To add to the excitement of your Saturday evening, the focal S:N501 build is now updated with data from 8th Jan, including 48 new seqs in 501Y.V1 (B.1.1.7 #b117) & 501Y.V2.

1/12

https://t.co/AbdhO1rqpw

There are 46 new non-UK sequences in 501Y.V1, from the Netherlands, Italy, Israel, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, the USA, and Luxembourg.
And 2 new non-South African sequences in 501Y.V2, from Australia for the first time.

2/12
In 501Y.V1:

Ireland has 4 new sequences (orange). 2 sit separately but are identical, indicating an additional introduction. 2 link to a previous sequence (green), 1 mutation away each. This could indicate location transmission, unsampled diversity, or a common exposure.

3/12
The Netherlands has 10 new seqs (orange). Many sit apart on the tree, indicating additional introductions. 3 cluster together separated by a few mutations. 2 are identical to an older seq. 1 falls in a cluster of older seqs. Some of these could indicate local transmission.

4/12
Israel has 22 new sequences (orange). 1 links to an older sequence, but is separated by 3 mutations, so may be separate introductions. Another is identical to an older sequence. But most new sequences cluster together (blue), clearly indicating local transmission.

5/12
Norway has 3 new sequences (orange). 2 cluster together but differ by 1 mutation, making their relationship hard to confidently infer. The other sits separately and indicates an independent introduction.

6/12
Italy has 2 new sequences (orange). Zooming in (divergence view) we can see they are identical (yellow), so are likely a single introduction.

7/12
The USA has 2 new sequences, from Connecticut (orange). They sit separately from each other & other USA sequences on the three, indicating independent introductions.

8/12
Luxembourg has 2 new sequences (orange). They sit apart on the tree, indicating separate introductions.

Sweden has 1 new sequence (orange). It sits separately, indicating an additional introduction

9/12
In 501Y.V2:

Australia has sequences that fall into 501Y.V2 for the first time. Zooming in (divergence), we can see they are identical, indicating one introduction.

10/12
As always, the S:N501 "reduced UK" build is updated, & the country-graphs are also updated - remember: many places are preferentially sequencing S:N501 (hot pink), so the frequencies shown may not accurately reflect the true proportion of S:N501!

11/12

https://t.co/c7wlQOLRiq
Finally, the main CoVariants SARS-CoV-2 Variant Tracking page is updated with new links & a new section for S:E484 - but as always, I welcome Pull Requests & Issues in the repository, with papers or online resources I've missed!

12/12

https://t.co/6qBdWhREtl

More from Dr Emma Hodcroft

Lots of tweets about this today!
Let's see what we can see in the focal S:E484 build!

Phylogenetics (what I do - making 'family trees' from virus genetics) can be very informative to see how different variants are spreading, and how cases

There are two variants circulating predominantly in Brazil:
- 20B/S.484K seems to be older & more widespread. It has (among others) a mutation at position 484
- 20J/501Y.V3 is smaller & detected recently. It has mutations at 501 *and* 484.

2/10

https://t.co/Cw5u2kuATa


The variant predominantly in the UK (501Y.V1 / B.1.1.7) and the variant predominantly in South Africa (501Y.V2) also both have 501. 501Y.V2 *also* has the 484K mutation.

Why are there concerns about these mutations? You can read more at https://t.co/wVE7ubYBoy!

3/10


The view below is from an analysis focusing on sequences with a mutation at 484. It shows all the samples in the 2 variants (20B/S.484K & 20J/501Y.V3) & how they're related. More closely related = closer together (very, very roughly).

4/10


We can colour these samples by region to see where they're from. As we expect - most are in Brazil! A few are in Argentina (also red).

5/10

https://t.co/Cw5u2kuATa

More from For later read

1. The death of Silicon Valley, a thread

How did Silicon Valley die? It was killed by the internet. I will explain.

Yesterday, my friend IRL asked me "Where are good old days when techies were


2. In the "good old days" Silicon Valley was about understanding technology. Silicon, to be precise. These were people who had to understand quantum mechanics, who had to build the near-miraculous devices that we now take for granted, and they had to work

3. Now, I love libertarians, and I share much of their political philosophy. But you have to be socially naive to believe that it has a chance in a real society. In those days, Silicon Valley was not a real society. It was populated by people who understood quantum mechanics

4. Then came the microcomputer revolution. It was created by people who understood how to build computers. One borderline case was Steve Jobs. People claimed that Jobs was surrounded by a "reality distortion field" - that's how good he was at understanding people, not things

5. Still, the heroes of Silicon Valley were the engineers. The people who knew how to build things. Steve Jobs, for all his understanding of people, also had quite a good understanding of technology. He had a libertarian vibe, and so did Silicon Valley

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