New Coronavirus News from 24 Mar 2020b

U.K. Imposes Harsher Lockdown on London, Citing New Version of Virus [The New York Times, 24 Dec 2020]

By Mark Landler and Stephen Castle

The variant is up to 70 percent more transmissible than earlier versions, officials said. People in southeast England, including London, were told to stay at home.

LONDON — Alarmed by a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson abruptly reversed course on Saturday and imposed a wholesale lockdown on London and most of England’s southeast, banning Christmas-season gatherings beyond individual households.

The decision, which Mr. Johnson announced after an emergency meeting of his cabinet, came after the government got new evidence of a variant first detected several weeks ago in southeast England, which the prime minister asserted was as much as 70 percent more transmissible than previous versions.

The new measures, which take effect on Sunday, are designed, in effect, to cut off the capital and its surrounding counties from the rest of England. They are the most severe measures the British government has taken since it imposed a lockdown on the country back in March, and reflect a fear that the new variant could supercharge the transmission of the virus as winter takes hold.

“When the virus changes its method of attack, we must change our method of defense,” a somber Mr. Johnson said on Saturday. “We have to act on information as we have it, because this is now spreading very fast.”

Viral mutations are not uncommon, and British officials said this variant had been detected in a handful of other countries, without naming them. But the government’s medical experts expressed alarm about its apparent infectiousness, noting that it now accounts for more than 60 percent of the new infections reported in London.

Other scientists cautioned that only laboratory experiments and other kinds of analysis will determine with certainty whether the variant is more transmissible, or if its prevalence is due to other factors.

But some said there was good reason for concern that this variant is more infectious. Preliminary findings suggest that it is spreading so fast in Britain that it is quickly displacing dozens of competing versions of the coronavirus that have been circulating for longer.

“This spread is happening at a moment in time when there are already many lineages circulating, and despite that it is displacing them all,” said Kristian Andersen, a geneticist at the Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif. “We can’t say for sure, but to me it looks like this very explosive growth is primarily because” of its new mutations.

The new variant in Britain shares a crucial mutation with a lineage that is growing just as explosively in South Africa. At a World Health Organization meeting early this month, scientists reported that the South African variant accounted for 80 to 90 percent of newly identified infections, driving an explosive second wave.

“We normally see 20 to 30 lineages in our samples at a given time,” said Tulio de Oliveira, a professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, in Durban, who first flagged the variant. “Now, we see only one.”

Whatever the characteristics of the mutation, it is clear that Britain faces an escalating crisis, even as it rolls out a mass vaccination program. Nationwide, the pace of new infections has nearly doubled in less than two weeks, leaping past most of Western Europe, though it remains well below the per capita rate in the United States.

Public health experts said the new variant reinforced the urgency to tighten restrictions to try to eliminate the virus altogether, since new mutations are a recurring phenomenon.

“Elimination is more and more optimal,” said Devi Sridhar, head of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh. “More virus circulating means more variants and mutations.”

Mr. Johnson’s abrupt reversal came after a cabinet subcommittee meeting on Friday, in which members of the government’s scientific advisory panel presented evidence that new infections had nearly doubled in London in the last week, and that the new variant accounted for a majority of those cases.

The government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said there was no evidence that this version of the virus was more lethal or more resistant to vaccines than others. But Dr. Vallance, a physician and medical researcher, said scientists had identified 23 changes in the new variant, an unusually large number, including several in the “spike protein” that the virus uses to attach itself to host cells, which could increase its transmissibility.

Scientists outside the British government confirmed that the variant has potentially significant changes in the spike protein.

Dr. Fauci listed among Time's 'Guardians of the Year' on his 80th birthday [MarketWatch, 24 Dec 2020]

By Nicole Lyn Pesce

Fauci and frontline health workers were credited for displaying ‘the best of humanity’ during the pandemic

This is a pretty sweet birthday gift.

Time magazine has named Dr. Anthony Fauci, as well as the world’s frontline health workers, as its Guardians of the Year for 2020, the publication announced on Thursday morning — which also happened to be Fauci’s 80th birthday.

The Christmas Eve cover story credits Fauci’s “steadfast commitment to science and to the truth at a time when we needed it most” for bestowing the title on him. Staff writer Alice Park writes that Fauci, the Coronavirus Task Force member and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director who quickly became a household name during the COVID-19 pandemic, never considered stepping down, even when his public health advice was “questioned, ridiculed and dismissed repeatedly,” including by President Trump.

“He wasn’t thinking about himself, but about the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died from COVID-19, and the millions of health care workers on the frontlines who put their lives, and those of their families, at risk every day by going to work,” she writes. The article praises Fauci and health workers for displaying “the best of humanity” during the pandemic

These essential medical workers across the globe share the “Guardian” title with Fauci, including “uncounted, often anonymous caregivers” such as “pulmonologists, EMTs, school nurses, home health workers, nursing-home staff, community organizers running testing sites, health workers from regions where case counts were low who packed up and raced to places the pandemic was spiking,” the article notes.

Christmas Eve also marked Fauci’s milestone birthday, which he planned to spend virtually reconnecting with his family on Zoom, including his three adult daughters who live in different parts of the country.

“The Christmas holiday is a special holiday for us because Christmas Eve is my birthday. And Christmas Day is Christmas Day. And they are not going to come home … that’s painful,” he recently old The Washington Post. “But that’s just one of the things you’re going to have to accept as we go through this unprecedented challenging time.”

Related: Dr. Fauci: ‘For the first time in more than 30 years, I’m not spending the Christmas holidays with my daughters’

Read more: Deborah Birx of White House coronavirus task force says she is retiring
His wife of 35 years, Christine Grady, also surprised him with a Fauci-approved socially-distanced party on Sunday, when 15 or so of his closest friends popped up on a celebratory Zoom video chat at 5:30 p.m. sharp.

What’s more, Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser declared Thursday “Dr. Anthony S. Fauci Day” in honor of his 80th, recognizing the new octogenarian for “sacrificing so much to keep our communities healthy and safe.”

This led the hashtag #DrFauciDay to trend on Twitter on Thursday morning, as well as “Happy 80th.”

Earlier in the week, Fauci received his first dose of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine.

