Holland, Belgium, Italy and just announced Ireland not accepting travellers from the UK.
As one professor (McNally) said: "We know there's a variant, we know nothing about what that means biologically...It is far too early to make any inference on how important this may or may not be."
Quote from: Oldmanmatt on December 20, 2020, 03:51:29 pmAs one professor (McNally) said: "We know there's a variant, we know nothing about what that means biologically...It is far too early to make any inference on how important this may or may not be."They seem to know a bit about it: https://www.cogconsortium.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Report-1_COG-UK_19-December-2020_SARS-CoV-2-Mutations.pdf
Quote from: Ru on December 20, 2020, 06:04:34 pmThey seem to know a bit about it:Having read that - it doesn’t really say much apart from what distinguishes the different types and their occurrence.
They seem to know a bit about it:
+0.9? Not a lot of ´headroom’ there.
@offwidth - you misunderstood my post. We simply don’t know at the moment - but a major shift in the transmissibility of the virus may mean we have to rethink (towards harsher measures) how we deal with it at the moment.
the new variant is less detectable in PCR tests (I think)
Quote from: tomtom on December 20, 2020, 10:33:25 pmthe new variant is less detectable in PCR tests (I think)Don’t think this is the case, the new variant seems to be detectable after fewer PCR cycles (lower ct). This implies more copies the viral RNA are present in the test sample and so suggests a higher viral load.
Drosten noted that the viral strain had also been detected in other countries, like the Netherlands, where it didn’t appear to have multiplied in a significantly more rapid way.
It's good news, in that the new variant is probably not changing anything significantly, but the hysteria that the government have created whilst covering their arses is going to cause some major real-world problems.
My main point is really that with or without the new variant, the rise in cases in London and the South East has not been particularly sudden, and is explained quite reasonably with bog standard Covid. Plenty of examples of cases continuing to rise in the North West back in September whilst effectively being in the equivalent of tier 3. Bolton was a good example.
The best case is that you and Ali are absolutely correct in your cynicism (better posted on the covid & politics thread?) that this is all just a government ploy to ‘cover their arses over not cancelling xmas earlier’. The much worse case is that there actually IS a much more virulent strain of covid spreading uncontrollably across the UK. I wish that you were correct, but the facts suggest that you’re completely wrong.