NEW: There is a new strain of COVID in England that is far more infectious. What it means and what it doesn’t mean.

Doing a Sat morning roundup with a few scientists and will report here shortly. Follow if interested. 1/

Here is a pasted article while I finish gathering info. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-12-19/london-put-in-emergency-lockdown-as-u-k-fights-new-virus-strain

I have some responses and am gathering others but the met effect is this is not a game changer but all the more reason to limit your interactions as much as possible. 3/

There are several dozen subs-trains of COVID-19 already— so another strain should not in any way cause people to consider this a game changer. Still I will answer the questions I expect most people have the best I can. 4/

1. The bad news first. If a new strain is more contagious, that increases the Rt. That means that in whatever community it is in makes it more likely to spread. 5/

It means that all of the respiratory precautions— masks, distance, ventilation, avoiding crowds, reducing indoor gatherings— are even more important to keep you safe & to keep you from spreading it. 6/

2. Is it more deadly? The clinical manifestations appear exactly the same. So in one sense, no. That is relieving news on a number of fronts. 7/

But this strain would be worse if it spread in nursing homes for example and other congregate settings. That adds responsibility to people in the community not to spread it because evidence shows it is not possible to keep out of nursing homes. 8/

Of course nursing homes is just an example. (Twitter habits require this level of specificity.) 9/

3. Will the new strain respond to the vaccine? Almost definitely per everyone I’ve talked to. Let me explain the details as I understand them as to why that is. 10/

According to something Dr. Fauci told me, as long as the body is capable of amounting an immune response, we know vaccines will work since what a vaccine does is simply trigger that response. 11/

There are viruses that don’t trigger an immune response and thankfully SARS-CoV-2 is NOT one of them.

Sorry for the double negative. This virus does trigger an immune response. All strains of it. 12/

Furthermore if the spike protein were to become so modified that it the spike protein changes, it won’t bind to ACE2 in human cells so won’t affect us anyway.

There may be scientists who disagree that I haven’t spoken to, but that has not been a concern of anyone. 13/

4. Is it in the US? Not as far as we know. But we have samples of all of the tests of course so we will be able to see. The importance of containment & quarantine procedures are real. 14/

In a country that refuses to comply with anything, including things that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, our best bet is to keep it out. It’s the last thing our hospitals need right now. 15/

So we might as well act like we have a contagious virus in the country right now. You know, just in case we do. 16/

Sum: big picture, don’t let it rock you. Day to day, if we aren’t being very careful already well, this adds to the reasons.

As I get more from more scientists that is additive or slightly different, I will of course post it here. 17/ (end for now)

For the intrepid. Here is some speculation on how these things happen....

British strain may have a lot of variation,
perhaps it arose due to the use of something like reassortment to evolve quickly
e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reassortment

Book:
https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Infectious-Disease-Paul-Ewald/dp/0195111397 18/endish