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Dr Emma Hodcroft Profile picture
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Jan 23 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Another way to put it:

🎶Welcome to Family Omicron🎵
🎵The home of the Family Omicron🎵
🎶Where all the variants are mutational and interesting 🎶
🎵BA.2 is part of the Family Omicron🎶 💃

#Encanto
Tia BA.1/21K
It's mutations affect antibody-binding
When spreads quickly
Well, existing immunity gets weird

Tio BA.3
We don't talk about BA.3
(It's rare, there's nothing much to say)

Oh! And that's BA.2/21L...
Here's its deal (whoa)
Its spike fairly similar to BA.1 for real (whoa)
The truth is, it's spreading on BA.1's heels (whoa)
But it's mutations differ in some other genes
If you're intrigued, imagine how scientists feel (we're on it!)

Welcome to the Family Omicron🎶
If you're really confused - check out this video from Encanto:


Here, I used the descriptions of the three original Madrigal children (Pepa, Bruno, Julieta) 🙃

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Dr Emma Hodcroft Profile picture
Jan 11
I keep hearing very clever people with very large audiences repeat this.
There's no guarantee that a pathogen becomes milder if severe illness and/or death aren't impacting its transmissibility. If it transmits early & kills a few of you 4 weeks later, it's doing just fine.
Of course, a pathogen *may* evolve to be milder, due to a variety of complex selection pressures.

But this isn't the fait accompli that I keep hearing people repeat it as.
It's very likely that a lot of the drop in severity we may have observed historically (particularly for things like a new flu strain) is due to rising immunity - not necessarily the virus becoming milder.
Read 4 tweets
Dr Emma Hodcroft Profile picture
Jan 11
✨CoVariants.org Update!✨

New! 21L (Omicron) (aka BA.2) now has its own page & is included in all plots.

New! A variant-relationship chart!

Bugfix! Starting a new year is hard - CoVariants has gotten over its hangover & is processing Week 1 data correctly!

1/8
Some had already noticed that there were a growing number of 'other' sequences showing up - sparking some questions.

These are 21L (BA.2) sequences - part of the Omicron family & a sister to 21K! But since CoVariants was only plotting 21K, 21L was relegated to 'other'.

2/8
21L (Omicron) is now officially a full member of CoVariants, with its own page, mutations -- & most importantly, a place in the plots!

We can see 21L sequences clearly in Denmark, India, South Africa, & Sweden. Numbers are often incoming, so interpret dynamics cautiously.

3/8
Read 8 tweets
Dr Emma Hodcroft Profile picture
Jan 10
Can we PLEASE STOP making COVID-related phone-apps geo-locked?

We should not make getting #COVID19 test results, showing certificates, or participating in contact tracing difficult.

ANYONE should be able to download these apps. #makeCOVIDAppsAvailable
IF for some reason you need particular information to use the app, by all means ask for it!
But PLEASE stop assuming that because I use the UK Google Play Store that I don't have a Swiss address, Swiss credit card, Swiss insurance number, Swiss permit number........
Small things like this stop people who are trying to do the right thing. They turn people off from using services & taking actions that benefit *all of us*.

This seems crazy to have to say it but: Don't assume someone's residency or nationality from their app store!!
Read 4 tweets
Dr Emma Hodcroft Profile picture
Jan 3
As we pry open our inboxes & settle into 2022, it's temping to breathe a sigh of relief that we managed to navigate a high-risk, high-stress holiday season. 🥴

But it's critically important we keep a mask on for that sigh 😷, & remain watchful 👀 of the #COVID19 situation!

1/12
What are we facing, as we stand on the doorstep of Jan 2022? 🚪

1. For many, cases are high & still rising 📈
2. Case detection may be impacted 🧑🏾‍🤝‍🧑🏻🧑🏼‍🤝‍🧑🏻
3. Holiday infections are still being detected 🎄
4. "Back to work" means new transmission chances 🤝

Let's walk through.

2/12
>1. For many, cases are high & still rising 📈

Holidays may have passed, but chances are they've only started leaving their mark - even before they started, cases were rising, & in many places are still shooting up.

(source @OurWorldInData 3Jan)

3/12
Read 12 tweets
Dr Emma Hodcroft Profile picture
Dec 7, 2021
🧨NO! There is no new variant that isn't detectable by PCR😤

The a new set of sequences, closely related to #Omicron has been detected & we *absolutely can* detect cases with PCR. What we can't tell as easily is /that they are Omicron or Omicron-like/.

theguardian.com/world/2021/dec…
First things first - I'm a huge @guardian fan & immensely disappointed by this irresponsible headline. This kind of alarmist headline causes panic & makes *the work of scientists like myself 10 times harder*.

Please do better.

2/N
So what is this all about then? Well, one 'nice' thing about Omicron is that it has what we call S:69/70del - a deletion that means it has S-gene-drop-out (SGTF), meaning that some PCR tests can see straight away that it might be Omicron. This makes helps surveillance!

3/N
Read 9 tweets
Dr Emma Hodcroft Profile picture
Dec 5, 2021
I've gotten a few Qs lately about what the odds are that a SGTF (S-gene-drop-out) is Omicron vs another variant with S:69-/70-

I track S:69- routinely for CoVariants.org, so I pulled out data from 30 Aug - 7 Nov (pre Omicron) as a baseline:
github.com/hodcroftlab/co…

1/5
This only includes countries CoVariants tracks - so at least 500 seqs in any variant or mutation.

As @CorneliusRoemer illustrated a few days ago, knowing this can help you get an idea of whether an SGTF is Omicron or /nOmicron/ 😛(seq to confirm!)

2/5
VERY Importantly: This is going to change quickly now -- for a lot of countries the odds that they're detecting Omicron are rising markedly.

But particularly if looking back at SGTF data from the last few weeks, knowing your 'baseline' can be helpful.

3/5
Read 6 tweets

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