Estimated Transmissibility and Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Lineage B.1.1.7 in England

Nicholas G Davies; Sam Abbott; Rosanna C Barnard; Christopher I Jarvis; Adam J Kucharski; James D Munday; Carl A B Pearson; Timothy W Russell; Damien C Tully; Alex D Washburne; Tom Wenseleers; Amy Gimma; William Waites; Kerry L M Wong; Kevin van Zandvoort; Justin D Silverman; Karla Diaz-Ordaz; Ruth Keogh; Rosalind M Eggo; Sebastian Funk; Mark Jit; Katherine E Atkins; W John Edmunds;

RELATED

Related Papers     Patents    Grants    Venues    Experts    Cite    Share    Save

ABSTRACT

A severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variant, VOC 202012/01 (lineage B.1.1.7), emerged in southeast England in September 2020 and is rapidly spreading toward fixation. Using a variety of statistical and dynamic modeling approaches, we estimate that this variant has a 43 to 90% (range of 95% credible intervals, 38 to 130%) higher reproduction number than preexisting variants. A fitted two-strain dynamic transmission model shows that VOC 202012/01 will lead to large resurgences of COVID-19 cases. Without stringent control measures, including limited closure of educational institutions and a greatly accelerated vaccine rollout, COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths across England in the first 6 months of 2021 were projected to exceed those in 2020. VOC 202012/01 has spread globally and exhibits a similar transmission increase (59 to 74%) in Denmark, Switzerland, and the United States.

 Paraphrase     Questionfy     Wikify     Simplify     Summarize

Download