Occurrence and significance of Omicron BA.1 infection followed by BA.2 reinfection
This article has been Reviewed by the following groups
Listed in
- Evaluated articles (ScreenIT)
Abstract
The newly found Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern has rapidly spread worldwide. Omicron carries numerous mutations in key regions and is associated with increased transmissibility and immune escape. The variant has recently been divided into four subvariants with substantial genomic differences, in particular between Omicron BA.1 and BA.2. With the surge of Omicron subvariants BA.1 and BA.2, a large number of reinfections from earlier cases has been observed, raising the question of whether BA.2 specifically can escape the natural immunity acquired shortly after a BA.1 infection.
To investigate this, we selected a subset of samples from more than 1,8 million cases of infections in the period from November 22, 2021, until February 11, 2022. Here, individuals with two positive samples, more than 20 and less than 60 days apart, were selected. From a total of 187 reinfection cases, we identified 47 instances of BA.2 reinfections shortly after a BA.1 infection, mostly in young unvaccinated individuals with mild disease not resulting in hospitalization or death.
In conclusion, we provide evidence that Omicron BA.2 reinfections do occur shortly after BA.1 infections but are rare.
Article activity feed
-
SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.19.22271112: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Field Sample Permit: According to Danish law, ethics approval is not needed for this type of research but approved by the Legal Advisory Board at Statens Serum Institut, a Danish sector research institute under the auspices of the Danish Ministry of Health. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization From a total of 1,739 individuals that fulfilled the criteria, a subset of 984 samples from individuals (n=492) without prior WGS results were randomly selected for sequencing. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Although only a subset of samples are screened by variant PCR and/or WGS, all positive samples are … SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.19.22271112: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Field Sample Permit: According to Danish law, ethics approval is not needed for this type of research but approved by the Legal Advisory Board at Statens Serum Institut, a Danish sector research institute under the auspices of the Danish Ministry of Health. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization From a total of 1,739 individuals that fulfilled the criteria, a subset of 984 samples from individuals (n=492) without prior WGS results were randomly selected for sequencing. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Although only a subset of samples are screened by variant PCR and/or WGS, all positive samples are collected and stored in the Danish National Biobank. WGSsuggested: NoneResults from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.
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.
-
