Kent Covid Variant No More Severe, Studies Show
Two new studies have shown that the “Kent” Covid variant – which Boris Johnson previously said “may be associated with a higher degree of mortality” – does not cause more severe disease, despite being more transmissible. The Financial Times has the story.
The highly contagious B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant, which originated in Kent and now dominates Covid transmissions across Europe and North America, does not cause more severe disease, according to two new studies.
The research, published on Monday night, appeared to contradict earlier conclusions that B.1.1.7 infection led to more serious symptoms and was about 60% more lethal than previous variants of the virus.
The new studies used different methods. One team compared illness severity in patients infected with B.1.1.7 and other variants at two London hospitals – University College London Hospital and North Middlesex Hospital. The other combined data collected by the UK’s Zoe Covid Symptom Study mobile app with surveillance records from the Covid Genomics UK Consortium and Public Health England.
Both studies confirmed previous findings that B.1.1.7 is at least 35% more transmissible. But, once the data were fully corrected for demographic and epidemiological factors, neither study found an association between the variant and more severe disease symptoms.
Dr Eleni Nastouli, the lead author of the UCL study which has been published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, said the study helped researchers properly analyse the severity of the variant.
One of the real strengths of our study is that it ran at the same time that B.1.1.7 was emerging and spreading throughout London and the south of England.
Analysing the variant before the peak of hospital admissions and any associated strains on the health service gave us a crucial window of time to gain vital insights into how B.1.1.7 differs in severity or death in hospitalised patients from the strain of the first wave.
After Boris Johnson said in a January news briefing that “the new variant… may be associated with a higher degree of mortality”, MPs accused the Government of “scaremongering” about the virus without strong supporting evidence – evidence which even Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance said was “weak”.
The Covid Recovery Group of Tory backbenchers and business chiefs are growing increasingly alarmed at suggestions lockdown could stretch well into summer despite Britain’s vaccination programme
Tory backbencher Craig Mackinlay told MailOnline some of the scientific warnings were reminiscent of Project Fear and every time there was hope of easing lockdown there was “a new twist”.
The FT‘s report is worth reading in full.
ITV News has some more details on these new studies.
One observational study of patients in London hospitals suggested the variant is not associated with more severe illness and death, but appears to lead to higher viral load.
A separate observational study using data logged by 37,000 UK users of a self-reporting coronavirus symptom app found no evidence the variant altered symptoms or likelihood of experiencing long Covid.
Authors of both studies acknowledged the findings differ from some other studies exploring the severity of the variant, and called for more research.
Also worth reading in full.
Stop Press: We have published other reports on the severity of the B.1.1.7 variant in the past, for example here, here and here.
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Surprise!
Now excuse me whilst I puke over the rail of the Ship of Fools.
35% more transmissible when you are in an NDS Hospital, where most of the transmission this winter occurred.
Bingo. Nosocomial is such an under-appreciated word.
Thanks, we predicted that back in January when the Kent mutant ‘swept’ across the County with no ill effects.
It quickly became the majority of ‘cases’ but illness, hospitalisations and deaths continued their downward decline.
If this phantom virus mutates (as they do), why do we not get a different ‘vaccine’ to deal with these ‘variants’? My understanding is that variants and mutations are always weaker than the original strain and traditional vaccines are developed to deal with this without the need for ‘booster’ jabs.
“why do we not get a different ‘vaccine’ to deal with these ‘variants’”
I am sure that’s exactly what we’ll get. Annual vaccines would be a huge boost for the vaccine industry.
Because these ‘variants’ don’t actually qualify as ‘variants’ in the strict scientific sense. The so-called Kent variant is 0.3% different to the Wuhan virus at the most. Which is nothing at all. The human immune system is capable of identifying a variant of about 30%.
The idea of needing a ‘booster’ to deal with 0.3% is absurd, absolutely absurd.
And the ‘Kent variant’ didn’t suddenly go round the world from some sleepy little village, that idea is also absurd. Virus adapt , they want to survive so they make themselves easier to transmit, usually as this process develops their effect on the host diminishes, the last thing a virus wants to do is kill its host. This ‘event’ will have happened more or less at the same time in different places around the world. Unfortunately the UK gene sequences about 50% of the world’s sequencing, so the odds of a ‘variant’ having a UK name are not small.
