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Slack / Private Message Drop, p.882 [SLACK_001096] · slack_pm:msg:09140

Date: 2021-05-27 12:41
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Robert F. Garry, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Kristian G. Andersen

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The important addition to that question that I think is often forgotten - "in what setting". I can believe that 617 is more transmissible than 117 in certain settings (high natural immunity, high one-shot immunity, mostly), but in a naive population, is it more fit? Not so sure about that.

In context

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2021-05-27 10:56 Kristian G. Andersen open

Brooke Gladstone - of all people. Disappointing.
2021-05-27 11:11 Andrew Rambaut open

In other news we are tracking a B.1.617.2 variant variant with K417N (Karen) - probably at quite high prevalence inNepal with lots of travel exports. Looks nasty.
2021-05-27 11:15 Kristian G. Andersen open

Interesting - a couple of B.1.429s with Karen in them too. I thought maybe L452R would be non-conducive to Karen.... https://outbreak.info/compare-lineages?gene=S&threshold=75
2021-05-27 11:52 Andrew Rambaut open

But add 'more transmissible than B.1.17' and it could be a problem
2021-05-27 12:41 Kristian G. Andersen

The important addition to that question that I think is often forgotten - "in what setting". I can believe that 617 is more transmissible than 117 in certain settings (high natural immunity, high one-shot immunity, mostly), but in a naive population, is it more fit? Not so sure about that.
2021-05-27 12:45 Kristian G. Andersen open

And it's worth pointing out that this is strictly an academic question, not a public health one - it's clear 617 is aproblem and we need to act, but that was clear weeks ago.
2021-05-27 13:06 Andrew Rambaut open

Just discussing that. My personal hunch has been that B117 is adapted to strong NPI by being more transmissible early but for shorter (causing more damage and thus severity). Make the most of limited number of contacts. 617.2may have a longer pre-symptom period making it better in a more free-for-all environment (i.e., unfortunate timing asUK restrictions have lifted).
2021-05-27 13:10 Kristian G. Andersen open

Yeah, that's an interesting theory - although it seems like 117 may actually also infect for longer? Did Oli ever do anyof the modeling analyses to try and flesh these differences out a little more?
2021-05-27 13:34 Edward C. Holmes open

I wonder if they have enough material to shotgun sequence the environmental samples from the market? Might tell them want animals were being sold my looking at the expressed host genes (e.g. COII). Doesn't even need to be the virus positive samples although they would be better.

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