Estimated transmissibility and impact of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 in England
This article has been Reviewed by the following groups
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- Evaluated articles (ScreenIT)
- Evaluated articles (Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases)
Abstract
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has the capacity to generate variants with major genomic changes. The UK variant B.1.1.7 (also known as VOC 202012/01) has many mutations that alter virus attachment and entry into human cells. Using a variety of statistical and dynamic modeling approaches, Davies et al. characterized the spread of the B.1.1.7 variant in the United Kingdom. The authors found that the variant is 43 to 90% more transmissible than the predecessor lineage but saw no clear evidence for a change in disease severity, although enhanced transmission will lead to higher incidence and more hospital admissions. Large resurgences of the virus are likely to occur after the easing of control measures, and it may be necessary to greatly accelerate vaccine roll-out to control the epidemic.
Science , this issue p. eabg3055
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.24.20248822: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:There are some limitations to our analysis. We can only assess relative support in the data for the hypotheses proposed, but there may be other plausible mechanisms driving the resurgence of cases that we did not consider. Our conclusions about school closures were based on the assumption that children had reduced susceptibility and infectiousness compared to adults (19), whereas the precise values of these parameters and the impact of …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.24.20248822: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:There are some limitations to our analysis. We can only assess relative support in the data for the hypotheses proposed, but there may be other plausible mechanisms driving the resurgence of cases that we did not consider. Our conclusions about school closures were based on the assumption that children had reduced susceptibility and infectiousness compared to adults (19), whereas the precise values of these parameters and the impact of school closures (27) remains the subject of scientific debate (27). We based our assumptions about the efficacy of control measures on the measured impact on mobility of previous national lockdowns in England, but cannot predict the impact of policy options with certainty. Finally, as the emergence of VOC 202012/01 has only recently been identified, our estimates may change substantially as more data become available. Despite these limitations, we found strong evidence that VOC 202012/01 is spreading significantly faster than preexisting SARS-CoV-2variants. Our modelling analysis suggests this difference can be explained by an overall higher infectiousness of VOC 202012/01 but not by a shorter generation time or immune escape alone. Further experimental work could provide insights into the biological mechanisms for our observations, but given our projections of a rapid rise in future incidence from VOC 202012/01 without additional control measures—and the detection of other novel and highly-transmissible variants in South Africa (25) and Brazil...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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Seyed Hasnain
Review 2: "Estimated transmissibility and severity of novel SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern 202012/01 in England"
This potentially informative study models the spread of 501Y.V1 in England, and suggests more stringent control measures and increased vaccinations are necessary to prevent spread of these variants.
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Tomasz Lipniacki, Frederic Grabowski, Marek Kochańczyk
Review 1: "Estimated transmissibility and severity of novel SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern 202012/01 in England"
This potentially informative study models the spread of 501Y.V1 in England, and suggests more stringent control measures and increased vaccinations are necessary to prevent spread of these variants.
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Strength of evidence
Reviewers: Tomasz Lipniacki, Frederic Grabowski, Marek Kochańczyk (Institute of Fundamental Technological Research) | 📒📒📒◻️◻️
Seyed Hasnain (Jamia Hamdard) | 📒📒📒◻️◻️ -
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.24.20248822: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources We used reproduction number estimates using the method described in (23) and (24) and implemented in the EpiNow2 R package (25), downloaded from https://github.com/epiforecasts/covid-rt-estimates/blob/ master/subnational/united-kingdom-local/cases/summary/rt.csv. EpiNow2suggested: NoneResults from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
There are …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.24.20248822: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources We used reproduction number estimates using the method described in (23) and (24) and implemented in the EpiNow2 R package (25), downloaded from https://github.com/epiforecasts/covid-rt-estimates/blob/ master/subnational/united-kingdom-local/cases/summary/rt.csv. EpiNow2suggested: NoneResults from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
There are some limitations to our analysis. We can only assess relative support in the data for the hypotheses proposed, but there may be other plausible mechanisms driving the resurgence of cases that we did not consider. Our conclusions about school closures were based on the assumption that children had reduced susceptibility and infectiousness compared to adults (15), whereas the precise values of these parameters and the impact of school closures (21) remains the subject of scientific debate (21) . We based our assumptions about the efficacy of Tier 4 on the efficacy of the second national lockdown in England in November 2020, as the policies are very similar. The Tier 4 intervention has not been in place for long enough in order to reliably quantify its impact from epidemiological or behavioural data, and contact rates during the December holiday season may not be representative of other times. Finally, as the emergence of VOC 202012/01 has only recently been identified, our estimates may change substantially as more data become available. Despite these limitations, we found strong evidence that VOC 202012/01 is spreading significantly faster within southeast England than preexisting non-VOC 202012/01 variants. Our modelling analysis suggests this difference can be explained by an overall higher infectiousness of VOC 202012/01—with some evidence that the increase may be particularly marked in children—but not by a shorter latent period or immune escape alone. ...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
About SciScore
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