The new virus strain is ~60% more infectious. We haven’t processed what that means.

1. Western countries that didn’t stop the previous variant won’t be able to stop this one. It’s already in UK, US, FR, NL... that we know. Probably many more places. https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/uk-novel-variant.html

The time to close borders was this summer. Or a month ago. It’s too late now for most countries.

2. If countries had a hard time stopping it before, they will have a much much harder time now. If it’s 60% more infectious, R0 has gone from 2.7 to ~4.3 on average.

Countries that stopped the virus from spreading got R from 2.7 to 1, a reduction of ~60%. Now, they need to reduce R by ~75%.

But remember: all the low-hanging fruit is already used (masks, social distancing...). The next measures are all more expensive.

3. We just went from herd immunity reached at ~60% of the population (through vaccines or recoveries) to reaching it at ~75-80%.

That means some of the “advantage” gained by countries with a heavy toll of infections (such as Spain, the UK, US or Sweden) doesn’t count as much.

4. It also means a delay in herd immunity from vaccines. If a country with 10% of the pop recovered expected to vaccinate 5% of the population per month, immunity would be reached in ~ September. Now it would take until ~Dec 2021-Jan 2022.

5. Obviously, it also means a longer time before the economic recovery. And a deeper recession. More ppl losing their businesses. More inequality.

6. We might not notice it much, at least now: ppl pay attention to Christmas, and the virus hasn’t spread everywhere.

But it’s a bit like a new pandemic. It will take time before it’s everywhere. When it is, in Jan-Feb, the peak in infections will dwarf March’s peak

7. We knew. I said it no less than on March 18th, in The Hammer and the Dance.

The new variant appeared, as predicted, in a place with high incidence—the UK.

https://link.medium.com/x4UqZ3oLxcb 

8. In fact we knew from much earlier than that: from 1918.

That flu originated in the Spring of 1918 in Kansas, and spread through the crowded military barracks, going all the way to Europe. That strain was bad, but not too bad.

The winter wave was much deadlier.

People had much worse symptoms and died faster. Those with immunity from Spring were not as affected. Of the rest, it’s believed 5% of them died.

It was probably due to a new strain, which appeared by mutating or recombining with another virus in 1918.

9. That also teaches us that, normally, virus mutations that prevail are worse for humans across several dimensions: they tend to be not just more infectious, but also more deadly.

See, when a virus is better at penetrating cells (as this new strain is), it means it probably infects many more cells, reproduces faster&spreads through the body faster, which means it’s harder to stop, which means it kills more. This was known 150y ago. It’s called passage

10. Some vaccines might become nearly useless. A vaccine with 70% effectiveness (Eg Oxford) could have been useful if we only needed 60% of the pop to be immune. But if we need 75%, even if we vaccinated 100% (impossible) it might still not stop the epidemic.

People might be confident thanks to the vaccines right now, but this could get worse before it gets better. It’s now a race between vaccines and the new strain.

So what can you do? Trusting your gov at this point might not be the solution.

- Get vaccinated if you can
- Hope for the best, prepare for the worst (a very bad Jan-Feb)
- Stay home if you can. Don’t lower your guard.
- What saves us might well be vaccines+outdoors this summer. Prepare for this lasting until then.

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