Effects of BA.1/BA.2 subvariant, vaccination and prior infection on infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 omicron infections

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

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

No abstract available

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1093/jtm/taac068
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.03.02.22271771: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: Oversight: Hamad Medical Corporation and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar Institutional Review Boards approved this retrospective study with waiver of informed consent.
    Consent: Oversight: Hamad Medical Corporation and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar Institutional Review Boards approved this retrospective study with waiver of informed consent.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analyses were conducted in STATA/SE version 16.35
    STATA/SE
    suggested: None

    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 and caveats: A small number of RT-qPCR tests had no available Ct value and were thus excluded from the analysis, but these constituted only 0.1% of all RT-qPCR tests. The study was implemented on documented RT-qPCR-confirmed infections, but other infections may have occurred but were never documented. It is possible that infections in those with prior infection or those vaccinated are less likely to be diagnosed, perhaps because of minimal or no symptoms. Nevertheless, RT-qPCR testing in Qatar is done at a mass scale, where a significant proportion of the population is being tested every week.15 The majority of infections are identified not because of symptoms, but because of routine testing for other reasons (Table 1).15 The date of symptom onset was not available for symptomatic cases. Therefore, an analysis factoring the duration between symptom onset and RT-qPCR test was not possible. The study population consists of mostly working-age adults and thus the results may not necessarily be generalizable to other population groups, such as the elderly. The analyses controlled for sex, age, and nationality but it was not possible to control for other factors, such as comorbidities or socio-economic factors, as data on these factors were not available. Of note that the number of individuals with severe chronic conditions is small in Qatar’s young population.14,41 The national list of vaccine prioritization included only 19,800 individuals of all age groups with serio...

    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.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2022.03.02.22271771 on medRxiv