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. 2021 Jun;26(24):2100509.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.24.2100509.

Increased transmissibility and global spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern as at June 2021

Finlay Campbell  1 , Brett Archer  1 , Henry Laurenson-Schafer  1 , Yuka Jinnai  1 , Franck Konings  1 , Neale Batra  1 , Boris Pavlin  1 , Katelijn Vandemaele  1 , Maria D Van Kerkhove  1 , Thibaut Jombart  1   2   3 , Oliver Morgan  1 , Olivier le Polain de Waroux  1
Affiliations

Increased transmissibility and global spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern as at June 2021

Finlay Campbell et al. Euro Surveill. 2021 Jun.

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.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Variants of concern; Variants of interest.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: None declared

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Estimated change in effective reproduction number of SARS-CoV-2 variants relative to non-variants, 64 countries, data until 3 June 2021
Figure 2
Figure 2
Empirical and modelled variant proportions of SARS-CoV-2 variants over time, 15 countries, data until 3 June 2021
Figure 3
Figure 3
Effective reproduction number of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern/interest compared against each other, 64 countries, data until 3 June 2021
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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