But Vince from YouTube was of course completely wrong there. At the time they recorded that video, there was overwhelming evidence that the Alpha variant was more transmissive. It was astronomically unlikely that it could have been explained by a founder effect or individual super-spreader events. Unsurprisingly, the evidence was correct while the uninformed pattern-matching from a non-epidemiologist was wrong.
For this new variant it could still plausibly be a founder effect. But that's because the circumstances are different this time (the variant became dominant while cases were surging from almost nothing, not when the cases were already at a high level). Not because that checklist is actually correct.
For this new variant it could still plausibly be a founder effect. But that's because the circumstances are different this time (the variant became dominant while cases were surging from almost nothing, not when the cases were already at a high level). Not because that checklist is actually correct.