UK virus variant no more severe: study

The British coronavirus variant first detected in Kent and now dominant in the UK and a number of other countries is more transmissible but does not increase disease severity, research suggests.

Two studies have found no evidence people with the B117 variant have worse symptoms or a heightened risk of developing long COVID than those with a different strain.

However viral load and the reproduction (R) number were higher for B117, adding to growing evidence it is more transmissible than the first strain detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.

One observational study of patients in London hospitals suggests the variant is not associated with more severe illness and death but appears to lead to higher viral load.

A separate study using data logged by 37,000 UK users of a self-reporting coronavirus symptom app found no evidence the variant altered symptoms or likelihood of experiencing long COVID.

Authors of both studies acknowledge their findings differ from some other studies exploring the severity of the variant and have called for more research.

The emergence of variants has raised concerns about whether they could spread easily and be more deadly, and that vaccines might be less effective against them.

Findings from the new studies, conducted between September and December when B117 emerged and started spreading across parts of England, provide insights into its characteristics that will help inform public health, clinical and research responses.

A paper in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal is a whole-genome sequencing and cohort study involving coronavirus patients admitted to University College London Hospital and North Middlesex University Hospital between November 9 and December 20.

The authors compared illness severity in people with and without B117 and calculated viral load.

Among 341 patients who had test swabs sequenced, 58 per cent had B117 and 42 per cent had a non-B117 infection.

Researchers found no evidence of an association between the variant and increased severity, with 36 per cent of B117 patients becoming severely ill or dying, compared with 38 per cent of those with a different strain.

Those with the variant were no more likely to die than patients with a different strain, with 16 per cent dying within 28 days compared with 17 per cent for those with a non-B117 infection.

A second study, published in The Lancet Public Health, analysed self-reported data from 36,920 UK users of the COVID Symptom Study app who tested positive for the disease between September 28 and December 27.

The analysis covered 13 full weeks over the period when the proportion of B117 grew most notably in London, the South East and East of England.

For each week in every region in the analysis (Scotland, Wales and the seven England regions), authors calculated the proportion of users reporting any of 14 COVID-19 symptoms.

This revealed no significant associations between the proportion of B117 within regions and the type of symptoms experienced.