Coronavirus (2021) thread

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ayrshire_blue said:
Concerns rise about spread of coronavirus variant in London Several people infected by strain first identified in South Africa had received at least one vaccine shot.

Surge testing has been expanded to four London boroughs as concern grows that the test and trace programme cannot contain a coronavirus variant that has shown increasing signs of vaccine resistance.

A total of 56 cases of the variant first identified in South Africa were found in the week to April 14, according to data released on Thursday, taking the total confirmed cases since it was first detected in December to 600. The largest “surge testing” operation since the start of the pandemic was launched in the boroughs of Wandsworth and Lambeth on Tuesday, then extended to postcodes in Southwark and Barnet, as public health officials urgently try to halt the spread of the strain, named 501Y.V2. “Surge testing works until the day that it doesn’t,” said Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, adding that the variant could “completely devastate us” if health officials were unable to prevent it from spreading nationwide — like B.1.1.7 did at the end of last year.

While the first case of 501Y.V2 found in Southwark was believed to be linked to the initial cluster in Lambeth and Wandsworth, genomic sequencing indicated that the Barnet case was unconnected.The new cases have caused concern in the government as several of those infected had received at least one shot of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine, suggesting the variant may have been able to resist vaccine protection, according to one test and trace official. Scientists have questioned whether the rapid rollout of tests in densely populated neighbourhoods will be sufficient to stem the spread of a highly transmissible strain, particularly when London is emerging from lockdown.

“I am extremely concerned that . . . the horse may have already bolted,” said Dr Zubaida Haque, a member of Independent Sage, convened as an alternative to the government’s top scientific advisory group. The relaxation of lockdown rules in England this week and children’s return to school after the Easter break were “the perfect storm” for variants to spread, Haque added.

Scientists also fear that the 501Y.V2 variant may have a competitive advantage over the B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in Kent, as it appears it may be able to infect some vaccinated people due to mutations around its spike protein, which it uses to enter human cells."

Financial Times.
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If any of these variants is genuinely unaffected by immunity to ancestral strains, be it vaccine or naturally acquired, then it will spread through the population exponentially and will be visible in daily figures very soon.

No amount of surge testing or border controls can prevent such an outcome, only delay it.

It seems very unlikely the SA or Brazil variants fall into such a category given they've been around for months already.

I'm not sure there's really much we can do about this beyond preparing next generation vaccine production for boosters, and keeping case numbers low so we get early warning of outbreaks.
 
True_Blue69 said:
How many people have had the vaccine and tested positive for the other strains that it does protect against though? Hasn’t it been made clear that the vaccines don’t stop you catching it?
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I agree with this, nor is there information to say 1/ how mild or severe these identified cases are and 2/ how long after 1st dose, which would be helpful to know.

I might be way off and am only making my own layman's interpretation of what's happening but as @roubaixtuesday has just pointed out this SA strain has been around for quite a while now, so any mass spread should surely be reflected sooner rather than later given the recent relaxations on restrictions. Perhaps a week or two down the line we will know if this is an obvious problem whereby as the article states the horse has already bolted.

This may differ from the Indian one mentioned on this thread recently as its came from nothing in this country to 77 cases just in the last week. Again another week or two would highlight any exponential growth (I would think) but perhaps more likely to see it with this than the SA variant given it's not been identified as having been around here for a while already so this is fairly new to us in that respect.
 
ayrshire_blue said:
Concerns rise about spread of coronavirus variant in London Several people infected by strain first identified in South Africa had received at least one vaccine shot.

Surge testing has been expanded to four London boroughs as concern grows that the test and trace programme cannot contain a coronavirus variant that has shown increasing signs of vaccine resistance.

A total of 56 cases of the variant first identified in South Africa were found in the week to April 14, according to data released on Thursday, taking the total confirmed cases since it was first detected in December to 600. The largest “surge testing” operation since the start of the pandemic was launched in the boroughs of Wandsworth and Lambeth on Tuesday, then extended to postcodes in Southwark and Barnet, as public health officials urgently try to halt the spread of the strain, named 501Y.V2. “Surge testing works until the day that it doesn’t,” said Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, adding that the variant could “completely devastate us” if health officials were unable to prevent it from spreading nationwide — like B.1.1.7 did at the end of last year.

While the first case of 501Y.V2 found in Southwark was believed to be linked to the initial cluster in Lambeth and Wandsworth, genomic sequencing indicated that the Barnet case was unconnected.The new cases have caused concern in the government as several of those infected had received at least one shot of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine, suggesting the variant may have been able to resist vaccine protection, according to one test and trace official. Scientists have questioned whether the rapid rollout of tests in densely populated neighbourhoods will be sufficient to stem the spread of a highly transmissible strain, particularly when London is emerging from lockdown.

