Coronavirus Occurrence and Transmission Over 8 Years in the HIVE Cohort of Households in Michigan

Abstract

Background As part of the Household Influenza Vaccine Evaluation (HIVE) study, acute respiratory infections (ARI) have been identified in children and adults from 2010 to 2018. Methods Annually, 890 to 1441 individuals were followed and contacted weekly to report ARIs. Specimens collected during illness were tested for human coronaviruses (HCoV) types OC43, 229E, HKU1, and NL63. Results In total, 993 HCoV infections were identified during the 8 years, with OC43 most commonly seen and 229E the least. HCoVs were detected in a limited time period, between December and April/May and peaked in January/February. Highest infection frequency was in children <5 years (18 per 100 person-years), with little variation in older age groups (range, 7 to 11 per 100 person-years). Overall, 9% of adult cases and 20% of cases in children were associated with medical consultation. Of the 993 infections, 260 were acquired from an infected household contact. The serial interval between index and household-acquired cases ranged from 3.2 to 3.6 days and the secondary infection risk ranged from 7.2% to 12.6% by type. Conclusions Coronaviruses are sharply seasonal. They appear, based on serial interval and secondary infection risk, to have similar transmission potential to influenza A(H3N2) in the same population.

Pre-existing and de novo humoral immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in humans

“…In addition to its implications for serology assay development and interpretation or for the design of vaccination studies, potential cross-reactivity between seasonal HCoVs and the pandemic SARS-CoV-2 has important ramifications for natural infection. Thorough epidemiological studies of HCoV transmission suggest that cross-protective immunity is unlikely to be sterilising or long-lasting 32 , which is also supported by repeated reinfection of all age groups 4 , sometimes even with homologous HCoVs 33 . Nevertheless, prior immunity induced by one HCoV has also been reported to reduce the transmission of homologous and, importantly, heterologous HCoVs, and to ameliorate the symptoms where transmission is not prevented 1,4,5 .…”

Using COVID‐19 as a teaching tool in a time of remote learning: A workflow for bioinformatic approaches to identifying candidates for therapeutic and vaccine development

“…To ensure the efficacy and ease of this workflow, we tested our methods using seven CoVs that have caused serious disease in humans but vary with respect to their epidemiology. 18 The goal was to employ the workflow to identify well-conserved regions that could be further investigated as targets for vaccine or drug development. This workflow was tested over the course of 2 weeks in the spring of 2020 by two graduate students: one biologist with more knowledge of molecular biology but minimal prior bioinformatics experience and one computational biologist with more familiarity with the programs used.…”

“…Through a literature search, we identified seven CoVs that have been known to cause serious disease in humans. 18 COVID-19 is the most recent of the CoV diseases, with SARS CoV-2 as the causative agent responsible. 19 To perform the analysis, we exported these viral CoV genomes from NCBI: HCoV-229E (MF542265.1), HCoV-HKUA1 (AY884001.1), HCoV-NL63 (JX104161.1), HCoV-OC43 (AY391777.1), MERS-CoV (JX869059.2), SARS-CoV (AY274119.3), and SARS-CoV-2 (MN908947.3).…”

Genome-Wide Asymptomatic B-Cell, CD4+and CD8+T-Cell Epitopes, that are Highly Conserved Between Human and Animal Coronaviruses, Identified from SARS-CoV-2 as Immune Targets for Pre-Emptive Pan-Coronavirus Vaccines

“…This stringent screening process initially resulted in the identification of 28 linear B-cell epitopes (Supplemental Table S3). From this pool of 28 potential epitopes, we later selected 10 B-cell epitopes, (19 to 62 amino acids in length), based on: (i) their sequences being highly conserved between SARS-CoV-2, the main 4 major ''common cold'' Coronaviruses (CoV-OC43, CoV-229E, CoV-HKU1, and CoV-NL63 55 ), and the SARS-like SL-CoVs that are isolated from bats, civet cats, pangolins and camels; and (ii) the probability of exposure each linear epitope to the surface of infected target cells (Fig. 8).…”

“…However, since we do not have available history of whether the healthy adults used in our study were exposed to any ''common cold'' Coronaviruses, such an assertion may not be conclusive. Among the many circulating ''common cold'' Coronaviruses known to infect humans, four serotypes that cause severe respiratory infections are highly seasonal: CoV-OC43, CoV-229E, CoV-HKU1, and CoV-NL63 55 and appear to have a similar transmission potential to influenza A (H3N2) but their seasonality was more predictable as their outbreaks often emerged in December, peaked in January/February, and began to decrease in March of each year 55 . The human SARS-CoV-2 CD4 + and CD8 + T cell epitopes identified in this study are highly conserved between 81,963 strains of SARS-CoV-2 and CoV-OC43, CoV-229E, CoV-HKU1, and CoV-NL63 ( Figs.…”