GASSP FAQs
Description of the variant tree - what are all the individual bubbles? Variants but not new lineage?
More information on the variant phylogenetic tree – response from Ramon Lorenzo-Redondo Ph.D., a researcher in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Northwestern University and the director of bioinformatics of the Northwestern University Center for Pathogen Genomics and Microbial Evolution (CPGME). His work combines virology and evolutionary biology to study viral evolution and the interaction between viruses and the host during infection.
The bubbles are individual sequences. It’s unlikely that you find two viruses with the exact same genome. Variants are just groups of viruses that share common mutations, but then differ in other mutations. That’s why you see so many branches (that reflect number of mutations) within each variant. Each bubble is a slightly different version of a given variant – but not different enough to be a new lineage/variant itself.
The phylogenetic tree uses probabilistic methods to display the most likely temporal evolution of the sequences represented. Variants are just defined by the sets of mutations the sequences present, while this tree also shows evolutionary relationships and even include some geographical dynamics (although very simple in that specific tree).
Phylogenetic variants information.
Mortality by variant – information also from Dr. Lorenzo-Redondo.
Mortality per variant is going to be much trickier at the global level, as not that many sequences in the database include this data. We have that data and are in the process of analyzing it from Northwestern (over 1200 sequences) and a small sample from Nigeria (over 300 sequences), but that would be very regional. We can try to look through the database, but it will be very incomplete.
Do we have any mortality information by variant?
Africa’s future (risk/protection) – response from Lori Post and Sarah Welch
While we would hope that the combination of protective factors that has kept the pandemic from more significantly affecting African countries would continue, we do not think it can be assumed that a future variant won’t emerge that “gets around” those protective factors. In addition, impacts beyond direct health impact from infection are still a risk for African countries because of disrupted trading or sub-regional proximity to countries experiencing an outbreak and/or more disrupted economies.
Do we have any mortality/case fatality info/patterns by region/country? Anything interesting to learn there?
Correlation and/or causation between vaccination rate and epidemiological curve – Lori Post
There is no information available yet as no country has vaccinated enough of their population to reach the level that would affect epidemic progress, with the one exception being Israel. In Israel, we are still looking at how it all is playing out.
From the Desk of Dr. Robert Murphy
Dr. Murphy is a John Philip Phair Professor of Infectious Diseases, Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and McCormick School of Engineering, Executive Director, Institute for Global Health and Director, Institute for Global Health-Center for Global Communicable Disease.
From the Desk of Dr. Micheal Ison, MS
Dr. Ison is a professor in the Divisions of Infectious Diseases and Organ Transplantation. He has spent his career understanding the epidemiology and optimizing novel prevention and treatments for respiratory viral infections, including influenza, RSV and SARS-CoV-2. He is also the Director for the NUCATS Center for Clinical Research.