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Emergence and spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant through Europe in the summer of 2020.
Hodcroft, Emma B; Zuber, Moira; Nadeau, Sarah; Vaughan, Timothy G; Crawford, Katharine H D; Althaus, Christian L; Reichmuth, Martina L; Bowen, John E; Walls, Alexandra C; Corti, Davide; Bloom, Jesse D; Veesler, David; Mateo, David; Hernando, Alberto; Comas, Iñaki; González Candelas, Fernando; Stadler, Tanja; Neher, Richard A.
  • Hodcroft EB; Biozentrum, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
  • Zuber M; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Basel, Switzerland.
  • Nadeau S; Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
  • Vaughan TG; Biozentrum, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
  • Crawford KHD; Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zürich, Basel, Switzerland.
  • Althaus CL; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Basel, Switzerland.
  • Reichmuth ML; Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zürich, Basel, Switzerland.
  • Bowen JE; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Basel, Switzerland.
  • Walls AC; Division of Basic Sciences and Computational Biology Program, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA.
  • Corti D; Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
  • Bloom JD; Medical Scientist Training Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
  • Veesler D; Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
  • Mateo D; Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
  • Hernando A; Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
  • Comas I; Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
  • González Candelas F; Humabs Biomed SA, a subsidiary of Vir Biotechnology, 6500 Bellinzona, Switzerland.
  • Stadler T; Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
  • Neher RA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Seattle, WA 98103, USA.
medRxiv ; 2021 Mar 24.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-955723
Preprint
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ABSTRACT
Following its emergence in late 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused a global pandemic resulting in unprecedented efforts to reduce transmission and develop therapies and vaccines (WHO Emergency Committee, 2020; Zhu et al., 2020). Rapidly generated viral genome sequences have allowed the spread of the virus to be tracked via phylogenetic analysis (Worobey et al., 2020; Hadfield et al., 2018; Pybus et al., 2020). While the virus spread globally in early 2020 before borders closed, intercontinental travel has since been greatly reduced, allowing continent-specific variants to emerge. However, within Europe travel resumed in the summer of 2020, and the impact of this travel on the epidemic is not well understood. Here we report on a novel SARS-CoV-2 variant, 20E (EU1), that emerged in Spain in early summer, and subsequently spread to multiple locations in Europe. We find no evidence of increased transmissibility of this variant, but instead demonstrate how rising incidence in Spain, resumption of travel across Europe, and lack of effective screening and containment may explain the variant's success. Despite travel restrictions and quarantine requirements, we estimate 20E (EU1) was introduced hundreds of times to countries across Europe by summertime travellers, likely undermining local efforts to keep SARS-CoV-2 cases low. Our results demonstrate how a variant can rapidly become dominant even in absence of a substantial transmission advantage in favorable epidemiological settings. Genomic surveillance is critical to understanding how travel can impact SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and thus for informing future containment strategies as travel resumes.

Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Type of study: Observational study Topics: Vaccines / Variants Language: English Year: 2021 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: 2020.10.25.20219063

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Type of study: Observational study Topics: Vaccines / Variants Language: English Year: 2021 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: 2020.10.25.20219063