Campbell Finlay u. a.: Increased transmissibility and global spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern as at June 2021, in: Euro Surveillance Vol. 26, Issue 24 (2021), pii=2100509, online in: https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.24.2100509. The authors present a global analysis of the spread of recently emerged SARS-CoV-2 variants and estimate changes in effective reproduction numbers at country-specific level using sequence data from GISAID. Nearly all investigated countries demonstrated rapid replacement of previously circulating lineages by the World Health Organization-designated variants of concern, with estimated transmissibility increases of 29% (95% CI: 24–33), 25% (95% CI: 20–30), 38% (95% CI: 29–48) and 97% (95% CI: 76–117), […]
Monthly archives: April 2022
Christina Menni, Ana M. Valdez, Tim D. Spector u. a.: Symptom prevalence, duration, and risk of hospital admission in individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 during periods of omicron and delta variant dominance: a prospective observational study from the ZOE COVID Study, in: The Lancet Vol. 399, Issue 10335 (April 23, 2022), pp. 1618-1624. Summary Background The SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern, omicron, appears to be less severe than delta. The authors aim to quantify the differences in symptom prevalence, risk of hospital admission, and symptom duration among the vaccinated population. Methods In this prospective longitudinal observational study, the authors collected data from […]
WHO (ed.): COVID-19-Explorer, online in: https://worldhealthorg.shinyapps.io/covid/ (Retrieved April 11, 2022).
Vivek Naranbhai et al.: T cell reactivity to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant is preserved in most but not all prior infected and vaccinated individuals, in: medRxiv, online in: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.04.21268586. Abstract The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) contains mutations that mediate escape from infection- and vaccine-induced antibody responses, although the extent to which these substitutions in spike and non-spike proteins affect T cell recognition is unknown. In their article the authors show that T cell responses in individuals with prior infection, vaccination, both prior infection and vaccination, and boosted vaccination are largely preserved to Omicron spike and non-spike proteins. However, the authors […]
COVID-19 Excess Mortality Collaborators (Haidong Wang u. a.): Estimating excess mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic analysis of COVID-19-related mortality, 2020–21, in: The Lancet Online (March 10, 2022), online in: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02796-3. Summary Background Mortality statistics are fundamental to public health decision making. Mortality varies by time and location, and its measurement is affected by well known biases that have been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper aims to estimate excess mortality from the COVID-19 pandemic in 191 countries and territories, and 252 subnational units for selected countries, from Jan 1, 2020, to Dec 31, 2021. Methods All-cause […]