UK’s new Covid variant overwhelms hospitals as new data shows it can kill many more

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson touring an NHS ambulance.

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• The UK government is struggling to handle a large increase in coronavirus cases, pressuring Prime Minister Boris Johnson to impose a national lockdown.
• A preliminary study said that the new variant of the virus first identified in the UK has a “substantial transmission advantage”, lending weight to earlier fears that it is more infectious.
• A test center found that the new variant dominates its recent results.
• An epidemiologist explained why a more contagious virus could pose a greater danger than a deadlier one, spreading much more quickly and killing more people.
• Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.

Infections with the new variant of the coronavirus in the UK increased during the holiday period, pushing NHS hospitals beyond their capacity to care for patients. Teachers union leaders also called for the closure of schools.

A new analysis showed that the most transmissible variant of the virus could potentially cause hundreds more deaths per 10,000 patients.

A preliminary study by Imperial College London, released last week, found that the new variant, known as B.1.1.7, is significantly more transmissible, adding weight to previous government fears.

Scientists had previously been hesitant to confirm early indications of this. The new study is a “preprint”, which means it has not been peer-reviewed. But the authors wrote: “There is a consensus across all analyzes that the [new variant] it has a substantial transmission advantage. “

The study said that B.1.1.7 can add between 0.4 and 0.7 to the existing R number, the speed at which the virus reproduces. The R number must be below 1 for the cases to decrease. The current UK estimated R number is between 1.1 and 1.3.

The variant now forms the vast majority of all coronavirus cases in the UK.

The Milton Keynes Lighthouse Laboratory, a testing facility in south-east England, found that by December 18, B1.1.7 had started to dominate in its results, as this tweet from CEO Tony Cox shows:

The new variant can potentially kill more people than the old one.

B.1.1.7 is not currently considered more deadly for any individual patient than the virus originally observed. But epidemiologists caution that because it reaches many more people, the total number of deaths it will cause could be much higher than the previous variants.

Adam Kucharski, associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, explained the potential problem in a series of tweets:

—Adam Kucharski (@AdamJKucharski) December 28, 2020

He compared the effects of two hypothetical variants: one 50% more deadly and the other 50% more transmissible.

In the first instance, he calculated that 50% more lethal viruses during a period with an R number of 1.1 would cause 198 deaths for every 10,000 infections after one month.

But if that variant were 50% easier to transmit, the same time period would see 978 new deaths for every 10,000 infections.

“The key message: An increase in something that grows exponentially (ie, transmission) can have a much greater effect than the same proportional increase in something that simply scales an outcome (ie, gravity),” he wrote.

The new variant has thrived despite a crash

The authors of the new Imperial study noted that the novel coronavirus variant was on the rise despite the government’s imposition of “Level 3” and “Level 4” blockades in England. “These higher levels of infection occurred despite high levels of social distancing in England,” the authors said.

A lockdown that began in November caused the R number to drop to 0.9. But those measures were ultimately not enough to stop the spread of the new variant, the London Times reported, citing Axel Gandy, chairman of statistics at Imperial College.

Under these conditions, non-essential stores closed, people worked from home when possible, but schools remained open.

Overall, the number of Covid-19 cases in the UK has skyrocketed:

• On Sunday, the country reported just over 55,000 cases in a single day, a level higher than that recorded in the first wave in April, although this is partly due to increased testing, The Guardian reported.
• Southern England and London are the worst hit areas, with some London hospitals reporting “major incidents” and oxygen shortages.
• London’s Nightingale Hospital, one of the established but rarely used overflow facilities in the first wave, is scheduled to reopen, the London Evening Standard newspaper reported.
• Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has long resisted calls for a national shutdown, is under pressure to do so and will meet with senior members of the government on Monday.
• The National Education Union urged teachers not to go to work on Monday, prompting many elementary schools to cancel classes. High schools are already closed until at least the middle of the month.

The number of reported cases increased rapidly after Christmas, which was to be expected given the holiday lull:

Hospitalized patients have now passed the April peak:

Deaths began to rise shortly after Christmas:

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