Ireland & N. Ireland are in a serious #COVID19 crisis. Cases surging past .

Ireland also has increased presence of the B117 variant—now found in **25%** of cases that underwent further testing in week to Jan. 3, up from just 9% two weeks earlier.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-ireland-idUSKBN29E0J1

2) This dooms day B117 variant taking over scenario with sharp vertical increase is exactly the most feared scenario Denmark CDC — Denmark is also seeing sharp rise. And they fear they will soon lose control. See thread https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1346899021621813249

3) To be clear—even if we hold the virus in check with a minimum R=0.96... by the time the new virus variant takes hold, it will be woefully insufficient, since the B117 strain is 40-80% more infectious (multiply current R*1.4 or *1.8). Other experts agree....

4) Notably, the virus is such a beast—suppose we have 1000 cases/day now... with an R=0.86 we could reduce it to 500/day in 2 weeks.

But w/ added contagiousness of B117 variant that has ~60% higher R, in 2 weeks, we’d have 3000 new cases/day instead—3x!

HT @GosiaGasperoPhD

5) There is also the possibility of a greater increase in infection attack rate in kids relative to adults, compared to common old variant. https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1347745261670584321

6) Now how does the new B117 variant change public health measures? What used to work for Australia and Canada will no longer work anymore. Only aggressive New Zealand and Austria 1st wave restrictions would now be able to stop the more transmissible B117 strain.

7) Now suppose we want to chase #ZeroCovid with Austria’s spring 2020-level aggressive strategy—what would used to take just 45 days to reach zero #COVID19 cases with old variants suppressed to R=0.54, now would require *190 days* w/ B117 strain burning at R=0.864 4x longer!