He also assured the children of the world during a “Sesame Street” town hall with CNN over the weekend that he went to the North Pole and “vaccinated Santa Claus myself,” so that St. Nick can still come to town this year.

Covid-19: How Much Herd Immunity is Enough? [The New York Times, 24 Dec 2020]

By Donald G. McNeil Jr.

Scientists initially estimated that 60 to 70 percent of the population needed to acquire resistance to the coronavirus to banish it. Now Dr. Anthony Fauci and others are quietly shifting that number upward.

At what point does a country achieve herd immunity? What portion of the population must acquire resistance to the coronavirus, either through infection or vaccination, in order for the disease to fade away and life to return to normal?

Since the start of the pandemic, the figure that many epidemiologists have offered has been 60 to 70 percent. That range is still cited by the World Health Organization and is often repeated during discussions of the future course of the disease.

Although it is impossible to know with certainty what the limit will be until we reach it and transmission stops, having a good estimate is important: It gives Americans a sense of when we can hope to breathe freely again.

Recently, a figure to whom millions of Americans look for guidance — Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an adviser to both the Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration — has begun incrementally raising his herd-immunity estimate.

In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most experts did. About a month ago, he began saying “70, 75 percent” in television interviews. And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”

In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

Hard as it may be to hear, he said, he believes that it may take close to 90 percent immunity to bring the virus to a halt — almost as much as is needed to stop a measles outbreak.

Asked about Dr. Fauci’s conclusions, prominent epidemiologists said that he might be proven right. The early range of 60 to 70 percent was almost undoubtedly too low, they said, and the virus is becoming more transmissible, so it will take greater herd immunity to stop it.

Dr. Fauci said that weeks ago, he had hesitated to publicly raise his estimate because many Americans seemed hesitant about vaccines, which they would need to accept almost universally in order for the country to achieve herd immunity.

Now that some polls are showing that many more Americans are ready, even eager, for vaccines, he said he felt he could deliver the tough message that the return to normal might take longer than anticipated.

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Dr. Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”

“We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

Doing so might be discouraging to Americans, he said, because he is not sure there will be enough voluntary acceptance of vaccines to reach that goal. Although sentiments about vaccines in polls have bounced up and down this year, several current ones suggest that about 20 percent of Americans say they are unwilling to accept any vaccine.

Also, Dr. Fauci noted, a herd-immunity figure at 90 percent or above is in the range of the infectiousness of measles.

“I’d bet my house that Covid isn’t as contagious as measles,” he said.

Measles is thought to be the world’s most contagious disease; it can linger in the air for hours or drift through vents to infect people in other rooms. In some studies of outbreaks in crowded military barracks and student dormitories, it has kept transmitting until more than 95 percent of all residents are infected.

Interviews with epidemiologists regarding the degree of herd immunity needed to defeat the coronavirus produced a range of estimates, some of which were in line with Dr. Fauci’s. They also came with a warning: All answers are merely “guesstimates.”

“You tell me what numbers to put in my equations, and I’ll give you the answer,” said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “But you can’t tell me the numbers, because nobody knows them.”

Charting the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, through STAT headlines [STAT, 24 Dec 2020]

By SHRADDHA CHAKRADHAR

At this point, the Covid-19 pandemic — and its impact on the world — needs no introduction.
The virus has taken a devastating toll globally: To date, more than 78 million people have been infected, and 1.7 million have died. In the U.S. alone, there have been more than 18 million cases and 320,000 deaths.

Here, we take a look at the trajectory of the pandemic this year through STAT headlines — starting in January when the World Health Organization got its first hint that a new virus was spreading in China, to December when the U.S. gave emergency authorization to two different Covid-19 vaccines.

Jan. 8:
WHO says mysterious illness in China likely being caused by new virus

The earliest sign that the new disease that had been spreading in China was a virus came pretty soon into the new year. Until that point, news reports only referred to it as a “mysterious pneumonia-like illness” and there were few clues about the pathogen’s nature. Researchers worked quickly to sequence the virus and learn more about it.

Jan. 21:
CDC details first U.S. case of novel virus spreading in China

It took less than a month between the identification of the new virus in Wuhan, China, and its arrival in the U.S. (and other major travel hubs). The first case — in a person in Washington state — came as the WHO raised the possibility that the virus was transmitting in an ongoing, sustained manner between people. And in the days that followed, this first case ballooned to community-wide transmission. It also emerged that people who weren’t experiencing or exhibiting symptoms could transmit the virus.

Feb. 7:
Coronavirus concerns trigger global run on supplies for health workers, causing shortages

Even before a formal pandemic was declared, there was a run on protective supplies — including masks, gowns, and other equipment — for health care workers. Demand was skyrocketing as were prices for the few available supplies. And although the situation now is not as bad as it was in the spring, record hospitalizations still mean that many facilities are quickly running through their stockpile.

Feb. 29:
First Covid-19 outbreak in a U.S. nursing home raises concerns

Soon after the first U.S. case was identified, the first outbreak in a nursing home occurred in Washington state. Throughout the pandemic, nursing homes have been among the most acutely affected by Covid-19, given that their residents often have many other conditions — such as cardiovascular disease — that have since been shown to be risk factors for Covid-19. At one point, residents of long-term care facilities accounted for a quarter of all Covid-19 deaths in the U.S., and now, residents and staff at these facilities are top priority for vaccinations.

March 11:
Why ‘flattening the curve’ may be the world’s best bet to slow the coronavirus

As cases worldwide began to spiral out of control, public health experts sounded the alarm and called on governments to “flatten the curve,” i.e. bring the infection rate and case counts back down to a straight, steady line instead of an ever-increasing slope. Some countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and New Zealand have been successful, but many other countries — including the U.S. — have failed to do so.

March 11:
WHO declares the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic

A lot changed on this fateful day, when the WHO declared Covid-19 to be a pandemic. It was a recognition — and warning — that the novel coronavirus was likely going to spread to every country around the world. Two days later, the U.S. declared a national emergency and instituted a nationwide lockdown. As we would learn later in the year, dictionary searches for “pandemic” hit all-time highs on March 11 as people sought to familiarize themselves with what was to become the new normal.

