Severity, Criticality, and Fatality of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Beta Variant

  1. Laith J Abu-Raddad
  2. Hiam Chemaitelly
  3. Houssein H Ayoub
  4. Hadi M Yassine
  5. Fatiha M Benslimane
  6. Hebah A Al Khatib
  7. Patrick Tang
  8. Mohammad R Hasan
  9. Peter Coyle
  10. Sawsan AlMukdad
  11. Zaina Al Kanaani
  12. Einas Al Kuwari
  13. Andrew Jeremijenko
  14. Anvar Hassan Kaleeckal
  15. Ali Nizar Latif
  16. Riyazuddin Mohammad Shaik
  17. Hanan F Abdul Rahim
  18. Gheyath K Nasrallah
  19. Mohamed Ghaith Al Kuwari
  20. Adeel A Butt
  21. Hamad Eid Al Romaihi
  22. Mohamed H Al-Thani
  23. Abdullatif Al Khal
  24. Roberto Bertollini

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Abstract

Beta (B.1.351)–variant coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disease was investigated in Qatar. Compared with the Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant, odds (95% confidence interval) of progressing to severe disease, critical disease, and COVID-19–related death were 1.24-fold (1.11–1.39), 1.49-fold (1.13–1.97), and 1.57-fold (1.03–2.43) higher, respectively, for the Beta variant.

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  3. Version published to 10.1093/cid/ciab909
  4. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.08.02.21261465: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: The study was approved by the Hamad Medical Corporation and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar Institutional Review Boards with waiver of informed consent.
    Consent: The study was approved by the Hamad Medical Corporation and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar Institutional Review Boards with waiver of informed consent.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    RandomizationFrom January 18 until February 15, 2021, the Alpha variant wave expanded rapidly and weekly rounds of viral genome sequencing [1–4] of randomly collected samples confirmed the presence of this and other originally circulating “wild-type” variants, but documented only limited presence of the Beta variant and no other variants of concern [1–4].
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations include the smaller sample sizes of critical disease and COVID-19 deaths in the Alpha variant analysis (Supplementary Table 2) compared to the Beta variant analysis (Supplementary Table 3), as COVID-19 criticality and fatality have been low in Qatar’s predominantly young and working-age population [8, 13], leading to statistically non-significant results and wider 95% confidence intervals. Data on co-morbid conditions were not available to study investigators; hence, they could not be factored explicitly in our analysis. Nevertheless, matching and adjusting for age in analysis may have served as a proxy, given that co-morbidities are associated with old age. Furthermore, with the young population structure [8], we anticipate that only a small proportion of the study population may have had serious co-morbid conditions. However, our findings may not be entirely generalizable to other settings, where elderly people constitute a sizable proportion of the population. Imperfect assay sensitivity and specificity of PCR testing may have affected infection ascertainment. However, all PCR testing was performed with extensively used, investigated, and validated commercial platforms having essentially 100% sensitivity and specificity (Supplementary Text 1). Unlike blinded, randomized clinical trials, the investigated observational cohorts were neither blinded nor randomized. In conclusion, the Alpha variant is associated with 48% higher risk of severe disease than wild-type ...

    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.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  5. Version published to 10.1101/2021.08.02.21261465v1 on medRxiv