Similar to why Spanish flu was called that, it was the only major European power not involved in WW1 so the initial press reports all came from Spain while everywhere else censored news about it.
And the “Spanish Flu” might very well have originated in America. This is at least considered a real possibility by many today. I think about that sometimes when I read all the stories about the “Chinese Flu.” Maybe this virus DID originate in China … but maybe it did not.
Kansas.
SARS2 has about 5 significant differences to SARS which all make it more able to hang onto the human lung cells. The odds of this happening naturally in one jump is remote. But the probability of it happening in Wuhan doesn’t make it ‘Chinese’, as the reasearch and funding came ready wrapped from the US after the US tightened its regulation on such research in 2014.
Began in American army camps l believe.
The variants aren’t sufficiently different from the original virus to evade the immune system or vaccines.
There’ll be thousands of variants, none of any real significance, but that won’t stop the PTB from bigging them up.
“Benign cold virus little different from benign cold virus it is related to”
As an aside interesting to consider the Kent variant in Wales
In the ONS infection survey, as I understand it, you would expect the Kent variant to show up in the ORF1ab and N gene positive only column. The single gene positives can be ignored as false positives (incorrect use of PCR to count these) and the ORF1ab, N and S all positive aren’t likely to be the Kent variant because of the S gene mutation.
And yet 0% are in the category for the past 2 weeks for ORF1ab and N gene positive but S gene negative. So looks like Kent variant was present and then has dispapeared for the last 2 weeks.
Probably small numbers involved in Wales but still looks very odd.
Can anyone explain this?
So much more transmissable that everywhere with the new varient continued on the same epidemic trajectory as places without?
I strongly suspect the reason it looks more transmissable is that it
a) was lucky at the right time in London – when k (the ‘superspreading factor’) was highest due to government policies – i.e. straight after lockdown when everyone rushed to the shops. It’s entirely possible that the november lockdown caused the december peak and if they hadn’t fiddled we’d be in a much better place. But hey, ho.
b) was prevelant at a time when viruses in general are more transmissable.
I would really like to know if LS thinks we’re “getting back to normal” or not.
Because I don’t see it. The massive hike in the money supply, the shutdown of the economy for a year and a half and the gene based “vaccines” all portend to a very nasty event in our not too distant future.
I saw Toby’s advice to get out and go to the pub, but I can’t. I’m simply too angry at what’s been done to our country to go and revel in the dregs of a once free country with all the plebs.
Can’t we see where this is going? They are not going to give you back what you’ve lost. In fact, they’ve already completely reorganised our society, our nation’s wealth and our relationship to the state and we haven’t really seen the effects of it yet. At some point they are going to pull the trigger and I think “back to normal” is going to be a long distant memory that you’re not even allowed to speak of out loud.
We shouldn’t be talking about “old normality”, it’s regressive. We should be talking about something new and infinitely more human than anything that’s yet been on offer.
“Normal” to me means:
I don’t care what you call it. New normal. Old normal. Normal. Call it what you like, I don’t care. But that list is what I want.
I broadly agree, but “normal” is a terrible word to use to sell something, it’s vacuous. Besides, what you describe was in fact NEVER normal anyway, the seeds of this were planted by the very regimes that preceded this, it was in their DNA.
I think people telling other people what they “should be talking about” is a big part of the reason we got into this mess.
“Toby’s advice to get out and go to the pub”
… which is daft ‘advice’ – because you can’t. Most aren’t open, and you can’t go in to those that are nominally so!
There were 2 people sitting outside our local in the icy rain yesterday. Brave souls – but its not really the normality we are looking for
It’s ‘normaity – but not as we know it, Spock’. 🙂
I’d like to return to this normality
Modellers are still morons. The fall in infections and disease has been from increasing population immunity and Spring
————–
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned of the consequences of lifting lockdown, telling reporters: “As we unlock, the result will inevitably be that we will see more infection, sadly we will see more hospitalisation and deaths, and people have just got to understand that.”
He also says it is “very important” for people to understand that the reduction in infections, hospitalisations and deaths “has not been achieved by the vaccination programme”.
