Increased mortality in community-tested cases of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7.

ABSTRACT: SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7, a variant first detected in the United Kingdom in September 2020¹, has spread to multiple countries worldwide. Several studies have established that B.1.1.7 is more transmissible than preexisting variants, but have not identified whether it leads to any change in disease severity². We analyse a dataset linking 2,245,263 positive SARS-CoV-2 community tests and 17,452 COVID-19 deaths in England from 1 September 2020 to 14 February 2021. For 1,146,534 (51%) of these tests, the presence or absence of B.1.1.7 can be identified because of mutations in this lineage preventing PCR amplification of the spike gene target (S gene target failure, SGTF¹). Based on 4,945 deaths with known SGTF status, we estimate that the hazard of death assoc

SUBMITTER: Davies NG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7872389 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature