The timing of the emergence of this variant coincides closely with increases in vaccinations in Chile (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://our

The timing of the emergence of this variant coincides closely with increases in vaccinations in Chile (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations), but this could be coincidental. Highlights from the paper (not yet peer-reviewed): - "VOCs and VOIs harbor multiple mutations in their spike (S) protein and are relatively resistant to the neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) that are elicited in convalescent and vaccinated individuals" - "The Lambda variant (also known as the C.37 lineage) is the newest VOI (designated on June 14, 2021) (WHO, 2021a) and is currently spreading in South American countries such as Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador" - "Notably, the vaccination rate in Chile is relatively high; the percentage of the people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine was ~60% on June 1, 2021 (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations). A recent paper also suggested that the vaccines have effectively prevented COVID-19 in Chile (Jara et al., 2021). Nevertheless, a big COVID-19 surge has occurred in Chile in Spring 2021 (WHO, 2021b), suggesting that the Lambda variant is proficient in escaping from the antiviral immunity elicited by vaccination." - "The S protein of the consensus sequence of the Lambda variant bears six substitution mutations (G75V, T76I, L452Q, F490S, D614G and T859N) and a 7-amino-acid deletion in the NTD (RSYLTPGD246-253N)" - "As shown in Figure 2B, the Lambda S is 1.5-fold in average (2.63-fold at a maximum) more resistant to the BNT162b2(Pfizer)-induced antisera than the parental D614G S (P = 0.0077 by Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test)." - "We showed that the Lambda variant bearing the RSYLTPGD246-253N mutation emerged around July 12, 2020 (95% CI, January 5, 2020 – October 22, 2020)" - "These results suggest that the Lambda S is highly infectious and resistant to the vaccine-induced humoral immunity, and the robust resistance of the Lambda S to the vaccine-induced neutralization is determined by a large deletion in the NTD." - "Because the Lambda variant is a VOI, it might be considered that this variant is not an ongoing threat compared to the pandemic VOCs. However, because the Lambda variant is relatively resistant to the vaccine-induced antisera, it might be possible that this variant is feasible to cause breakthrough infection."