We need to treat the new variant as a new pandemic, and recalibrate our response accordingly.

A short thread.

The responses to Covid so far - 'Covid-secure', social distancing, etc. have up until now been calibrated on two things:
- the transmissibility of Covid
- a political calibration based on society's acceptance of direct effects of Covid (deaths etc) balanced against other effects

We have a new variant that is *so much more transmissible* that something is going to have to give https://twitter.com/Dr_D_Robertson/status/1348743537777659905

Due to this vastly increased transmissibility, we need to *think* of the new variant as an entirely new pandemic. https://twitter.com/ewanbirney/status/1348920784761352193

Which means a recalibration.

This can come from four main areas:
- vaccination decreasing susceptible population
- infection decreasing the susceptible population
- recalibrate 'Covid-secure' measures
- accepting higher mortality

Increasing infection (the herd immunity argument) will cause unnecessary deaths.

Accepting higher mortality will means unnecessary deaths.

So we are left with two responses.

The first is to recalibrate 'Covid-secure' measures. This means that all the risk assessments should be re-done on the basis of a *much more transmissible variant* that is now dominant in much of the country. https://twitter.com/Dr_D_Robertson/status/1348914141302583297

And the final response is vaccination.

We need to do that. Now.