RE: Flick a coin24 Jan 2021 12:46
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The government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) considered studies from three university teams and Public Health England, comparing death rates between people known to have been infected with B.1.1.7 and those with older forms of coronavirus. They corrected as far as possible for other factors that might affect mortality such as age, location and ethnicity.
All of the studies found some increase in lethality, though uncertainties about the data resulted in a wide range of estimates. Bringing their results together, Nervtag scientists produced a model showing that someone infected with B.1.1.7 is 30 to 40 per cent more likely to die than someone with a different variant.
Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientist, quoted this estimate at the Downing Street briefing. “I want to stress that there’s a lot of uncertainty around these numbers,” he said, “and we need more work to get a precise handle on it, but it obviously is a concern that this has an increase in mortality.”
Most scientists who have commented on Nervtag’s assessment believe that the evidence justifies the overall conclusion of higher mortality, though the size of the effect needs to be pinned down. Estimates of the additional risk from B.1.1.7 in the studies considered by Nervtag ranged from 7 per cent to 271 per cent.
A more lethal variant is unlikely to alter the medical debate over how to roll out Covid-19 vaccines — and in particular the government’s decision to inoculate as many people as possible with a first dose, even if they have to wait for as long as 12 weeks for the second jab.
The British Medical Association has asked for the period between the first and second doses to be cut to a maximum of six weeks for the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine. But defenders of the current policy say a more virulent variant makes it even more important to vaccinate vulnerable people as fast as possible.
Yvonne Doyle, medical director of Public Health England, told BBC Radio on Saturday that the current strategy of “bearing down on transmission” would cut deaths and reduce the chance of more dangerous variants of the virus emerging. “The more people that are protected against this virus, the less opportunity it has to get the upper hand,” she said.
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