1/10 - “A new early warning system can predict the highest-risk coronavirus variants simply from their genetic code, alerting health authorities and vaccine developers to the potential risks months before they spread, according to a study.” ft.com/content/dc8f80…
2/10 - “The AI-based program, developed by BioNTech and north African AI start-up InstaDeep, identified more than 90% of VOCs, including the highly transmissible #Omicron strain, on average two months before their designation by the WHO.”
3/10 - “The results from the study show that the program can evaluate the risks of new variants from their spike proteins within minutes, and monitor them as they evolve nearly in real time.” biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
4/10 - “Early flagging of potential high-risk variants could be an effective tool to alert researchers, vaccine developers, health authorities and policymakers, providing more time to respond to new variants of concern.”
5/10 -“The system red-flagged Omicron on the day its genomic sequence was first uploaded to the global Gisaid database late last year as the most concerning variant out of more than 70,000 variants. That was three days before it was classified as a variant of concern by the WHO.”
6/10 - “It was also able to flag the Alpha variant, which spread quickly in southern England last winter, 65 days before its official designation by the WHO. More than 10,000 novel variants are discovered every week and humans simply cannot cope with complex data at this scale.”
7/10 - “Emma Hodcroft, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Bern, said the early warning system could prove “useful” to track future variants but cautioned that “these predictions are only as good as the information we have to feed into them.”
8/10 - “Using global sequence repositories such as Gisaid, the BioNTech/InstaDeep program is able to scan hundreds of thousands of registered virus variants and analyse each variant’s “fitness” — its potential to spread — and its immune escape properties.”
9/10 - “These two metrics are then combined to create a risk score — a higher score indicates increased risk of the variant affecting global health. #Omicron scored extremely high on both these metrics.”
10/10 - “The system also evaluated the IHU or B.1.640.2 variant recently observed in France, finding it to have immune escape properties relatively similar to #Omicron but with significantly lower fitness, making it less of a concern.”
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2/9 - Western Europe experiences rise or surge in #COVID19 new cases, with increasing mortality:
- Very high mort: GR (R-eff=1.22);
- High mort:UK=0.99;IT=1.29;FR=1.23;DE=1.17;DK=1.11; SP=1.18;LUX;PT=1.25;FL;
- Med mort: AT=1.43;IRL;NO=1.24;BE=1.27;SE;
- Low mort: ICL;NL;CH=1.27.
3/9 - East-Central Europe
Two #COVID19 profiles, with alarming [high] mort:
- Plateau/Landing: [Ukr; Pol/Slovk; Russia];
- Surging-rising: Bulg=1.33 [Croat=1.21;Czech=1.07; Eston=1.25; Hung=1.31; Latv=1.24;Lith=1.27; Romn=1.60; Slovn=1.35; Serb=1.44].
1/3 - France (R-eff=1.23) experiences very high level of #COVID19 activity, with high mortality.
360,469 cases and 228 deaths/day foreseen by Jan 18, if at same pace;
Forecasts Jan 12 to Jan 15 are prone to underestimation: tinyurl.com/COVIDfrance
By @ISG_UNIGE & @SDSCdatascience
2/3 - All mainland Régions surge in #COVID19 cases:
- Very high mortality:
Corse (R-eff=1.20);
PACA=1.23;
- High mort:
AURA=1.30;
Brg-Fr-Cté=1.27;
Grd-Est=1.28:
Hts-de-Fr=1.31;
Ile-de-Fr=1.22;
Norm=1.37;
Nv-Aq=1.28;
Occit=1.28;
- Med mort:
Bret=1.28;
Ctre-Val-L=1.34;
P-de-L=1.31.
3/3 – Overseas Régions are experiencing very high #COVID19 epidemic activity:
- Surge:
Réunion (R-eff=1.31), with high mortality;
- Rapid and worrying surge:
Mayotte=1.62; Guadeloupe=1.48; [Martinique=1.45; Guyane=1.54], low [high] mortality;
1/10 - “As #Omicron infections spread from Tianjin to Henan Province, several regions, including Beijing, urged residents to stay put during the upcoming Spring Festival, and tightened their #COVID19 prevention policies.” globaltimes.cn/page/202201/12…
2/10 - “Anyang, a city with a population of 5 million in Central China's Henan Province, began city-wide testing and imposed strict #COVID19 prevention measures, such as stopping outbound railway, bus and taxi services, after the city reported 26 cases during the past 2 days.”
3/10 - “Most of the confirmed cases in Anyang are students from a local middle school in the city's Tangyin county. The local government has identified 1,495 close contacts and put them under quarantine. It began to test people in the whole city.”
2/9 - Western Europe experiences rise or surge in #COVID19 new cases, with increasing mortality:
- Very high mort: GR (R-eff=1.25);
- High mort:UK=1.05;IT=1.33;FR=1.23;DE=1.12;DK=1.12; SP=1.18;LUX;
- Med mort: AT=1.39;PT=1.27;CH=1.27;IRL;NO=1.29;BE=1.27;FL;
- Low mort: ICL;NL;SE.
3/9 - East-Central Europe
Two #COVID19 profiles, with alarming [high] mort:
- Plateau/Landing: [Ukr; Pol/Slovk; Russia];
- Surging-rising: Bulg=1.30 [Croat=1.31;Czech=1.12; Eston=1.3; Hung=1.36; Latv=1.22;Lith=1.29; Romn=1.48; Slovn=1.37; Serb=1.47].
1/3 - France (R-eff=1.23) experiences very high level of #COVID19 activity, with high mortality.
335,844 cases and 245 deaths/day foreseen by Jan 17, if at same pace;
Forecasts Jan 11 to Jan 14 are prone to underestimation: tinyurl.com/COVIDfrance
By @ISG_UNIGE & @SDSCdatascience
2/3 - All mainland Régions surge in #COVID19 cases:
- Very high mortality:
PACA=1.20;
AURA=1.27;
- High mort:
Brg-Fr-Cté=1.30;
Corse=1.18;
Grd-Est=1.25:
Ile-de-Fr=1.22;
Norm=1.36;
Nv-Aq=1.29;
Occit=1.26;
- Med mort:
Bret=1.28;
Ctre-Val-L=1.27;
Hts-de-Fr=1.33;
P-de-L=1.24.
3/3 – Overseas Régions are experiencing very high #COVID19 epidemic activity:
- Surge:
Réunion (R-eff=1.35), with high mortality;
- Rapid and worrying surge:
Mayotte=1.60; Guadeloupe=1.58; Martinique=1.50; [Guyane=1.66], medium [high] mortality;
2/9 - Western Europe experiences rise or surge in #COVID19 new cases, with increasing mortality:
- Very high mort: GR (R-eff=1.29);
- High mort:UK=1.08;IT=1.39;FR=1.25;DE=1.18;FL;DK=1.13;
- Med mort: SP;AT=1.39;PT=1.28;CH=1.25;IRL;NO=1.32;BE=1.21;
- Low mort: ICL; NL;LUX; SE.
3/9 - East-Central Europe
Two #COVID19 profiles, with alarming [high] mort:
- Plateau-Landing: [Ukr; Pol; Slovk; Russia*];
- Surging-rising: Bulg=1.30 [Croat=1.27;Czech=1.13; Eston=1.3; Hung=1.13; Latv=1.22;Lith=1.30; Romn=1.51; Slovn=1.36; Serb=1.54].
*