Increased transmissibility and global spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern as at June 2021
Finlay Campbell, Brett N. Archer, Henry Laurenson‐Schafer, Yuka Jinnai, Frank Konings, Neale Batra, Boris Pavlin, Katelijn Vandemaele, Maria D. Van Kerkhove, Thibaut Jombart, Oliver Morgan, Olivier le Polain de Waroux
Abstract
We present a global analysis of the spread of recently emerged SARS-CoV-2 variants and estimate changes in effective reproduction numbers at country-specific level using sequence data from GISAID. Nearly all investigated countries demonstrated rapid replacement of previously circulating lineages by the World Health Organization-designated variants of concern, with estimated transmissibility increases of 29% (95% CI: 24-33), 25% (95% CI: 20-30), 38% (95% CI: 29-48) and 97% (95% CI: 76-117), respectively, for B.1.1.7, B.1.351, P.1 and B.1.617.2.