March 28:
In a time of distancing due to coronavirus, the health threat of loneliness looms

The U.S. was two weeks into its nationwide lockdown, and many countries were even further into theirs, when experts began warning about the health threat of social isolation and loneliness from being confined to our homes. As the pandemic has worn on and deaths from the coronavirus have added up, there has also been concern about the collective grief society is experiencing — all of which also came in a year that also saw other social unrest and a turbulent presidential election.

April 3:
White House urges Americans to wear cloth face coverings in public in bid to slow coronavirus spread

Almost a month after the pandemic was officially declared, the White House issued guidance encouraging the public to wear masks when outside to prevent unknowingly spreading the virus to others. The guidance came as new research seemed to indicate a growing number of asymptomatic infections.

April 6:
‘We’re flying blind’: African Americans may be bearing the brunt of Covid-19, but access to data is limited

This is a refrain that would be heard for many months to come: Covid-19 is affecting people of color — especially Black people — more severely than white individuals. Over and over, research has shown that despite making up the minority of several states’ populations, African Americans, Hispanic individuals, and Native Americans are getting Covid-19 and dying from the infection at higher rates than white patients.

April 20:
The months of magical thinking: As the coronavirus swept over China, some experts were in denial

Denial — or magical thinking — plagued the first few months of the pandemic, even as experts saw the growing case numbers. And the inability — or unwillingness — to recognize the imminent danger, and the scale of it, wasted precious weeks at the beginning of the year when governments could have been mobilizing to beat back the virus. The prevailing thought was that because the virus wasn’t as explosive outside China as it was within it, that it didn’t pose as much of a problem. That, of course, turned out to be false.

April 27:
Many states are far short of Covid-19 testing levels needed for safe reopening, new analysis shows

An exclusive STAT report early in the pandemic showed that the U.S. was not testing nearly enough people to consider reopening on May 1, a date that White House officials cited as the start of phased reopenings across the country. The theme of inadequate — and unreliable — testing has continued throughout the pandemic, as botched testing kits, slow turnaround for results, and false negatives have hampered efforts to know just how far and wide the virus was spreading.

April 30:
How high will it go? As Covid-19 death toll in U.S. blows past 60,000, there are no easy answers

The day the U.S. marked 60,000 Covid-19 deaths seems like a distant memory now, but to try to make these numbers easier to understand at the time, STAT’s Sharon Begley and Hyacinth Empinado examined how Covid-19 deaths fit in with deaths from other health conditions. In 2017, heart disease killed nearly 270,000 people in the U.S., while in 2019, there were nearly 253,000 cancer deaths in this country. Deaths from Covid-19 in the U.S. have since blown past both these figures, and continue to spike.

June 15:
FDA revokes emergency use ruling for hydroxychloroquine, the drug touted by Trump as a Covid-19 therapy

For the first part of the pandemic, talk of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine was everywhere, as Trump and other world leaders touted the drug as a Covid-19 therapy, even though scientific evidence was scarce. The Food and Drug Administration went so far as to issue an emergency use authorization for the drug, but revoked it in June following a growing body of studies that showed that the drug was not effective at preventing the infection nor treating those who had been infected.

Aug. 10:
Winter is coming: Why America’s window of opportunity to beat back Covid-19 is closing

Experts said over and over that it wasn’t too late to alter the direction of the pandemic in the U.S., with another such warning issued before fall began. Scientists were worried about a double whammy of influenza and Covid-19 overwhelming U.S. hospitals and urged governments to take steps to seriously flatten the curve before the winter months — with their holidays and indoor gatherings — hit.

Aug. 26:
A dilemma for ‘long-haulers’: Many can’t prove they ever had Covid-19

Months into the pandemic, it emerged that some who had seemingly recovered from their acute illness were still dealing with troubling and debilitating Covid-19 symptoms for months afterward. “Long-haulers,” as they have come to be known, have reported dealing with lingering cardiovascular effects, lasting brain fog, and a host of other conditions.

Sept. 22:
The Road Ahead: Charting the coronavirus pandemic over the next 12 months — and beyond

Six months into the pandemic — and with the U.S. continuing to set records on the number of cases and holding the top spot globally for Covid-19 deaths — STAT’s Andrew Joseph took a deep dive into what the next year of the pandemic could look like, and the possible turning points that could steer the pandemic in a different direction. Some of what he looked at, such as vaccine data influencing the trajectory of the crisis, have come to pass. But there are still unknowns, including how long-haulers might be faring one year into the pandemic.

Oct. 2:
President Trump has tested positive for coronavirus and Rose Garden superspreader event

The seemingly inevitable happened: President Trump announced that he had tested positive for Covid-19, months after downplaying the pandemic, failing to regularly wear a mask, and promoting unproven treatments for the infection. A day later, it became clear that the Rose Garden event announcing the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court — with few masks and plenty of close contact — was likely a superspreader event. More than 50 cases were ultimately tied to that event.

Nov. 7:
Biden’s ready to start his pandemic response immediately and Biden transition team unveils members of Covid-19 task force

The election of Joe Biden, who emphasized listening to scientists throughout his campaign, to the presidency may give the U.S. an opportunity to change the course of its pandemic response. Soon after the election was called, Biden announced a coronavirus task force, with public health experts, physicians, and those with prior government experience. Since then, Biden has also announced his intention to institute a mask mandate for his first 100 days in office and to have 50 million people in the U.S. vaccinated by that time.

Dec 2:
The Covid-19 vaccines are a marvel of science. Here’s how we can make the best use of them

Ahead of meetings to discuss emergency use of Covid-19 vaccines, STAT’s Helen Branswell wrote about how, now that science has presented the world with the unprecedented opportunity to beat back a virus in record time, we ought to go about using it well. Experts emphasized overcoming vaccine distrust — something that’s still in progress — as well as making sure to vaccinate pregnant people — something that right now is advised to be up to discretion of pregnant and lactating individuals and their providers.

Dec. 11:
FDA grants historic authorization to a Covid-19 vaccine, setting stage for rollout

Less than a year after Covid-19 was identified as a global threat, the FDA gave emergency use authorization to the first vaccine against the disease, made by Pfizer and BioNTech. This was followed a week later by a second emergency authorization for Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine.

Since then, public health agencies have outlined priority groups for a vaccination rollout, beginning with health care workers and long term care facility residents, followed by older adults, those with high-risk medical conditions, and other essential workers.

