Variant Fueling India's COVID Catastrophe Is Now a Major Threat to RI - Landekic

Variant Fueling India's COVID Catastrophe Is Now a Major Threat to RI - Landekic

India is currently experiencing a catastrophic rise in COVID with almost 400,000 cases per day and nearly 23 million total cases and 250,000 deaths, second only to the U.S. Medical experts and journalists in the country and globally believe the actual numbers are believed to be much higher -- maybe three-times higher.

Much of this disastrous increase is believed to be caused by a new variant, B.1.617 or one of several related sublineages often being called the “India” variant. Monday, the World Health Organization classified this variant as a global health risk, because it appears to both more easily spread, and is resistant to some extent to current vaccines.

 

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WATCH Former RI Director of Health Michael Fine on GoLocal LIVE today at 1:30 PM Discuss the impact of the Indian variant on RI.

 

Monday’s data from the RI Department of Health revealed the first case of one of the sublineages of the B.1.617 “India” variant (B.1.617.1) has been identified in RI:

B.1.617.1 differs from the original B.1.617 in that it has an additional mutation, P.681R (plus other spike mutations), that has been shown to enhance cell-cell fusion. B.1.617.1 has been shown to cause more severe disease in animals.  The B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2 variants now account for 58% of all positive COVID cases sequenced in India COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update - WHO.

GoLocal wrote about the explosion of cases in India last week.

 

Questions About Effectiveness of Pfizer Vaccine Against the Indian Variant

B.1.617 has been shown to partially evade the antibodies from the Pfizer vaccine, with about a 3-fold reduction in susceptibility.

There have been 335 cases of B.1.617 found in the U.S. to date. Now it is here in Rhode Island as well, possibly with many more cases than have been identified.

The BBC reports, "However, early lab results and real-life data suggest the Pfizer vaccine can protect against the new variants, although slightly less effectively." That initial research can be read HERE.

In less than four weeks India went from considering the COVID pandemic contained, to being one of the most infected countries in the world. The combination of being more easily spread plus some degree of resistance to vaccines shows how quickly this variant can completely change the situation for the worse.

With Rhode Island now almost completely reopened, Governor Dan McKee is taking a huge risk of the same thing happening here.

Nick Landekic a retired scientist and biotechnology executive with over 35 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry.