A within-host model of SARS-CoV-2 infection
This article has been Reviewed by the following groups
Listed in
- Evaluated articles (ScreenIT)
Abstract
Within-host models have been used to successfully describe the dynamics of multiple viral infections, however, the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 virus infection remain poorly understood. A greater understanding of how the virus interacts with the host can contribute to more realistic epidemiological models and help evaluate the effect of antiviral therapies and vaccines. Here, we present a within-host model to describe SARS-CoV-2 viral dynamics in the upper respiratory tract of individuals enrolled in the UK COVID-19 Human Challenge Study. Using this model, we investigate the viral dynamics and provide timescales of infection that independently verify key epidemiological parameters important in the management of an epidemic. In particular, we estimate that an infected individual is first capable of transmitting the virus after approximately 2.1 days, remains infectious for a further 8.3 days, but can continue to test positive using a PCR test for up to 27 days.
Article activity feed
-
SciScore for 10.1101/2022.04.22.22274137: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.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:One limitation of our current analysis is that in some participants, RNA copies/mL remained high after the end of the 14-day study period. As a result, there is greater uncertainty in our predictions after this time which leads to greater uncertainty in the tail of the PCR positive distribution. In order to obtain accurate estimates for …
SciScore for 10.1101/2022.04.22.22274137: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.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:One limitation of our current analysis is that in some participants, RNA copies/mL remained high after the end of the 14-day study period. As a result, there is greater uncertainty in our predictions after this time which leads to greater uncertainty in the tail of the PCR positive distribution. In order to obtain accurate estimates for the duration of infection, regular sampling must be extended past 14 days. Previous estimates of an individual’s infectiousness have been based on the ability to successfully culture virus samples, however, such studies identify the presence of replicative competent virus and do not quantify the viral load [14]. Infectious virus may therefore be detectable but not at sufficient levels for someone to be infectious. As a result, estimates of the infectious period based on these studies are generally longer than that predicted here [14, 35]. A recent within-host model defines the infectious period to be the time when an individual’s transmission probability exceeds 10% of its maximum value, obtaining estimates ranging between 1.9 days and 7.9 days that lie towards the lower end of our predicted distribution [18]. Ultimately, the duration of the infectious period depends on how infectiousness is defined. Approaches based on viral load are preferable because they can be used to represent infectiousness on a continuous scale (such as a probability), whereas culture positivity only provides a binary outcome. Furthermore, viral load curves for infecti...
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.
-
