Decoupling between SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility and population mobility associated with increasing immunity from vaccination and infection in South America

Fiori, Marcelo; Bello, Gonzalo; Wschebor, Nicolás; Lecumberry, Federico; Ferragut, Andrés; Mordecki, Ernesto

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-10896-4

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 45 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It suggest that such a high level of hybrid immunity might have prevented the exponential spread of the highly transmissible VOC Delta in Amazonas, and this may explain why the mean Delta’s R e in Amazonas (1.07–1.21) was much lower than the mean Delta’s R 0 (5.08) previously estimated 43 . These findings also suggest that the conditional herd immunity reached by South American countries around mid-2021 not only controlled the spread of variants Gamma and Lambda 44 but also protect populations against Delta up-surge. This supports the notion that the population impact of Delta varies across regions depending on underlying population immunological attributes 45 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Comparative epidemic expansion of SARS-CoV-2 variants Delta and Omicron in the Brazilian State of Amazonas

et al. 2023

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs) Delta and Omicron spread globally during mid and late 2021, respectively. In this study, we compare the dissemination dynamics of these VOCs in the Amazonas state, one of Brazil’s most heavily affected regions. We sequenced the virus genome from 4128 patients collected in Amazonas between July 1st, 2021, and January 31st, 2022, and investigated the viral dynamics using a phylodynamic approach. The VOCs Delta and Omicron BA.1 displayed similar patterns of phylogeographic spread but different epidemic dynamics. The replacement of Gamma by Delta was gradual and occurred without an upsurge of COVID-19 cases, while the rise of Omicron BA.1 was extremely fast and fueled a sharp increase in cases. Thus, the dissemination dynamics and population-level impact of new SARS-CoV-2 variants introduced in the Amazonian population after mid-2021, a setting with high levels of acquired immunity, greatly vary according to their viral phenotype.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Comparative epidemic expansion of SARS-CoV-2 variants Delta and Omicron in the Brazilian State of Amazonas

et al. 2023

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Fourth, dissemination of Mu may have been limited by the "hybrid immunity" generated by the combination of natural infection and vaccination in LAC region [42][43][44] . Indeed, a previous study shows the loss of correlation between population mobility and Gamma and Lambda effective reproduction number in countries from South American Southern cone since middle 2021 45 . This was associated with the increasing population hybrid immunity, and we may speculate that during the period of most intense international spread of Mu (April-June 2021), populations from the South America may have already achieved the conditional herd immunity threshold to contain the dissemination of regional SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Mu.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Dispersion patterns of SARS-CoV-2 variants Gamma, Lambda and Mu in Latin America and the Caribbean

Gräf,

Martinez,

Bello

et al. 2024

Nat Commun

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) regions were an important epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic and SARS-CoV-2 evolution. Through the COVID-19 Genomic Surveillance Regional Network (COVIGEN), LAC countries produced an important number of genomic sequencing data that made possible an enhanced SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance capacity in the Americas, paving the way for characterization of emerging variants and helping to guide the public health response. In this study we analyzed approximately 300,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences generated between February 2020 and March 2022 by multiple genomic surveillance efforts in LAC and reconstructed the diffusion patterns of the main variants of concern (VOCs) and of interest (VOIs) possibly originated in the Region. Our phylogenetic analysis revealed that the spread of variants Gamma, Lambda and Mu reflects human mobility patterns due to variations of international air passenger transportation and gradual lifting of social distance measures previously implemented in countries. Our results highlight the potential of genetic data to reconstruct viral spread and unveil preferential routes of viral migrations that are shaped by human mobility patterns.

show abstract

“…Finally, it is important to consider that country-specific patterns during the pandemic could have differentially affected the observed lexical-semantic changes. While both Uruguay and Argentina experienced large degrees of mobility restrictions in 2020 (Cabana et al, 2021 ; Fiori et al, 2022 ) that negatively impacted several aspects of everyday life, the governmental response was different in both countries. Argentina underwent a severe lockdown while in Uruguay schools were closed and social gatherings were restricted primarily during the first half of 2020 and 2021, and the resulting mobility reduction had an important voluntary component (Cabana et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pandemic in Words: Tracking Fast Semantic Changes via a Large-Scale Word Association Task

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Most words have a variety of senses that can be added, removed, or altered over time. Understanding how they change across different contexts and time periods is crucial for revealing the role of language in social and cultural evolution. In this study we aimed to explore the collective changes in the mental lexicon as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. We performed a large-scale word association experiment in Rioplatense Spanish. The data were obtained in December 2020, and compared with responses previously obtained from the Small World of Words database (SWOW-RP, Cabana et al., 2023). Three different word-association measures detected changes in a word’s mental representation from Precovid to Covid. First, significantly more new associations appeared for a set of pandemic-related words. These new associations can be interpreted as incorporating new senses. For example, the word ‘isolated’ incorporated direct associations with ‘coronavirus’ and ‘quarantine’. Second, when analyzing the distribution of responses, we observed a greater Kullback-Leibler divergence (i.e., relative entropy) between the Precovid and Covid periods for pandemic words. Thus, some words (e.g., ‘protocol’, or ‘virtual’) changed their overall association patterns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, using semantic similarity analysis, we evaluated the changes between the Precovid and Covid periods for each cue word’s nearest neighbors and the changes in their similarity to certain word senses. We found a larger diachronic difference for pandemic cues where polysemic words like ‘immunity’ or ‘trial’ increased their similarity to sanitary/health words during the Covid period. We propose that this novel methodology can be expanded to other scenarios of fast diachronic semantic changes.

show abstract

Decoupling between SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility and population mobility associated with increasing immunity from vaccination and infection in South America

Cited by 7 publications

References 45 publications

Comparative epidemic expansion of SARS-CoV-2 variants Delta and Omicron in the Brazilian State of Amazonas

Comparative epidemic expansion of SARS-CoV-2 variants Delta and Omicron in the Brazilian State of Amazonas

Dispersion patterns of SARS-CoV-2 variants Gamma, Lambda and Mu in Latin America and the Caribbean

The Pandemic in Words: Tracking Fast Semantic Changes via a Large-Scale Word Association Task

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About