I’m curious. How did they determine the variant? And what prompted them to look?
They are testing this like crazy because variant fuels more panic I believe. I suppose one could make an argument it’s decent information to know to better understand the infections and how they spread.
from what I understand( and that is very little here). They test the genetic sequence of the virus and can see the differences in the rna. But that is almost guessing so don’t quote me.
the variants are different, they move differently and if you have weaknesses in your IPAC program they will expose it very quickly.
I don’t know if they are in fact the buzz saw we first thought they maybe after that first well known outbreak here. That was awful. People will never begin to comprehend the devastation in that outbreak. What was scary is that before they even knew they had a problem, it had probably already past the tipping point.
that fueled incredible concern. I have to admit, I felt the same initially. However, since that one I think it’s been abundantly clear that although more infectious, something was not occurring there that should have been which lead to such a massive and widespread infection. There have been many more variant outbreaks since…. Even in similar settings and they haven’t seen what happened there.
Right now in my health unit area all but 17% of outbreaks are VOC’s and the vast majority have been UK. The few that we see of the SA variant have been pretty ugly. Anecdotally, I would say if there is a variant of covid you don’t want to get…. It’s the SA one.
That said. If folks are half paying attention, even in the vulnerable sectors this virus is fairly easily controlled. The only really ugly outbreaks we see people aren’t following measures well, if at all.
The infection rates in LTC have fallen drastically. In our local health unit area the are only 4 active outbreaks and they are all less than 14 days old. It’s indicative of decent control of an outbreak if a place goes in and comes out within 14days. When they drag on it’s an indicator to take a closer look.