FASTER SPREAD OF NEW CORONAVIRUS VARIANTS IS SUCH A GAME CHANGER 

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for your kind words. Yes, the “Kent variant” is B1.1.7, or the “UK variant”. Ideally we wouldn’t call them by their first location they were seen as it is not that region’s fault and they may have arisen elsewhere, but were undetected for a period. The locations are easier to remember, so we can see why reporters keep doing this.

Thanks for your feedback. There is already a series of gene editing videos on this channel

@@GenomicsGurus Yes, but I am looking forward to the future videos as new scientific and technological advancements are reached, in the future.

We're definitely planning some of that - there are some exciting gene editing clinical trials underway, and some very powerful therapeutic approaches being developed in animal models as well...

@@GenomicsGurus Glad to hear it! Very nice!

Thanks Lilbaz. Please look at our other videos if you want to get a more complete picture, particularly ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-31dTQ29w3eI.html, for detail on the three variants of concern. This video focussed on the concept of increased transmission. We do indeed say that the UK, South Africa and Brazil are just the first places these variants were sequenced and identified. They may have arisen earlier elsewhere as sequencing coverage is low or non-existent in most parts of the world. More sequencing is critical to managing this pandemic and designing vaccination. The P.1 variant was first discovered in Manaus, Brazil and its spread is still considered to be contained in the Amazonia region. P.1 has been seen in travellers to five other countries including Japan to date cov-lineages.org/global_report_P.1.html

@@GenomicsGurus cheers. A good vid would be to how the new variant hides amoungst the numbers. Say one line of the old variant with an r of 0.8 but already high prevelance. While b117 has 1.2 but starts with low prevelance. Then another showing both together. It should show that although the numbers are coming down, once b117 becomes dominant they rocket. Is quite scary.

The early stages of growth of a more transmissible variant when there is already large amounts of previous variants is difficult to explain. There is a "fuse" of time before the new variant takes off. The length of this lag period depends on human behaviour (lockdown restrictions, test/trace and founder effects). Not easily explained and it will be some time after the event that good science has studied and understood it. An important message to take home is that the new variants can be controlled, just like the old ones, its just that the need to break the chains of human transmission is even greater. We shouldn't be any more scared, we just need to work harder with our control measures when new variants become dominant.

@@GenomicsGurus i'm thinking more of places like pakistan or bangladesh. If they see a spike like ireland or portugal they're not going to lock down, they can't.Mexicos health service is basically non existant now. Like you guys am from the uk and we could barley handle it. When these variants kick into gear it's not going to be pretty. Develping nations do tend to have a younger population though.