Regional connectivity drove bidirectional transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the Middle East during travel restrictions
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Abstract
Regional connectivity and land travel have been identified as important drivers of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. However, the generalizability of this finding is understudied outside of well-sampled, highly connected regions. In this study, we investigated the relative contributions of regional and intercontinental connectivity to the source-sink dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 for Jordan and the Middle East. By integrating genomic, epidemiological and travel data we show that the source of introductions into Jordan was dynamic across 2020, shifting from intercontinental seeding in the early pandemic to more regional seeding for the travel restrictions period. We show that land travel, particularly freight transport, drove introduction risk during the travel restrictions period. High regional connectivity and land travel also drove Jordan’s export risk. Our findings emphasize regional connectedness and land travel as drivers of transmission in the Middle East.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.27.22269922: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: Ethical Clearance: The study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) at Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) (IRB-21-7739) and the Cell Therapy Center of The University of Jordan (IRD-CTC/1-2020/01) Sample collection: We collected SARS-CoV2 samples from routine diagnostic tests performed by Biolab Diagnostic Laboratories, which has 20 branches in five governorates including major cities Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization Five to ten percent of total samples with a Ct value <32 in the TaqPath COVID-19 PCR assay were selected at random for sequencing across the major cities. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: …
SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.27.22269922: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: Ethical Clearance: The study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) at Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) (IRB-21-7739) and the Cell Therapy Center of The University of Jordan (IRD-CTC/1-2020/01) Sample collection: We collected SARS-CoV2 samples from routine diagnostic tests performed by Biolab Diagnostic Laboratories, which has 20 branches in five governorates including major cities Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization Five to ten percent of total samples with a Ct value <32 in the TaqPath COVID-19 PCR assay were selected at random for sequencing across the major cities. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Public health efforts in several Middle Eastern countries, including Syria, Yemen and Palestine have had to operate under conditions of conflict, displacement and extreme resource and infrastructure limitations, with large vulnerable populations of refugees in other Middle Eastern countries.46,47 Systematically and sustainably strengthening surveillance and diagnostic capacity across the Middle East and other regions worldwide is not only imperative to empower local public health decision making, but is also vital to monitor and pre-empt the global spread of new variants of concern as well as other emerging zoonosis in real-time in a vulnerably connected world.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No funding statement was detected.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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