Thread by @vinodscaria

A lot of discussion about B.1.640.2 reported from Southern France 🇫🇷 and a preprint on the variant medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
This 🧵is to summarize what we know. 👇

🔴14 changes including N501Y and E484K, & 9 deletions in Spike
🔵B.1.640 (now renamed B.1.640.1) had been in the @WHO watchlist for quite some time (Nov 2021)
🔵Index case seemingly was from Cameroon (doesn't mean it originated there)
🔴Many of the mutations are shared with VoCs

🟢Though predates omicron, sequences have not grown rapidly
🟢 Mutation specific qPCR assays can screen and differentiate from Delta and Omicron
🔴We don't know whether the increasing cases in South France 🇫🇷 are associated with the new variant

Conclusion:
🟢 Nothing to panic or worry too much at the moment , given the evidence.
🟡But clearly something that needs to be watched closely for the coming weeks.

2nd point 👆 to be read as
🔵genomes in the original cluster which formed B.1.640 now forms the B.1.640.1 cluster.

Thanks @shuvankr for pointing out 🙏

https://twitter.com/vinodscaria/status/1478230771408125954?s=20

This is what the distribution of variants look like in France 🇫🇷
#OmicronVariant seems to be the recent winner
Source: @DiseaseOutbreak

Number Updates 05/-2/2022
🏐B.1.640 lineage has only approx 439 odd genomes on @GISAID
🌕Pulling out ones with S:E484K is 23 genomes