Estimation of Serial Interval and Reproduction Number to Quantify the Transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant in South Korea

  1. Dasom Kim
  2. Sheikh Taslim Ali
  3. Sungchan Kim
  4. Jisoo Jo
  5. Jun-Sik Lim
  6. Sunmi Lee
  7. Sukhyun Ryu

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Abstract

The omicron variant (B.1.1.529) of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was the predominant variant in South Korea from late January 2022. In this study, we aimed to report the early estimates of the serial interval distribution and reproduction number to quantify the transmissibility of the omicron variant in South Korea between 25 November 2021 and 31 December 2021. We analyzed 427 local omicron cases and reconstructed 73 transmission pairs. We used a maximum likelihood estimation to assess serial interval distribution from transmission pair data and reproduction numbers from 74 local cases in the first local outbreak. We estimated that the mean serial interval was 3.78 (standard deviation, 0.76) days, which was significantly shorter in child infectors (3.0 days) compared to adult infectors (5.0 days) (p < 0.01). We estimated the mean reproduction number was 1.72 (95% CrI, 1.60–1.85) for the omicron variant during the first local outbreak. Strict adherence to public health measures, particularly in children, should be in place to reduce the transmission risk of the highly transmissible omicron variant in the community.

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  1. Version published to 10.3390/v14030533
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.12.25.21268301: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.12.25.21268301v1 on medRxiv