Covid resurgence in some parts of Asia could threaten the region's economic recovery [CNBC, 24 Dec 2020]

By Yen Nee Lee

KEY POINTS
• Daily reported Covid cases in many parts of Asia remain lower compared with those in Europe and the U.S., data compiled by Johns Hopkins University showed.
• But major Asian economies such as Japan and South Korea are battling a resurgence far worse than what they experienced earlier in the pandemic — threatening to dim the region’s economic outlook.
• “For some of Asia’s giants, this year’s Covid-19 woes are unlikely to get any better when the clock strikes 12 on New Year’s Eve,” said research firm Pantheon Macroeconomics.

SINGAPORE — As 2020 draws to a close, many investors consider Asia as the region with one of the best economic prospects next year thanks to its relatively better control of the coronavirus outbreak.

But a recent surge in Covid cases in some countries threatens to dim the region’s economic outlook, some analysts have warned.

“For some of Asia’s giants, this year’s Covid-19 woes are unlikely to get any better when the clock strikes 12 on New Year’s Eve,” said research firm Pantheon Macroeconomics.

To be sure, daily reported cases in many parts of Asia — where the virus first hit — remain lower compared with those in Europe and the U.S., data compiled by Johns Hopkins University showed.

For some of Asia’s giants, this year’s Covid-19 woes are unlikely to get any better when the clock strikes 12 on New Year’s Eve.

Pantheon Macroeconomics

But some countries are now battling a resurgence far worse than what they experienced earlier in the pandemic. Even territories that had major successes in containing the virus may not be spared, with Taiwan this week reporting its first locally transmitted case since April 12 — underscoring the difficulty in eradicating Covid.

Here’s a look at the Asian economies battling a renewed surge in coronavirus infections and how that would affect their economic outlook.

Japan
• Covid-19 tally: 207,007 cumulative confirmed cases and 2,941 deaths as of Wednesday, according to Hopkins data.

The number of daily reported coronavirus infections in Japan started to rise again in November and last week surpassed 3,000 for the first time, Hopkins data showed.

Medical groups in the country warned that the health care system is coming under considerable strain from the pandemic, according to Reuters. But Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has refrained from declaring a national state of emergency — even though he said he would suspend a travel subsidy program to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the news agency reported.

Economists from Pantheon Macroeconomics wrote in a Wednesday report that the Japanese government’s “relatively soft” social-distancing rules have not appeared to work, and that could result in tougher measures in the coming months.

“As such, a second, and more effective, nationwide state of emergency in Japan early next year cannot be ruled out,” the economists said. That would weigh on Japan’s economy in the first quarter of 2021, they added.

South Korea
• Covid-19 tally: 53,533 cumulative confirmed cases and 756 deaths as of Wednesday, according to Hopkins data.

Like Japan, South Korea’s daily new cases this month reached levels not seen before — surpassing 1,000 for the first time since the outbreak.

But unlike in Japan, the government has taken a tougher stance in South Korea in response to the fresh wave of Covid cases.

The government on Tuesday announced a nationwide ban on gathering of five or more people, and ordered tourist attractions — such as ski slopes and other winter sports facilities — to close, reported Yonhap News Agency.

Taking that step would allow the bulk of South Korea’s economic damage to be contained mostly in the fourth quarter of this year, according to Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Malaysia
• Covid-19 tally: 98,737 cumulative confirmed cases and 444 deaths as of Wednesday, according to Hopkins data.

The Southeast Asian country brought Covid cases down to a trickle before the latest surge starting in October, Hopkins data showed. That led the government to impose a fresh round of partial lockdown measures in some parts of the country.

Economists from consultancy Capital Economics said the outlook for the Malaysian economy has turned “less upbeat” this quarter, particularly on the private consumption front.

“A second wave of the virus and the reimposition of many restrictions to movement will have sent Q3′s strong rebound in private consumption into reverse. The high-frequency Google mobility data suggest social distancing remains a drag on activity,” they said in a Tuesday report.

But the other parts of the economy — such as exports — should continue to perform strongly, so the overall economic hit from the latest resurgence will likely be “much smaller” than the previous wave, said the economists.

Dr. Fauci listed among Time's 'Guardians of the Year' on his 80th birthday [MarketWatch, 24 Dec 2020]

By Nicole Lyn Pesce

Fauci and frontline health workers were credited for displaying ‘the best of humanity’ during the pandemic

This is a pretty sweet birthday gift.

Time magazine has named Dr. Anthony Fauci, as well as the world’s frontline health workers, as its Guardians of the Year for 2020, the publication announced on Thursday morning — which also happened to be Fauci’s 80th birthday.

The Christmas Eve cover story credits Fauci’s “steadfast commitment to science and to the truth at a time when we needed it most” for bestowing the title on him. Staff writer Alice Park writes that Fauci, the Coronavirus Task Force member and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director who quickly became a household name during the COVID-19 pandemic, never considered stepping down, even when his public health advice was “questioned, ridiculed and dismissed repeatedly,” including by President Trump.

“He wasn’t thinking about himself, but about the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died from COVID-19, and the millions of health care workers on the frontlines who put their lives, and those of their families, at risk every day by going to work,” she writes. The article praises Fauci and health workers for displaying “the best of humanity” during the pandemic
These essential medical workers across the globe share the “Guardian” title with Fauci, including “uncounted, often anonymous caregivers” such as “pulmonologists, EMTs, school nurses, home health workers, nursing-home staff, community organizers running testing sites, health workers from regions where case counts were low who packed up and raced to places the pandemic was spiking,” the article notes.

Christmas Eve also marked Fauci’s milestone birthday, which he planned to spend virtually reconnecting with his family on Zoom, including his three adult daughters who live in different parts of the country.

“The Christmas holiday is a special holiday for us because Christmas Eve is my birthday. And Christmas Day is Christmas Day. And they are not going to come home … that’s painful,” he recently old The Washington Post. “But that’s just one of the things you’re going to have to accept as we go through this unprecedented challenging time.”

Related: Dr. Fauci: ‘For the first time in more than 30 years, I’m not spending the Christmas holidays with my daughters’

Read more: Deborah Birx of White House coronavirus task force says she is retiring
His wife of 35 years, Christine Grady, also surprised him with a Fauci-approved socially-distanced party on Sunday, when 15 or so of his closest friends popped up on a celebratory Zoom video chat at 5:30 p.m. sharp.

