Influence of immune escape and nasopharyngeal virus load on the spread of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection is associated with high nasopharyngeal viral load

“…In conclusion, the results of our retrospective analysis provide convincing support to the suggestion that aerosols released by patients infected by SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant may contain higher viral particles than those released by subjects infected with previous SARS-CoV-2 strains, thus providing a solid biologic background to justify enhanced transmissibility of this new linage and higher prevalence of upper respiratory tract symptoms reported in other studies [ 3 , 4 ].…”

High amounts of SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols exhaled by patients with Omicron variant infection

“…In this Journal, Migueres and colleagues commented on the influence of immune escape and nasopharyngeal virus load on the spread of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. 1 Their data demonstrated that the increased transmissibility of the Omicron variant was not explained by higher nasopharyngeal viral load. In this study, we explored the relationship between the high amounts of SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols exhaled by patients with Omicron variant infection and the increased transmissibility.…”

Influence of vaccination and prior immunity on the dynamics of Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 sub-variants

“…This indicates the great capacity of the BA.1 variant to evade antibodies produced in response to infection with an earlier strain of virus and antibodies generated by vaccination. We showed that the Omicron BA.1 variant was more contagious than the Delta variant because of vaccine escape resulting from the spike mutations that alter virus neutralization rather than because of greater virus shedding in the nasopharynx ( 8 ). The "BA.1 wave" seems to induce significant natural immunity against the BA.2 variant.…”