Now B.1.1.529 COVID variant possibly 500 percent more contagious than delta
The new B.1.1.529 variant of COVID-19 can be about 500 percent more contagious than the Delta variant, a leading epidemiologist has said.
The new variant is thought to have 32 mutations in its tip protein and is feared to be able to bypass vaccines and immunity gained by having been infected before. The B.1.1.529 variant, which first appeared in southern Africa, has been discovered in Belgium, South Africa, Hong Kong and Israel. The variant has been described as “the worst we have seen so far”, and scientists are concerned that it is spreading.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), posted a series of tweets Friday that indicate the potential competitive advantage of the new variant over older ones.
He also noted that the new variant has more than twice as many “bad peak mutations” compared to the highly transmissible Delta variant. The new variant will probably be called the Nu variant by the World Health Organization (WHO) after the next letter in the Greek alphabet after “Mu”, which was the name of the latest major variant.
“My God – the new # B11259 [B.1.1.529] variant that is possibly ~ 500% more competitively contagious is the most overwhelming statistic yet, “tweeted Feigl-Ding with a picture of a graph pretending to show the competitive advantages of the different strains.
“The rise in # B11259 that is displacing Delta has now caused shock waves around the world. It’s really bad. Not only that, but the former # C12 variant also seems to be growing slowly and displacing Delta in South Africa as well,” he added.
The researcher also commented on the furin cleavage site in the viral protein, an important part of the coronavirus that helps determine its transmissibility.
“This is especially the first time that a variant has * 2 * furin cleavage site mutations. The variant contains not one but two furin cleavage site mutations – P681H & N679K – this is the first time @PeacockFlu [Imperial virologist Tom Peacock] seen 2 of these mutations in a single variant. The furin site is causing problems, “Feigl-Ding said.
The UK, Singapore, Japan and Israel have imposed restrictions on travel from southern Africa as concerns grow over the new COVID-19 variant. The variant has been discovered in Gauteng, South Africa’s most populous city, with a relatively high frequency, with more than 70 percent of the genomes sequenced from samples collected between 14-23. November, belonging to this lineage, according to the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases.
WHO has scheduled a special Friday meeting to discuss the newly emerged variant.
Although B.1.1.529 has not yet been identified as a variant of concern by the WHO, the agency will meet with South African authorities on Friday to discuss the strain.
Jens Schlueter / Getty
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