What’s more, Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser declared Thursday “Dr. Anthony S. Fauci Day” in honor of his 80th, recognizing the new octogenarian for “sacrificing so much to keep our communities healthy and safe.”

This led the hashtag #DrFauciDay to trend on Twitter on Thursday morning, as well as “Happy 80th.”

Earlier in the week, Fauci received his first dose of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine.

He also assured the children of the world during a “Sesame Street” town hall with CNN over the weekend that he went to the North Pole and “vaccinated Santa Claus myself,” so that St. Nick can still come to town this year.

“He is good to go,” Fauci said.

Analyzing 2020: The COVID-19 pandemic [The Texas Tribune, 24 Dec 2020]

BY ROSS RAMSEY

We've selected some columns from 2020 on the coronavirus.

March brought the fast and terrible rise of the novel coronavirus that has dominated the news ever since — a pandemic that toppled the economy, dominated the election and, most importantly, threatened the health and well-being of millions of Americans and cost the lives of more than 300,000. That public health crisis changed work, education, commerce, entertainment, voting, government and just about everything else. Here are a few of my columns from the long, long months of COVID-19, from the government responses to the human toll.

Coronavirus, family, economics and false choices

The current threat to the economy is important, but it's also secondary. The worst of the new coronavirus has not yet been visited upon us. March 24.

A Texas governor caught betwixt and between Texas attitudes

Gov. Greg Abbott has been slow to impose statewide stay-at-home orders, a reluctance mirrored in many of the state's cities and counties. But more are issuing advisories as the new coronavirus pandemic spreads in Texas. March 30.

What makes a business essential depends on where you sit

Nonessential businesses in Texas (and elsewhere) have been told to close — a measure intended to increase social distance and to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. But every business is essential to someone. April 6.

Masking the real problem — a deadly virus

More people are out and about, and coronavirus cases are rising in Texas. But there's an easy way to limit the spread of the virus, if people will set their politics aside: masks. June 22.

Those aren’t just numbers. They’re Texans.

There are 347,700 Texans losing federal supplements to unemployment insurance. And 716,000 students getting laptops and tablets for virtual school. And 11,395 COVID-19 deaths. Each statistic has a human face. Aug. 26.

COVID-19’s almost incomprehensible toll in Texas

We’ve lost a lot of Texans already and will surely lose more to the coronavirus. Doesn’t it seem like there should at least be a moment of silence? Sept. 21.

Muted holidays in Texas, as pandemic threatens and vaccines raise hopes

Vaccines and antibody therapies raise hopes of combatting the coronavirus. But as the holiday season begins, the pandemic is setting new records in Texas for caseloads, hospitalizations and deaths. Nov. 25.

Leading by (bad) example

Austin Mayor Steve Adler's delivery of a stay-home message from a vacation spot in Mexico isn't just embarrassing. Mistakes like that one make it harder to lead. Dec. 4.

COVID-19 vaccines are coming to Texas, along with a ranking of who’s most essential

Great news: The COVID-19 vaccines are coming. Not so great news: There won't be enough for all of us for a while, and that means the first doses will go to people deemed essential. Dec. 7.

Four cases of UK's mutant virus strain found in Israel [Jewish News, 24 Dec 2020]

This comes as Israel looks set to implement a two-week national lockdown amid a surge in cases

Four cases of the new strain of coronavirus which first emerged in the UK, have been found in Israel.

Health Minister Yuli Edelstein made the announcement at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, with three of the cases reportedly being people who’d returned from England are were staying in state-run quarantine ‘hotels’.

The new virus strain spread more rapidly and is up to 70 percent more contagious, according to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

This comes as Israel looks set to implement a two-week national lockdown amid a surge in cases, while the UK has placed large swatches of the country – including all of London – into tight new Tier 4 restrictions.

This week, it was reported that hundreds of British-Israeli dual citizens were being hosted in Israel’s coronavirus ‘hotels’, amid the outbreak of the mutated virus. Five progressive teenage Jews were also left “in shock” when they were pulled from a flight to Israel to go on their gap year, at the last minute.

Edelstein told health officials he was “less optimistic” the new strain had not infiltrated the population, with Israeli media reporting that health officials fear a recent spike among the strictly-Orthodox community is a result of the mutated virus.

According to Times of Israel, coronavirus czar Nachman Ash warned the number of Israeli deaths could rise over 6,000 if action isn’t taken. So far there has been more than 3,000 fatalities.

“If we continue with the policy of ‘sit and do nothing,’ I’m afraid morbidity will continue to spike at a much more dangerous and sharp rate, and within two months we will reach an additional 3,000 dead,” he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly warned ministers that: “if we don’t act immediately… We will pay a heavy price.”

Scientists hopeful vaccines will counter mutant strains of coronavirus [WBFO, 24 Dec 2020]

By JAY MORAN

It's been widely reported that a mutated strain of the coronavirus has been creating new problems in the United Kingdom. Early indications show the strain to be more contagious and will likely lead to more hospitalizations. It's enough of a concern that several countries are restricting travel from the UK. Dr. Nancy Nielsen, Senior Associate Dean for Health Policy at UB's Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, offered some perspective during her weekly appearance on WBFO.

"This virus has mutated thousands of times already as it hopscotches across the globe. So, finding a mutation is not an issue," Nielsen said.

"But, this UK mutant is different. It has about 17 mutations that seem to occur all at once."

Some suspect the mutant strain may have already made its way to the United States. While that is a legitimate concern, Nielsen says the bigger question revolves around the effectiveness of the two COVID vaccines that have been approved by the FDA.

Nielsen seems cautiously optimistic.

"The reason is the vaccines induce a real repertoire, complex repertoire, of antibodies and one virologists said, 'They (the vaccines) produce a thousand big guns pointed at the virus.'"

Health officials fear mutant strain spreading, as they examine dozens of tests [The Times of Israel, 24 Dec 2020]

Concern grows that new, more transmissible coronavirus variant from Britain is widely dispersed, as Health Ministry confirms 5th case

Health officials fear dozens of test samples currently under examination will be found to contain a new, more transmissible coronavirus strain that originated in Britain, according to multiple reports Thursday.

