This is a pretty strong indication of immune escape to me, if it persists in other outbreaks. If this was purely from increased infectiousness in naive individuals it would imply an R-value (in non-immune populations) of like 40 or something, which seems much less plausible than immune escape. I don’t know what the vaccination/infection rates are in these communities though.
28% of population at least one dose, 24% fully vaccinated.
89,771 deaths. At 0.5% fatality rate that would be 18 million people ~= 30% of the population.
So maybe 100% immune escape would be a factor 1.5-3? Leaving at least a factor 2-3 for generally increased infectiousness. (Assuming unchanged generation length.)
This is a pretty strong indication of immune escape to me, if it persists in other outbreaks. If this was purely from increased infectiousness in naive individuals it would imply an R-value (in non-immune populations) of like 40 or something, which seems much less plausible than immune escape. I don’t know what the vaccination/infection rates are in these communities though.
Quick googling, numbers for south africa:
Population 59 million.
28% of population at least one dose, 24% fully vaccinated.
89,771 deaths. At 0.5% fatality rate that would be 18 million people ~= 30% of the population.
So maybe 100% immune escape would be a factor 1.5-3? Leaving at least a factor 2-3 for generally increased infectiousness. (Assuming unchanged generation length.)
The sidebar at about 4m20s in the video says that Guateng province has fully vaccinated 30% of its adult population.