Quick reference to COVID-19 variants of concern:

B.1.1.7: first identified in the UK, more transmissible.
B.1.351: first identified in South Africa, some vaccines are less effective.

We're going to try to use the genome-based names rather than the place names.

It's not fair to the countries that identified these to name variants after them. They identified the variants by doing GOOD epidemiology, including thorough genomic sequencing.

It's hard to remember the genome-based names when nobody else is using them, though. We wanted a quick reference to refer back to. So we made one.

Feel free to RT it and use it yourself. We'll add further variants to this thread, as they become newsworthy.

Oh - also, even if you don't think that stigma as a social system is unjust and should be abolished, using place names for infectious diseases skews people's mental models of how infection works.

For example, it biases people subtly towards assuming that a disease isn't actually *in* their community, long after it is endemic there.

B.1.427 and B.1.429: first identified in California, more contagious and more severe symptoms.

Thanks to the friend who pointed us towards that. We'll be continuing to update this thread as needed.

B.1.526: First identified in New York.

B.1617: First identified in India, practical differences not yet known but suspected to be more contagious.