The 28-day risk of death for the B117 COVID-19 variant was 64% higher than for previously circulating strains in people older than 30 years, a UK study finds. The study, led by University of Exeter researchers and published today in BMJ, involved community-based testing and death data from 54,906 matched pairs of participants who tested positive for COVID-19 from Oct 1, 2020, to Jan 29, 2021. Of the 109,812 total participants, 367 (0.3%) died. Of the 54,906 participants infected with B117, 227 (0.4%) died, compared with 141 (0.3%) infected with other strains. The hazard ratio (HR) for death by 28 days after diagnosis was 1.64 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.32 to 2.04) for patients infected with the B117 variant, compared with previously circulating SARS-CoV-2 strains.