Due to concerns the new variant could be spreading in the country, Channel 13 news said the Health Ministry would convert its main laboratory into a center for genetic mapping of the mutated coronavirus strains.

The network said the ministry was purchasing a special machine from abroad for NIS 10 million ($3.1 million) for the new laboratory.

The reports came as the Health Ministry announced a fifth confirmed case of the new strain.
The ministry said the woman had recently returned from England and was self-isolating at home, having entered Israel before a government order came into effect requiring all Israelis to quarantine at state-run facilities. It did not specify when she returned to Israel. The woman was feeling well, according to a ministry statement.

Travelers coming from Britain, Denmark and South Africa have been required to quarantine at designated hotels since Sunday. The order was extended to all travelers on Wednesday.

Three of the other cases were people who had recently returned from the UK and were staying in isolation hotels. The fourth was a woman from Bnei Brak, the Ynet news site reported Thursday. She had not been abroad.

Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv, has been one of the areas hardest-hit by the virus in Israel.

“The woman lives in a very crowded area and therefore it is likely that the mutation spread,” sources were quoted as saying by Ynet.

Earlier, Channel 12 news reported that 700 tests for the mutated strain were performed in Israel as of Wednesday night.

The new strain is not believed to be more deadly, but does spread much more easily.

Amid concerns over the new variant and a rise in daily infections, the government has approved a third national lockdown, which will take effect on Sunday.

Scientists rush to determine if mutant strain of coronavirus will deepen pandemic [The San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Dec 2020]

By GARY ROBBINS

U.S. researchers have been slow to perform the genetic sequencing that will help clarify the situation

The COVID-19 vaccines rolling out across the nation are lifting spirits over the holidays. But there’s also budding concern about new strains of the virus that have been discovered in Great Britain, South Africa and possibly in Nigeria.

Scientists say they are hopeful, but unsure, that the vaccines will repel the mutants. The variant found in Great Britain may be more contagious than the original virus. And it’s unclear if the pathogens will take hold in the U.S., where nearly 19 million people have already been infected.

There’s lots of uncertainty because things are happening quickly. Researchers also say the U.S. hasn’t done enough to search for mutant strains of the virus and to figure out whether they’ll worsen the pandemic.

To get a better sense of what’s happening, the Union-Tribune posed questions to five top San Diego scientists who are involved in fighting the virus. They offered differing perspectives, particularly on the nature of B.1.1.7, the mutant strain that helped lead to a lockdown in much of Great Britain.

The scientists are: Richard Scheuermann, director of the La Jolla campus of the J. Craig Venter Institute, Alessandro Sette, immunologist, La Jolla Institute for Immunology, Nancy Binkin, professor of public health at UC San Diego, Rob Knight, an infectious disease expert at UC San Diego, and Greg Lemke, a molecular neurobiologist at the Salk Institute.

Q: Let’s begin with a gut check. The public has been upset about the coronavirus for nearly a year. Does a mutant version of the virus pose a much deeper level of trouble?

Lemke: Not necessarily. All viruses mutate during infection cycles, and most mutations are either of no impact or actually weaken a virus. SARS-CoV-2 has mutated repeatedly during this infection cycle. Concerns arise when mutations enhance virus infectivity, lethality or transmissibility.

Binkin: The rapid rise of cases in Southern England, despite all the measures undertaken to control spread, is alarming. If these mutations have made the virus more infectious by increasing the viral load or by shortening the incubation period or prolonging how long people remain infectious, this would have serious implications for stopping further spread.

If the mutations also made the currently available treatments such as monoclonal antibodies less effective or the new vaccines less protective, this would also be very serious.

Scheuermann: I am not really worried about this strain, mainly because infections are running rampant in the United States already. So if another strain comes in maybe it will increase tranmissibility rates a bit. But they’re already high and it doesn’t appear that the virus is more virulent than the original. If it was, I would be more worried.

Q: The U.S. has not been routinely sequencing the genes of virus specimens to help determine what’s going on. Why not?

Binkin: We have lagged behind some countries, especially Great Britain, which got its act together early. They have sequenced 157,000 virus specimens by working with their National Health Service and a consortium of universities. The U.S. has sequenced about 51,000 specimens, and those have mostly come from 37 states. We are going to begin sequencing in all 50 states. But we’ll still be far behind the British, who plan to double the number of specimens they sequence, moving to 16,000 to 20,000 per week. We have been doing about 1,600 per week.

I don’t know whether the issue for us is funding or a lack of will or the fact that we don’t have the kind of centralized system the British have for pulling samples from its hospitals.

People are concerned that the mutation might be more lethal. That is an issue. But even if it is not, you could have more hospitalizations and more deaths because a greater number of people become infected.

We need to do more.

Scheuermann: Public health labs are overwhelmed with doing routine testing for the presence and absence of the coronavirus. They’re kind of under-funded and under-staffed. When the outbreak spread, it became clear that doing genetic sequencing on the virus could be valuable. We weren’t as prepared for this as we should have been. But the CDC is rolling out a surveillance program now.

Q: Does the lack of gene sequencing pose a major health risk? For example, could it make it harder to contain a mutant that is more contagious than the original virus?

Scheuermann: It’s fair to say that without sequencing it would be harder to detect mutants that have the characteristics of the one we’re seeing in the UK, where it seems to be highly transmissible.

We would not recognize it right away. What you would have to see is a geographic region where all of a sudden the rates of infection increased dramatically. That’s what they initially saw in the UK. In parallel, they were doing surveillance sequencing and recognized that the higher infection rates correspond to this new variant.

They saw it pretty rapidly.

Q: Is it likely that the new variant will widely spread across the US?

Sette: We don’t know because we’re not surveying for it. We do know that the current tests for COVID-19 pick up the older version of the virus and the variant. The test doesn’t detect the differences between the two, but it sees both. That’s good because it means that the variant isn’t going to slip under the radar.

Q: Will scientists be able to tell whether the mutated virus has shown up in San Diego County?

Knight: Yes, we’re working hard between the EXCITE lab at UCSD, Scripps Research and the CDC to sequence as many viral genomes as we can from people who tested positive in our region.

