https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1364331200735764482

For those interested in COVID and risk, Prof. Francois Balloux (who has been highly credible and ethical, and who researches COVID’s viral mutations/lineages, as one of the top researchers of these in the world) has some commentary on the California COVID variant which may be eye-opening, in response to this LA Times article, “California’s coronavirus strain looks increasingly dangerous”: https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1364331200735764482

Dr. Balloux says: “This article is irresponsible nonsense. The number of inaccuracies and errors are staggering, and the language utterly inadequate. The entire narrative is in variance with all the evidence available in the public domain at this stage.
I appreciate that everyone, everywhere wants their private #SARSCoV2 variant, scarier and nastier than all others, to blame for their woes. Though, I’m sorry California, despite your track record as trailblazers, your variant (B.1.427/B.1.429) doesn’t seem to make the cut.

Addendum:

B.1.427/B.1.429 do not qualify as ‘lineages of concern’. They has been around a while and while their highest frequency is in the US (California for B.1.429), They are not exceptional in their distribution, or recent increase in frequency.

Lineages can reach high frequencies locally without them being intrinsically more transmissible. Examples include B.1.177, which was dominant in the UK in the summer of 2020, before being replaced by B.1.1.7, or B.1.1.50, which is dominant in Palestine.
There is no evidence from ‘neutralisation assays’ that B.1.427/B.1.429 may be more prone to cause reinfection or reduce efficacy of current vaccines.

B.1.427/B.1.429 lineages cary none of the mutations/deletions that have been flagged in ‘variants of concern’ (i.e. Spike 69/70deletion, N501Y, K417N/T, E484K or NSP6 106-108 deletion).

B.1.427/B.1.429 are characterised by the L452R spike mutation, which seems of fairly minor concern at this stage. It is not uncommon in various lineages and was first observed in in a B.1.39 strain in Denmark in March 2020.

#SARSCoV2 acquires ~25 mutations/year in its genome. As such, there are now tens of thousands of ‘definable lineages’. A few are of concern because they transmit better and/or partly escape immunisation. It is essential that we identify, and focus on, those that really matter.

I appreciate my first two tweets in the thread, which were written 12 hours before the others, were extremely strongly worded. I won’t try to hide that I lost it when I first read this article and its subsequent coverage.

I’m concerned about the negative impact such loose reporting has on mental health and vaccine uptake. I actually suspect this may be more damaging to our ability to respond to the pandemic than ‘#COVID19 denialism’, which is actually fairly rare at least in its extreme form.”

He is very easy to speak with on Twitter, if anyone has commentary to share with him (rather than me — I am simply sharing because it seems the media has been running with this and yet I know Balloux’s work and reputation are tremendous): https://twitter.com/BallouxFra…/status/1364378646237110277