Evaluation of the relative virulence of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants: a retrospective cohort study in Ontario, Canada
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.05.21260050: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable Models adjusted for age (by 10-year increments), male sex, time (modeled as a week-on-week linear trend), documented major comorbidity (including documented asthma, COPD, hematological disease, liver disease, cardiac disease, diabetes, immune compromise, renal disease, neurological disease, or malignancy). Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Cases were classified as N501Y-positive (screening positive for N501Y or identified as alpha, beta, or gamma by WGS), probable delta variant (identified by WGS or negative for N501Y after May 1, 2021), or not VOC (all … SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.05.21260050: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable Models adjusted for age (by 10-year increments), male sex, time (modeled as a week-on-week linear trend), documented major comorbidity (including documented asthma, COPD, hematological disease, liver disease, cardiac disease, diabetes, immune compromise, renal disease, neurological disease, or malignancy). Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Cases were classified as N501Y-positive (screening positive for N501Y or identified as alpha, beta, or gamma by WGS), probable delta variant (identified by WGS or negative for N501Y after May 1, 2021), or not VOC (all remaining cases). WGSsuggested: NoneResults 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:A key limitation of our dataset is that it lacks data on individual-level vaccination status. We are indirectly modeling the impact of vaccination for prevention of severe illness by incorporating a linear trend term in our model. We do likely see a countervailing effect of vaccination in our data with a week-on-week reduced risk of hospitalization, ICU admission and death of approximately 2%, 4% and 6%, respectively. Inasmuch as SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in use in Canada appear to diminish the severity of infection even when vaccine fails to prevent infection, the differences in virulence we report here are most likely to represent a lower bound. This diminution of apparent effect is likely exacerbated by our likely having misclassified early delta variant infections as non-VOC due to the absence of routine screening for characteristic delta mutations; in other words, our estimates of excess risk for delta are likely biased towards the null. In summary, we demonstrate that in the Canadian province of Ontario, despite widespread vaccination and VOC infections occurring more frequently in younger and healthier individuals, VOCs are associated with a substantial increase in virulence, including increased risk of death. The emerging delta variant is more virulent than previously dominant N501Y-positive VOCs. Combined with increased transmissibility and immune escape, these VOCs represent a significant escalation in risk to public health during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
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.
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