That includes traces of coronavirus that we’ve been finding in wastewater at UCSD. This integrated program will help us see rapidly if a new type of virus is spreading, and if it’s spreading faster than existing types, which could prompt a more immediate and forceful public health response to stop the spread.

Q: If the mutated virus is here how might it affect public health locally? Or is that even knowable at the moment?

Lemke: It’s quite new, so we don’t know. However, the anecdotal experience in the UK thus far has been that the scope and severity of disease, when it occurs, is about what we’ve seen for COVID over the last 10 months.

Q: Do you think that the new vaccines coming out will be effective against mutated version of the virus?

Sette: It looks like the answer is yes. The vaccine should be able to recognize pieces of the virus that have not changed. It’s like your ability to recognize a car because it has tires and windows and an exhaust pipe. A new version of the car might have red upholstery.

But you’d still recognize it as a car. I don’t think the vaccine will be fooled.

Lemke: The approved vaccines and most of those in advanced development all target the same part of the virus — the spike protein. The genome encoding the spike protein is subject to mutation, and there are spike mutations in B.1.1.7. However, it is not clear at this point if the virus could generate mutations that would render the spike completely undetectable in a person immunized with the current vaccines while at the same time producing a viable virus.

Q: Is genetic sequencing actually the key to finding out if the new strain is potentially more deadly than the one we have been dealing with?

Scheuermann: The sequence in-and-of itself doesn’t tell you that. You’ll be able to determine if there are mutations. But we won’t be sure that it is going to change the transmissability of the virus, or make it more virulent. We won’t be sure how it is going to respond to a vaccine, and whether you might have some resistance emerging. That would require more research. You also would have to do population-based statistics to know that something like an increase in severe cases in a geographic area might be due to a variant of the virus.

Q: Would it be comparatively easy and inexpensive to do this kind of sequencing?

Scheuermann: It’s relatively easy to do now. But it can cost $50 to $100 to generate that sequence. Some public health laboratories just don’t have it in their budgets to do the scale of surveillance you might want to do.

More Countries Impose U.K. Travel Restrictions as Concerns Mount Over Virus Mutation [The New York Times, 24 Dec 2020]

Congressional leaders reached an agreement on another round of pandemic aid. A C.D.C. panel said frontline workers and people 75 and older should be next in line for the vaccine.

Countries begin barring travelers from the U.K. over concerns of a new coronavirus variant.

Countries across Europe and beyond began closing their borders to travelers from the United Kingdom on Sunday, and the European Union set up a crisis management meeting, a day after Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, ordered a wholesale lockdown on London and surrounding areas, citing concerns of a new fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus.

Train stations in London on Saturday night filled with crowds of people scrambling to leave the city to escape the new restrictions, which went into effect at midnight and effectively quarantined the capital and other areas from the rest of the country, the harshest measures to be taken since the country’s first lockdown in March.

On Sunday, Britain’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, called those who packed trains “clearly irresponsible.” He also said that the restrictions Mr. Johnson imposed could be in place for months.

The first wave of countries to bar travelers from the United Kingdom were in Europe. The Netherlands said it would suspend flights from Britain from Sunday until Jan. 1, noting that the variant found in England was “ thought to spread more easily and more quickly.”

Italy also suspended air travel, and Belgian officials on Sunday enacted a 24-hour ban on arrivals from the United Kingdom by air or train, which could be extended. Germany and Switzerland announced bans on travel between their countries and both Britain and South Africa, where a similarly contagious version of the virus has emerged. Austria, Ireland, France and Bulgaria also announced bans. Portugal, which banned travel to and from the United Kingdom, is making exceptions for Portuguese nationals or residents. And Canada said on Sunday that it would ban all flights from the U.K. for 72 hours, beginning at midnight.

In the United States, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York urged the federal government to take action, saying that “right now, this variant in the U.K. is getting on a plane and flying to J.F.K.,” while also acknowledging that it may be too late. The State Department said that its travel advisory to Britain had not been changed and remained at Level 3.

Spain asked the European Union for a coordinated response, and senior officials from the bloc’s 27 member states met by video conference Sunday evening to share their plans. They agreed to decide on any coordinated action at the crisis management meeting, to be held Monday morning.

Within hours, more countries took action. Iran suspended flights to Britain for two weeks, Reuters reported. Israel barred foreign nationals not only from the United Kingdom, but also from South Africa and Denmark, where a coronavirus mutation that occurred in mink was transmitted back into the human population. Turkey temporarily suspended flights from those three countries, as well as the Netherlands, Reuters said.

Transportation officials in England said that they would increase the number of police officers monitoring hubs like railway stations to ensure only essential journeys were being taken. And during one of the year’s biggest shipping periods, the effects were sure to be seen at Britain’s ports. The Port of Dover, one of the world’s busiest, where thousands of trucks travel each day, closed its ferry terminal to “all accompanied traffic.” Traffic had reached a fever pitch as companies stockpiled goods before new post-Brexit customs rules went into effect.

Viral mutations are not uncommon, and British officials said this variant had been detected in a handful of other countries. The estimate of greater transmissibility for the British variant is based on modeling and has not been confirmed by lab experiments, said Muge Cevik, an infectious disease expert at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and a scientific adviser to the British government.

“Over all, I think we need to have a little bit more experimental data,” she said. “We can’t entirely rule out the fact that some of this transmissibility data might be related to human behavior.”

The virus lockdown came as another down-to-the-wire drama was playing out for Britons: the trade negotiations between Britain and the European Union. Critics say the British prime minister’s penchant for last-minute decisions has complicated the handling of the coronavirus crisis and narrowed the window for scrutiny of any trade deal with the E.U.

Dana Rubinstein and Raphael Minder contributed reporting.
— Isabella Kwai, Apoorva Mandavilli and Matina Stevis-Gridneff

Scientists rush to determine if mutant strain of coronavirus will deepen pandemic [The San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Dec 2020]

By GARY ROBBINS

U.S. researchers have been slow to perform the genetic sequencing that will help clarify the situation

DEC. 24, 2020
1:34 PM

The COVID-19 vaccines rolling out across the nation are lifting spirits over the holidays. But there’s also budding concern about new strains of the virus that have been discovered in Great Britain, South Africa and possibly in Nigeria.

