Covid-19: Where’s the herd immunity?

“Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film.”  More...

Lancet: 18 million dead from the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic

Although reported COVID-19 deaths between Jan 1, 2020, and Dec 31, 2021, totalled 5·94 million worldwide, we estimate that 18·2 million people died worldwide because of the COVID-19 pandemic (as measured by excess mortality) over that period.  More...

UK: PHE Technical Briefing and Variants of Concern update 18

PHE England have recently published new reports on the SARS-COV-2 variants circulating in Britain: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Zeta, Eta, B.1.1.318, Theta, Kappa, B.1.617.3, AV.1, C.36.3, Lambda, C.37

SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England

Variants under surveillance
Variant prevalence
Secondary attack rates
SARS-CoV-2 Immunity and Reinfection Evaluation (the SIREN study) cohort monitoring

Part 2: Delta (B.1.617.2) surveillance
Surveillance through genomic data
Delta with K417N (Delta-AY.1)

 

Investigation of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: routine variant data update

Data on individual variants
Alpha
Beta
Gamma
International Epidemiology
Zeta
Eta
VUI-21FEB-04 (B.1.1.318)
Theta
Kappa
VUI-21APR-03 (B.1.617.3)
VUI-21MAY-01 (AV.1)
VUI-21MAY-02 (C.36.3)
Lambda (C.37, VUI-21JUN-01)

 

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Preprint: Infectivity and immune escape of the new coronavirus variant of interest C.37 Lambda

“We also observed that the spike protein of the Lambda variant presented increased infectivity when compared with the spike protein of the Alpha and Gamma variants, both of them with reported increased infectivity and transmissibility.  More...