Increased mortality in community-tested cases of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7
By N. Davies, C. Jarvis, K. van Zandvoort, S. Clifford, F. Sun, Sebastian Funk, G. Medley, Y. Jafari, S. Meakin, Rachel Lowe and 44 more. Nature, 2021
912 citations recorded by the source corpus.
SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7, a variant that was first detected in the UK in September 20201, has spread to multiple countries worldwide. Several studies have established that B.1.1.7 is more transmissible than pre-existing variants, but have not identified whether it leads to any change in disease severity2. Here we analyse a dataset that links 2,245,263 positive SARS-CoV-2 community tests and 17,452 deaths associated with COVID-19 in England from 1 November 2020 to 14 February 2021. For 1,146,534 (51%) of these tests, the presence or absence of B.1.1.7 can be identified because mutations in this lineage prevent PCR amplification of the spike (S) gene target (known as S gene target failure (SGTF)1). On the basis of 4,945 deaths with known SGTF status, we estimate that the hazard of death associated with SGTF is 55% (95% confidence interval, 39–72%) higher than in cases without SGTF after adjustment for age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, residence in a care home, the local authority of residence and test date. This corresponds to the absolute risk of death for a 55–69-year-old man increasing from 0.6% to 0.9% (95% confidence interval, 0.8–1.0%) within 28 days of a positive test in the community. Correcting for misclassification of SGTF and missingness in SGTF status, we estimate that the hazard of death associated with B.1.1.7 is 61% (42–82%) higher than with pre-existing variants. Our analysis suggests that B.1.1.7 is not only more transmissible than pre-existing SARS-CoV-2 variants, but may also cause more severe illness. Analysis of community-tested cases of SARS-CoV-2 indicates that the B.1.1.7 variant is not only more transmissible than pre-existing variants, but may also cause more severe illness, and is associated with a higher risk of death.
Subfields: Infectious Diseases
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8da7351d1436a8b0ed5e694dfd64a6ee46268ef5
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In Infectious Diseases
Citations in the corpus
- Estimated transmissibility and impact of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 in England (2021, background): “First, observations of lower cycle threshold (Ct) values ( 16 – 18 ) — that is, higher viral load — support the idea that VOC may be more trans-missible per contact with an infectious person than preexisting variants (hypothesis 1).”
- Evolution of enhanced innate immune evasion by the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 UK variant (2021, background): “We hypothesise that in vivo , enhanced innate antagonism could promote B.1.1.7 replication to higher levels and permit in vivo dissemination, in line with observations of delayed symptom onset for B.1.1.7 infections, and enhanced inflammatory disease 5,6 .”
- Increased transmissibility and global spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern as at June 2021 (2021, background): “Lastly, given that higher transmissibility has increased case numbers in countries where VOC are circulating and the fact that some VOC are suggested to be associated with higher rates of hospitalisation and mortality [11], the burden on healthcare systems per coronavirus disease (COVID-19) case is ”
- Comparing COVID-19 vaccines for their characteristics, efficacy and effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 and variants of concern: a narrative review (2021, neutral): “Risk of mortality Increased 61e64% mortality in the UK [4] NA NA May cause more severe cases than Alpha [109] NA”