My father sent me this video (24 min) that makes the case for all of this being mostly a nothingburger. Or, to be more precise, he says he has only low confidence instead of moderate confidence that the new strain is substantially more infectious, which therefore means don’t be concerned. Which is odd, since even low confidence in something this impactful should be a big deal! It points to the whole ‘nothing’s real until it is proven or at least until it is the default outcome’ philosophy that many people effectively use.
I think this is a great video, it explained a lot of things very clearly. I’m not a biologist/epidemologist/etc., and this video was very clear and helpful. In particular the strong prior “a handful of mutations typically does not lead to massive changes in reproduction rate” is a valuable insight that makes a lot of sense.
That being said, the main arguments against this new strain variant being a large risk seem to be:
The prior mentioned above.
The fact that current estimates of increased transmission rates are based on PCR testing, which does not identify variants.
The possibility of alternative explanations for the increase in nationwide infections in the UK, which have not been sufficiently ruled out (in particular superspreaders).
I think he is claiming that the NERVTAG meeting minutes are drawing a causal link between the lower ct value of this variant on PCR tests and its increased transmissibility, and that this is an uncertain inference to draw.
However, personally I think the strongest case for the increased transmissibility of this new variant comes not from indirect evidence as presented above, but from the direct observation of exponential growth in the relative number of cases over multiple weeks/months. See for example the ECDC threat assesment brief or the PHE technical briefing. These seem to strongly imply that, while being agnostic about the mechanism, this new variant is spreading very rapidly. So all things considered the linked video makes me update only very weakly towards a lower probability of this new variant being massively transmissible—a good explanation for growth shown in both reports is still missing if it is not inherently more transmissible.
I think this is a great video, it explained a lot of things very clearly. I’m not a biologist/epidemologist/etc., and this video was very clear and helpful. In particular the strong prior “a handful of mutations typically does not lead to massive changes in reproduction rate” is a valuable insight that makes a lot of sense.
That being said, the main arguments against this new
strainvariant being a large risk seem to be:The prior mentioned above.
The fact that current estimates of increased transmission rates are based on PCR testing, which does not identify variants.
The possibility of alternative explanations for the increase in nationwide infections in the UK, which have not been sufficiently ruled out (in particular superspreaders).
I think he is claiming that the NERVTAG meeting minutes are drawing a causal link between the lower ct value of this variant on PCR tests and its increased transmissibility, and that this is an uncertain inference to draw.
However, personally I think the strongest case for the increased transmissibility of this new variant comes not from indirect evidence as presented above, but from the direct observation of exponential growth in the relative number of cases over multiple weeks/months. See for example the ECDC threat assesment brief or the PHE technical briefing. These seem to strongly imply that, while being agnostic about the mechanism, this new variant is spreading very rapidly. So all things considered the linked video makes me update only very weakly towards a lower probability of this new variant being massively transmissible—a good explanation for growth shown in both reports is still missing if it is not inherently more transmissible.