Scientists say they are hopeful, but unsure, that the vaccines will repel the mutants. The variant found in Great Britain may be more contagious than the original virus. And it’s unclear if the pathogens will take hold in the U.S., where nearly 19 million people have already been infected.

There’s lots of uncertainty because things are happening quickly. Researchers also say the U.S. hasn’t done enough to search for mutant strains of the virus and to figure out whether they’ll worsen the pandemic.

To get a better sense of what’s happening, the Union-Tribune posed questions to five top San Diego scientists who are involved in fighting the virus. They offered differing perspectives, particularly on the nature of B.1.1.7, the mutant strain that helped lead to a lockdown in much of Great Britain.

The scientists are: Richard Scheuermann, director of the La Jolla campus of the J. Craig Venter Institute, Alessandro Sette, immunologist, La Jolla Institute for Immunology, Nancy Binkin, professor of public health at UC San Diego, Rob Knight, an infectious disease expert at UC San Diego, and Greg Lemke, a molecular neurobiologist at the Salk Institute.

Q: Let’s begin with a gut check. The public has been upset about the coronavirus for nearly a year. Does a mutant version of the virus pose a much deeper level of trouble?

Lemke: Not necessarily. All viruses mutate during infection cycles, and most mutations are either of no impact or actually weaken a virus. SARS-CoV-2 has mutated repeatedly during this infection cycle. Concerns arise when mutations enhance virus infectivity, lethality or transmissibility.

Binkin: The rapid rise of cases in Southern England, despite all the measures undertaken to control spread, is alarming. If these mutations have made the virus more infectious by increasing the viral load or by shortening the incubation period or prolonging how long people remain infectious, this would have serious implications for stopping further spread.

If the mutations also made the currently available treatments such as monoclonal antibodies less effective or the new vaccines less protective, this would also be very serious.

Scheuermann: I am not really worried about this strain, mainly because infections are running rampant in the United States already. So if another strain comes in maybe it will increase tranmissibility rates a bit. But they’re already high and it doesn’t appear that the virus is more virulent than the original. If it was, I would be more worried.

Q: The U.S. has not been routinely sequencing the genes of virus specimens to help determine what’s going on. Why not?

Binkin: We have lagged behind some countries, especially Great Britain, which got its act together early. They have sequenced 157,000 virus specimens by working with their National Health Service and a consortium of universities. The U.S. has sequenced about 51,000 specimens, and those have mostly come from 37 states. We are going to begin sequencing in all 50 states. But we’ll still be far behind the British, who plan to double the number of specimens they sequence, moving to 16,000 to 20,000 per week. We have been doing about 1,600 per week.

I don’t know whether the issue for us is funding or a lack of will or the fact that we don’t have the kind of centralized system the British have for pulling samples from its hospitals.

People are concerned that the mutation might be more lethal. That is an issue. But even if it is not, you could have more hospitalizations and more deaths because a greater number of people become infected.

We need to do more.

Scheuermann: Public health labs are overwhelmed with doing routine testing for the presence and absence of the coronavirus. They’re kind of under-funded and under-staffed. When the outbreak spread, it became clear that doing genetic sequencing on the virus could be valuable. We weren’t as prepared for this as we should have been. But the CDC is rolling out a surveillance program now.

Q: Does the lack of gene sequencing pose a major health risk? For example, could it make it harder to contain a mutant that is more contagious than the original virus?

Scheuermann: It’s fair to say that without sequencing it would be harder to detect mutants that have the characteristics of the one we’re seeing in the UK, where it seems to be highly transmissible.

We would not recognize it right away. What you would have to see is a geographic region where all of a sudden the rates of infection increased dramatically. That’s what they initially saw in the UK. In parallel, they were doing surveillance sequencing and recognized that the higher infection rates correspond to this new variant.

They saw it pretty rapidly.

Q: Is it likely that the new variant will widely spread across the US?

Sette: We don’t know because we’re not surveying for it. We do know that the current tests for COVID-19 pick up the older version of the virus and the variant. The test doesn’t detect the differences between the two, but it sees both. That’s good because it means that the variant isn’t going to slip under the radar.

Q: Will scientists be able to tell whether the mutated virus has shown up in San Diego County?

Knight: Yes, we’re working hard between the EXCITE lab at UCSD, Scripps Research and the CDC to sequence as many viral genomes as we can from people who tested positive in our region.

That includes traces of coronavirus that we’ve been finding in wastewater at UCSD. This integrated program will help us see rapidly if a new type of virus is spreading, and if it’s spreading faster than existing types, which could prompt a more immediate and forceful public health response to stop the spread.

Q: If the mutated virus is here how might it affect public health locally? Or is that even knowable at the moment?

Lemke: It’s quite new, so we don’t know. However, the anecdotal experience in the UK thus far has been that the scope and severity of disease, when it occurs, is about what we’ve seen for COVID over the last 10 months.

Q: Do you think that the new vaccines coming out will be effective against mutated version of the virus?

Sette: It looks like the answer is yes. The vaccine should be able to recognize pieces of the virus that have not changed. It’s like your ability to recognize a car because it has tires and windows and an exhaust pipe. A new version of the car might have red upholstery.

But you’d still recognize it as a car. I don’t think the vaccine will be fooled.

Lemke: The approved vaccines and most of those in advanced development all target the same part of the virus — the spike protein. The genome encoding the spike protein is subject to mutation, and there are spike mutations in B.1.1.7. However, it is not clear at this point if the virus could generate mutations that would render the spike completely undetectable in a person immunized with the current vaccines while at the same time producing a viable virus.

Q: Is genetic sequencing actually the key to finding out if the new strain is potentially more deadly than the one we have been dealing with?

Scheuermann: The sequence in-and-of itself doesn’t tell you that. You’ll be able to determine if there are mutations. But we won’t be sure that it is going to change the transmissability of the virus, or make it more virulent. We won’t be sure how it is going to respond to a vaccine, and whether you might have some resistance emerging. That would require more research. You also would have to do population-based statistics to know that something like an increase in severe cases in a geographic area might be due to a variant of the virus.

Q: Would it be comparatively easy and inexpensive to do this kind of sequencing?

Scheuermann: It’s relatively easy to do now. But it can cost $50 to $100 to generate that sequence. Some public health laboratories just don’t have it in their budgets to do the scale of surveillance you might want to do.