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Author Topic: Coronavirus variant: What does your Debbie say?  (Read 1756 times)

littleman

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Coronavirus variant: What does your Debbie say?
« on: January 02, 2021, 11:54:40 PM »
>UK coronavirus variant

I'm wondering if the current prevention wisdom will prove to be enough for this new variant.  Right now the spread seems to be blamed on noncompliance, but perhaps the new variant will need more than the standard 6 feet/mask/wash your hands recommendations?
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Rupert

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Re: Coronavirus variant: What does your Debbie say?
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2021, 12:04:08 PM »
Quote from: littleman on January 02, 2021, 11:54:40 PM
>UK coronavirus variant

I'm wondering if the current prevention wisdom will prove to be enough for this new variant.  Right now the spread seems to be blamed on noncompliance, but perhaps the new variant will need more than the standard 6 feet/mask/wash your hands recommendations?

My niece and husband have it and have barely been out of the house.  They went to 2 shops to buy Christmas lunch when they realised there was no way they were going to my sisters house.
They have a 2 year old who went to nursery.  That's the most probable source, but no reports of it from the nursery.

London is by its nature non compliant though. Just so busy.
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rcjordan

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Re: Coronavirus variant: What does your Debbie say?
« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2021, 02:19:02 PM »
<split from the Holiday thread>

>perhaps the new variant will need more than the standard 6 feet/mask/wash your hands recommendations?

Assuming that the amount on non-compliance has remained roughly the same, what has likely changed to make the variant more contagious?
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rcjordan

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Re: Coronavirus variant: What does your Debbie say?
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2021, 06:44:09 PM »
UK Study Shows New COVID-19 Variant Affects Younger People | IE
https://interestingengineering.com/uk-study-shows-new-covid-19-variant-spreads-faster-affects-younger-people

-----

"all among men in their 20s or 30s"

The One Thing All 3 US Cases of the New COVID Variant Have in Common
https://bestlifeonline.com/new-covid-variant-cases/

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Adam C

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Re: Coronavirus variant: What does your Debbie say?
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2021, 09:29:43 PM »
>Right now the spread seems to be blamed on noncompliance
>London is by its nature non compliant though. Just so busy.

London's non compliance I suspect is relatively constant, whereas the hockey stick growth since the new variant has entered the fray is pretty significant.

My corner of South East London (about 5 miles south of the centre) has been quieter than ever in recent weeks.  Over the weeks around Christmas when London was moved to the highest regional tier of restrictions it felt as though huge numbers had left the city.  Now, with the increased national lockdown its even quieter.

That said, of course, it is a populated city and wherever you go, you're likely to see other folk.

Not that I'm spending much time outside the house.  With remote working and looking after the kids, there's barely a moment to get out.
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ergophobe

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Re: Coronavirus variant: What does your Debbie say?
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2021, 03:20:16 AM »
Quote from: littleman on January 02, 2021, 11:54:40 PM
I'm wondering if the current prevention wisdom will prove to be enough for this new variant.

This article is a nice explainer (short answer: probably not).
I'm wondering if the current prevention wisdom will prove to be enough for this new variant.

overview: if you have a baseline of 10,000 infections per month resulting in 129 deaths, making the strain 50% more deadly but just as contagious results in 193 deaths, but making it just as deadly but 50% more contagious results in 958 deaths.

The reason is that if it turns out to be 50% more contagious, you go from an R of 1.1 to an R of 1.6. Since these are exponential progressions, it means that if you're having a problem with your current measures, making the virus 50% more contagious makes it over 600% more deadly.

The other complication is that it makes vaccination effort more challenging because the percentage who must be vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity goes up. If you need 70% to get to herd immunity (a common guess, but nobody actually knows), now you might need 85%. Again, nobody really knows what the threshold is for herd immunity, but it is a function of R.
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