Greetings!
I expect that you are as tired of hearing about COVID as I am of reading and writing about it. I was really hoping that we were coming towards the end of it, or at least a stable low level plateau. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case.
A new study out shows that the UK variant, technically known as B.1.1.7, is significantly more deadly than the previous-
"Results The mortality hazard ratio associated with infection with VOC-202012/1 compared with infection with previously circulating variants was 1.64 (95% confidence interval 1.32 to 2.04) in patients who tested positive for covid-19 in the community. In this comparatively low risk group, this represents an increase in deaths from 2.5 to 4.1 per 1000 detected cases.
Conclusions The probability that the risk of mortality is increased by infection with VOC-202012/01 is high. If this finding is generalisable to other populations, infection with VOC-202012/1 has the potential to cause substantial additional mortality compared with previously circulating variants. Healthcare capacity planning and national and international control policies are all impacted by this finding, with increased mortality lending weight to the argument that further coordinated and stringent measures are justified to reduce deaths from SARS-CoV-2."
The variant is expected to be the dominant one in the US by early April, so basically now. Unfortunately we don't yet have good data on how effective the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines are for the new variants, so even if you've been vaccinated, it is smart to maintain caution until we know.
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