“People don’t, I think, appreciate that it’s the lockdown that has been overwhelmingly important in delivering this improvement in the pandemic and the figures that we’ve seen,” he says.
“Yes of course the vaccination programme has helped but the bulk of the work in reducing the disease has been done by the lockdown.”
Liar bozo, as you rightly say Steve the reductions have been caused by increasing herd immunity and Seasonality which I reported yesterday when a Government Adviser criticised the ‘models’ for ignoring seasonality, which word he used three times.
By his own logic – that only lockdowns can control COVID, and COVID is so severe it demands lockdowns – we’re not ever getting out of this.
the modellers, SAGE and the politicians are all morons. It’s amazing how they have got away with this for a year!
BJ is an idiot. Please don’t report his words, it makes my blood pressure spike to even see his name.
What a ridiculous comment for Boris to make…and one with no evidence to back up such a claim. Nothing to do with seasonality either, of course. People will of course believe what he says in the main
Also, someone ought to show him the charts showing “case” numbers in countries/states where lockdowns have been lifted weeks/months ago
first wave showed the ineffectiveness of lockdowns. We really knew last April that this is all nonsense – but they’ve spun it out as some galactic arse covering exercise.
As with the autumn rise, the spring decline has been totally in line with my expectations, which are much more reliable and accurate than any model of the computer game players, who seem isolated from any real-world feedback.
The only adjustment to those expectations had to be made with the short higher peak in January, and the consequent sharper drop. This could have been a phenomenon related to the effect of vaccines on the vulnerable.
I think if they used the last 20 years then this winter would have looked unremarkable as you’ve said before. But I agree that the vaccines probably pushed a load of care home residents over the edge. It doesn’t take much for a lot of people which is why we have 40-50,000 excess winter deaths every year.
Total weekly mortality significantly below last 5 years now. Which it would have been all last summer if they hadn’t closed the NHS
Steve – you’re right, except the winter deaths are not ‘excess’ – they are winter deaths within the normal variance.
Deaths below the 5-year average are exceptionally low deaths by representative historical standards. The idea that deaths would stay at this level or decline much further have no basis in real analysis, and the indications of the longer term natural curve (sine form) would suggest an up-turn as very probable.
“we have 40-50,000 excess winter deaths every year.” this is the sine wave I am referring to. It is normal and the result of old people dying of ‘the things they wouldn’t normally die of’ – mainly colds.
Its this normal excess mortality that we need to contextualise other information against.
I just recieved the following text out of the blue from my GP Surgery.
“Dear Patient.
We will NOT be arranging Coronovirus vaccinations for people aged 18-49. Instead, we ask our patients to wait until they are contacted by the National Booking Service so they can book an appointment at a site closest to them. Thank yuo. (sic)
GP Surgery”.
So what does that mean ?
Indefinite delay for 18-49s ?
GP Surgeries stripped of lucrative Covid vax fees ?
Replies on a postcard please.
It means what it says: your local for-profit medical business did their sums and realised that it was a bad deal for them.
Be glad they did, otherwise they’d be calling you up and saying “Submit to an experimental medical procedure, or be kicked off our books.”
Perhaps my Surgery has been made aware of the possibility of being sued ?
Super, I look forward to the front page headline retractions.
Any second now.
Aaaaaaaany second.
Lie loudly, retract quietly
Re variants, whilst comparing ‘apples’ and ‘oranges’ as it were, remember that the first vaccination with cowpox was effective against smallpox, a different species (and genus) of virus altogether.
I believe it has been shown that vaccination with the old school BCG vaccine against TB has been shown to be protective against SARS-COV-2.
“Fauci told the BBC: “I think that the AstraZeneca vaccine from a standpoint of efficacy is a good vaccine, and if the safety issue gets straightened out in the European Union … the efficacy of that vaccine is really quite good.””
Good enough reason as any to wait
You wait for the Devon variant (it’s coming ) and it’s a lot more efficient than your Kent one. Can all these organisations crawl back into the holes they came out of please…
Power politics at play, if you want to see more why not travel back to the England in the 1500’s and watch The Spanish Princess (steaming now and brilliantly acted).