 AY.x lineages + sublineages.

This is thanks to the virus hunters @PangoNetwork spotting epidemiologically relevant variants across the 🌍.

These appear as colored branches at cov2tree.org
In England, @CovidGenomicsUK operates a very systematic sequencing programme, which allows to detect & characterise the spread of new lineages early.

Every Monday @jcbarret and his team release data from around 25,000 samples (~10% of cases) on covid19.sanger.ac.uk
Read 13 tweets
Moritz Gerstung Profile picture
14 Oct
Just out - the rise and fall of SARS-CoV-2 lineages in England.

In the last 1.5yrs the UK has been a bell weather for SARS-CoV-2 evolution and genomic epidemiology thanks to the data sequenced by @CovidGenomicsUK and @sangerinstitute.

Let's recap. >>
nature.com/articles/s4158…
As any virus, SARS-CoV-2 accumulates mutations and undergoes an evolutionary journey where fitter variants succeed. Most mutations are neutral and enable us to define lineages, which derive from a single ancestor and share all its mutations. By now there are >1000 lineages. >>
As new variants emerge all the time it is important to characterise their behaviour as soon as possible and an essential question is whether one variant has a growth advantage over others, as this may change the future course of the epidemic. >>
Read 27 tweets
Moritz Gerstung Profile picture
26 Sep
It’s election day in Germany.

A long 🧵 about what’s happening and some anecdotes for my friends abroad.

TLDR: It’s almost spooky how little has changed in the 9 years when I was away. Time for a fresh start, see leader below.

economist.com/leaders/2021/0…
The areas where I feel Germany has to catch up compared to other countries where I lived and worked in the last 13 years are: climate, digitisation and bureaucracy.

I’d also think that it needs to take more responsibility in Europe and sort out its domestic demographic problems.
Among the most pressing things would be a pragmatic approach to reach net zero asap.

Yet Germany emits more greenhouse gas per capita than many other European nations.

The problem is that Germans aren’t really aware of this.
Read 26 tweets
Moritz Gerstung Profile picture
26 May
What have we learned from analysing 200,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes from genomic surveillance in England in the last 9 months?

These data provide important context for the current situation related to B.1.617.2.

Here’s a summary of the preprint. medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
@harald_voeh has developed a model that tracks 62 different lineages across 315 local authorities in England. His model estimates total and lineage-specific incidence and growth rates.
The model also calculates lineage-specific relative growth rates and provides a fairly accurate reconstruction of the epidemic and its many subepidemics across the nation between Sep '20 and Apr' 21. We also included a provisional analysis until 15 May '21 to track B.1.617.2
Read 14 tweets
Moritz Gerstung Profile picture
17 Apr
Want to *see* how a tumour has evolved and grown? And also how different clones acquired characteristic transcriptional and histopathological features?

Hold on, that's magic.

No, it's our new preprint by @LucyYat47076319 and @MatsNilssonLab 1/9

biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
Jessica Svedlund developed a base-specific extension of the in situ sequencing protocol (BaSISS) to detect somatic mutations on a microscopy slide with fluorescently tagged padlock probes. 2/9
These signals are denoised and assembled into microscopic maps of subclonal growth using @LomakinAI's rigorous machine learning model. 3/9
Read 9 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @MoritzGerstung has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @MoritzGerstung!

Read all threads by @MoritzGerstung

:(