> if B.1.1.7 is less lethal, why would the transmissibility play in?
Transmissibility, viral load and virulence should all be correlated.
Alizon, S., Hurford, A., Mideo, N. and Van Baalen, M. (2009). Virulence evolution and the trade-off hypothesis: history, current state of affairs and the future. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22, 245–259.
When you read stories that a particular variant increases one or two of those three and not the other, you should treat it skeptically. All three should tend to move together.
B.1.1.7 is most likely more lethal, any studies contradicting that are probably not picking appropriate controls to compare against (e.g. the most vulnerable sub-populations of demographic slices having been already hit by old school D614G, so lethality appearing to fall no matter what).
Transmissibility, viral load and virulence should all be correlated.
Alizon, S., Hurford, A., Mideo, N. and Van Baalen, M. (2009). Virulence evolution and the trade-off hypothesis: history, current state of affairs and the future. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22, 245–259.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1420-9101...
When you read stories that a particular variant increases one or two of those three and not the other, you should treat it skeptically. All three should tend to move together.
B.1.1.7 is most likely more lethal, any studies contradicting that are probably not picking appropriate controls to compare against (e.g. the most vulnerable sub-populations of demographic slices having been already hit by old school D614G, so lethality appearing to fall no matter what).