My work was used in a recent piece for The Conversation: "There’s a new COVID variant driving up infections. A virologist explains what to know about NB.1.8.1".
The links in the paragraph starting "Genomic sequencing has confirmed NB.1.8.1 …" point to my report for Australia, from my regular variant analysis. I update that and my similar reports for other countries and regions weekly.
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I didn’t get named as a contributor, which is a little disappointing, but seems to be typical for this outlet. IAC it’s good to see my work is useful.
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The piece seems an excellent summary of the latest news, data and research on NB.1.8.1 (recently nicknamed "Nimbus"), by AProf Lara Herrero of Griffith Uni.
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I have wasted no time in loading that piece into my online dataviz for Media Mentions, which is an open-source project:
Reported Cases have continued to rise sharply at the national level and in most states & territories, with the 7-day average doubling in the last 2 weeks.
#COVID19 #Australia
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The last time 800 cases/day were reported nationally was in late January, on the downslope of the XEC wave. The peak of this wave has not been reached.
As always, it is hard to be certain with this series; the data quality is very shoddy and the raw data is incredibly spiky.
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Reported cases are continuing to grow strongly in NSW, with the Reff (case momentum) fairly steady between 1.2 and 1.3, so sustained exponential growth.
The prior wave (XEC in January) in NSW peaked at around 410/day, which looks within reach for this wave.
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Here's the latest variant picture for Europe (excluding the UK), to early May.
The LP.8.1.* variant continued to dominate, growing steadily to around 52% frequency.
#COVID19 #EUR #LP_8_1 #XFG #XDV #NB_1_8_1 #XFJ
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The presumed next challengers are still at low frequencies but growing – XFG.* to around 10%, and XDV.* (led by NB.1.8.1) to around 6%, and also XFJ.* grew to 5%.
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In France, XFJ.* grew to sharply from late-April to reach 19%. Earlier, it grew in Germany to 9%.
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Here's an animated map showing the spread of the NB.1.8.1 variant, and it’s child variants PQ.1 and PQ.2. The first sample was reported in England in January, but judging from it’s early spread, the origin was likely an undersampled region in Asia.
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It was soon reported across Asia and Australia. Growth accelerated from late March and it is now showing up almost everywhere that is still sharing sequencing data.
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This thread discusses the global variant picture, including analysis on the growth of the XDV.* clan (led by NB.1.8.1).
Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to early May.
The LP.8.1.* variant has peaked and fell back to 52%.
The presumed next challengers are growing – XDV.* (led by NB.1.8.1) to 9% and XFG.* to 8%.
#COVID19 #USA #LP_8_1 #XFG #XDV #NB_1_8_1
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For the US, the XFG.* variant shows a strong but slightly slowing growth advantage of 5.2% per day (36% per week) over LP.8.1.*, which now predicts a crossover in early June.
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For the US, the XDV.* variant (led by NB.1.8.1) shows a healthy growth advantage of 4.8% per day (34% per week) over LP.8.1.*, with a possible crossover in June.
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Here's the latest variant picture with a global scope, to early May.
The dominant LP.8.1.* variant has fallen to around 34%.
XDV.* (led by NB.1.8.1) is challenging, rising steadily to 18%.
#COVID19 #Global #LP_8_1 #XDV #NB_1_8_1
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Globally, the XDV.* variant clan (led by NB.1.8.1) is showing a strong and accelerating growth advantage of 5.7% per day (40% per week) over the dominant LP.8.1.* variants. That now predicts a crossover in mid- May (the data routinely lags).
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Strong growth advantages like that (if sustained) could point to higher waves than those seen for LP.8.1.* (which were typically very low).
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Hong Kong is the first country to experience a wave driven by the new NB.1.8.1 variant.
From the Hong Kong surveillance report, wastewater is the most consistent indicator. That indicator is still trending upwards, to the highest level since mid-2023.
#COVID19 #HongKong
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Analysis of the impact of the new NB.1.8.1 variant in Hong Kong might be informative for those awaiting that variant in other countries.
Here’s the current variant picture for Hong Kong, showing the rapid “clean sweep” by the XDV.* variants, led by NB.1.8.1. In the JN.1 era (since late 2023) it has been very rare to see this, anywhere.
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