Estimated transmissibility and impact of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 in England
Nicholas G. Davies, Sam Abbott, Rosanna C. Barnard, Christopher I Jarvis, Adam J. Kucharski, James D Munday, Carl A. B. Pearson, Timothy Russell, Damien C. Tully, Alex Washburne, Tom Wenseleers, Amy Gimma, William Waites, Kerry LM Wong, Kevin van Zandvoort, Justin D. Silverman, CMMID COVID-19 Working Group, Karla Diaz‐Ordaz, Ruth H. Keogh, Rosalind M. Eggo, Sebastian Funk, Mark Jit, Katherine E. Atkins, W. John Edmunds
Abstract
A severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variant, VOC 202012/01 (lineage B.1.1.7), emerged in southeast England in September 2020 and is rapidly spreading toward fixation. Using a variety of statistical and dynamic modeling approaches, we estimate that this variant has a 43 to 90% (range of 95% credible intervals, 38 to 130%) higher reproduction number than preexisting variants. A fitted two-strain dynamic transmission model shows that VOC 202012/01 will lead to large resurgences of COVID-19 cases. Without stringent control measures, including limited closure of educational institutions and a greatly accelerated vaccine rollout, COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths across England in the first 6 months of 2021 were projected to exceed those in 2020. VOC 202012/01 has spread globally and exhibits a similar transmission increase (59 to 74%) in Denmark, Switzerland, and the United States.