Comments by "N Marbletoe" (@nmarbletoe8210) on "New viral strain spreads through UK" video.

  1. I would say yes, for places that have low prevalence. . For places with higher prevalence they need to do random invitation surveys to estimate the infection numbers, but water treatment plants would still be good place for detecting strains I would think.
    3
  2. I think it was 1 or 2 per 1000, giving a 0.1% or 0.2% chance
    2
  3. Looks like the analysis compared it with other strains at the same time and place.
    2
  4. and it's probably 10x the test positive numbers. on the plus side over 1/3rd of the country is now immune.
    2
  5. per infection
    2
  6. yes but no. it's a numbers thing, but not just because of the chance of hospitals getting full, but also because 5 out of 1000 who get it might die.
    1
  7. true, they would have to sort it by age. perhaps they did do that for the analysis
    1
  8.  @GlobalAdventurer  Hmmm... well he wrote in the notes: . Reinfected with wild-type comparator 0.60 per 1000 Reinfected with new variant 0.61 per 1000
    1
  9. there's now the contact tracing info that tends to confirm the transmission increase?
    1
  10. hmmm interesting point
    1
  11. Maybe maybe not. It can only mutate so far without losing the ability to infect human cells...
    1
  12. They are doing more trials on the dosing. The dosing thing was an accident, so they need more study to see if it actually matters and what dose is best.
    1
  13. 1 in 1000, insignificant for most purposes
    1
  14. Yes, the power to detect a difference of such a tiny number would be low without huge numbers of samples. . The important thing is that the re-infections were very very low, not really if they were lower or higher than the other strain.
    1
  15. It is common pattern. Colds are highly transmissible, but mild. Tuberculosis is hard to catch but severe. .
    1
  16.  @michaelandreas2177  Just a possibility here, but how about this: a mutation makes the virus spike LESS likely to attach, and thus results in more very mild/ asymptomatic cases, which slip through our careful human systems. I think there are 17 or so mutations in this Kent strain. Do we know the spike protein is different functionally? A very interesting topic. I think there are all sorts of possibilities, including, the data on transmission and severity could be way off, as it is only an observational study.
    1
  17.  @michaelandreas2177  Hey thanks for the video link! Watching...
    1
  18.  @michaelandreas2177  OK so at 29:03 there, the guy says what I was trying to say, but better! If the strain's symptoms are less severe, people will walk around more with it, and perhaps transmit more. It is a plausible scenario; I'm not saying there is specific evidence for it.
    1