JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
CUHK Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, China.
Pathog Glob Health. 2022 May;116(3):137-139. doi: 10.1080/20477724.2021.2014236. Epub 2021 Dec 20.
The circulation of SARS-CoV-2 Beta (B.1.351) variants challenged the control of COVID-19 pandemic. The numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths and SARS-CoV-2 sequences in South Africa were collected. We reconstructed the variant-specified reproduction numbers (R t) and delay-adjusted case fatality ratio (CFR) to examine the changes in transmissibility and fatality risk of Beta over non-Beta variants. We estimated that Beta variants were 41% (95%CI: 16, 73) more transmissible and 53% (95%CI: 6, 108) more fatal than non-Beta variants. Higher risks of infection and fatality might lead to increasing volumes of infections and critical patients.
新冠病毒 Beta（B.1.351）变体的传播对新冠疫情的控制构成了挑战。我们收集了南非的新冠病例和死亡人数以及新冠病毒序列。我们重建了特定变体的繁殖数（Rt）和延迟调整的病死率（CFR），以研究 Beta 变体相对于非 Beta 变体的传染性和致死风险的变化。我们估计，Beta 变体比非 Beta 变体的传染性高 41%（95%CI：16，73），致死率高 53%（95%CI：6，108）。感染和致死风险的增加可能会导致感染人数和重症患者数量的增加。
