Slack / Private Message Drop — page 798

Difficult enough to the point that we have to ignore it for now? [2021-05-13 14:12:25] [Andrew Rambaut] B.1.617.2 (and .1) are very diverse suggesting quite an old origin (perhaps July last year). [2021-05-13 14:12:46] [Andrew Rambaut] But imports into UK basically started in March and Indian samples only appeared in Feb. [2021-05-13 14:12:46] [Kristian Andersen] Yup, saw that - similar to CA variant which may well be a dud. [2021-05-13 14:13:02] [Andrew Rambaut] But the full diversity is being imported into UK. [2021-05-13 14:13:14] [Kristian Andersen] Became HUGELY prevalent during the surge, but it was surge-driven, not mutation-driven (most likely) [2021-05-13 14:13:41] [Andrew Rambaut] That doesn't feel like the virus being more transmissible - that is like lots of viruses entering some very high transmission populations. [2021-05-13 14:13:58] [Kristian Andersen] Hmmm [2021-05-13 14:14:12] [Andrew Rambaut] But it has P681R so is very plausibly more transmissible [2021-05-13 14:14:32] [Kristian Andersen] Not necessarily though - if e.g., P681R explains the increased transmissibility, then you'd see the full diversity [2021-05-13 14:14:35] [Kristian Andersen] [thread - ID: 2021-05-13 14:14:35] No? [2021-05-13 14:14:45] [Andrew Rambaut] In the UK the raw figures seem like it is growing but actually it is focused in a few places and there are some good epi reasons for growth [2021-05-13 14:15:41] [Andrew Rambaut] [thread - ID: 2021-05-13 14:14:35] @Kristian Andersen Not really - I would expect the first virus with P681R that arrives in Mombai to win. [2021-05-13 14:15:51]