Spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant through Europe in the summer of 2020

Emma B. Hodcroft (), Moira Zuber, Sarah Nadeau, Timothy G. Vaughan, Katharine H. D. Crawford, Christian L. Althaus, Martina L. Reichmuth, John E. Bowen, Alexandra C. Walls, Davide Corti, Jesse D. Bloom, David Veesler, David Mateo, Alberto Hernando, Iñaki Comas, Fernando González-Candelas, Tanja Stadler and Richard A. Neher ()
Additional contact information
Emma B. Hodcroft: University of Basel
Moira Zuber: University of Basel
Sarah Nadeau: Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Timothy G. Vaughan: Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Katharine H. D. Crawford: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Christian L. Althaus: University of Bern
Martina L. Reichmuth: University of Bern
John E. Bowen: University of Washington
Alexandra C. Walls: University of Washington
Davide Corti: Humabs Biomed SA, a subsidiary of Vir Biotechnology
Jesse D. Bloom: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
David Veesler: University of Washington
David Mateo: Kido Dynamics SA
Alberto Hernando: Kido Dynamics SA
Iñaki Comas: Tuberculosis Genomics Unit, Biomedicine Institute of Valencia (IBV-CSIC)
Fernando González-Candelas: CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP)
Tanja Stadler: Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Richard A. Neher: University of Basel

Nature, 2021, vol. 595, issue 7869, 707-712

Abstract: Abstract Following its emergence in late 2019, the spread of SARS-CoV-21,2 has been tracked by phylogenetic analysis of viral genome sequences in unprecedented detail3–5. Although the virus spread globally in early 2020 before borders closed, intercontinental travel has since been greatly reduced. However, travel within Europe resumed in the summer of 2020. Here we report on a SARS-CoV-2 variant, 20E (EU1), that was identified in Spain in early summer 2020 and subsequently spread across Europe. We find no evidence that this variant has increased transmissibility, but instead demonstrate how rising incidence in Spain, resumption of travel, and lack of effective screening and containment may explain the variant’s success. Despite travel restrictions, we estimate that 20E (EU1) was introduced hundreds of times to European countries by summertime travellers, which is likely to have undermined local efforts to minimize infection with SARS-CoV-2. Our results illustrate how a variant can rapidly become dominant even in the absence of a substantial transmission advantage in favourable epidemiological settings. Genomic surveillance is critical for understanding how travel can affect transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and thus for informing future containment strategies as travel resumes.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03677-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:595:y:2021:i:7869:d:10.1038_s41586-021-03677-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03677-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().