“I am extremely concerned that . . . the horse may have already bolted,” said Dr Zubaida Haque, a member of Independent Sage, convened as an alternative to the government’s top scientific advisory group. The relaxation of lockdown rules in England this week and children’s return to school after the Easter break were “the perfect storm” for variants to spread, Haque added.

Scientists also fear that the 501Y.V2 variant may have a competitive advantage over the B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in Kent, as it appears it may be able to infect some vaccinated people due to mutations around its spike protein, which it uses to enter human cells."

Financial Times.
Click to expand...
I suppose the real question is whether those with the vaccine who have caught it have been prevented by the vaccine from becoming seriously ill.
 
M18CTID said:
Absolutely. And if it turns out that the vaccine has been effective in preventing serious illness then it's surely not a grave cause for concern.
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Still a concern because of the increased risk of further mutations if it spreads widely even if it doesn't make people ill. But, as you say, nowhere near as serious as it would be if it made the vaccine totally ineffective.
 
west didsblue said:
Still a concern because of the increased risk of further mutations if it spreads widely even if it doesn't make people ill. But, as you say, nowhere near as serious as it would be if it made the vaccine totally ineffective.
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Of course mate. We still need to be on our guard and things like this obviously need close monitoring going forward. I continue to remain optimistic that the UK is in a good position and we're clearly far better equipped to deal with any curveballs than we were 12 months ago. Not just with the vaccines, but also with far more testing capacity and being better at test, trace, and isolate than we were previously. There's still room for improvement on that score of course but I feel we now have a variety of tools to send Covid to the margins going forward.
 
Scotland data

3 deaths - was 6 last week

204 cases - was 285 last week

1.4% positive - was 1.8% last week

109 patients (down 6 in day) - was 168 last week

18 ICU ventilated (up 2 in day) - was 20 last week
 
Northern Ireland data:

1 death - was 2 last week

119 cases - was 113 last week

5.1% positivity - was 6.0% last week

Rolling 7 day total 824 - down from 833 yesterday but up from 553 last week

4 Care Home outbreaks - up 1 on yesterday - down 1 on last week

NB:- Only 1 of the 4 Care Homes has any symptomatic cases. The others are just from tests without symptoms.

69 Patients - down 7 in day - was 99 last week

5 ventilated icu - down 1 in day - was 9 last week
 
More on the 18 England hospital deaths

Four of them are actually 2 months or more old 2 from January and 2 from mid November.

Regions NE 6 NW 3 SW 3 London 2 SE 2 E 1 Midlands 1

Only Doncaster with 2 had more than 1

The three for the NW were from Lancashire, Liverpool and St Helens.

11 of the 18 were aged over 80.
 
BlueHammer85 said:
A coronavirus variant with a worrying "double mutation" has been detected in the UK after having first emerged in India.

A total of 77 cases of the variant, known as B.1.617, have found across the country up to 14 April, the latest update from Public Health England revealed.

The strain is of particular concern because of features two mutations in the spike protein combined in the same virus, prompting fears it may be more infectious or less susceptible to vaccines.
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The UK strain is the one causing the surge in India.
Now Test & Trace works, I'm pretty sure that surge testing will deal with mutating variation.
As the number of cases overall is falling we also need to genome sequence test more than the 10% we currently do.
 
BlueAnorak said:
Now Test & Trace works, I'm pretty sure that surge testing will deal with mutating variation.
Click to expand...

The stated expectation is for an increase in cases as we open up over the next two months, ie Test and Trace is not expected to cope with current variants, let alone a new one.

Policy is *not* to keep cases at current or lower levels. You could argue that it should be, but that would probably require radical changes to test and trace and isolate, and probably more or longer restrictions too.
 
Healdplace said:
Zoe App update

UK Cases estimated down 85 on yesterday to 1399. Was 1956 last Friday.

And ongoing symptomatic cases down 1528 to 30, 455. Was 43, 356 last Friday.

If these tumbling numbers are anything like reality there seems little stopping this down track.

Much as we are seeing from the hospitalisation data.

Unfortunately the North West has risen to second highest with only Yorkshire out of the England regions and 3 nations above it.

Though Yorkshire is significantly higher still and in the higher bracket that North West is not yet.

That NW focus seems to be around St Helens/Wigan/Bolton/Leigh where the highest cases are right now it suggests.
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My worry is that 96 of the Zoe cases are in my Local Authority (Bromsgrove). Unless of course I'm reading that 96 figure wrong (people with Covid rather than new cases)
 
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