SARS-CoV-2 variant Delta rapidly displaced variant Alpha in the United States and led to higher viral loads.
Cell Rep Med
; 3(3): 100564, 2022 03 15.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1740281
ABSTRACT
We report on the sequencing of 74,348 SARS-CoV-2 positive samples collected across the United States and show that the Delta variant, first detected in the United States in March 2021, made up the majority of SARS-CoV-2 infections by July 1, 2021 and accounted for >99.9% of the infections by September 2021. Not only did Delta displace variant Alpha, which was the dominant variant at the time, it also displaced the Gamma, Iota, and Mu variants. Through an analysis of quantification cycle (Cq) values, we demonstrate that Delta infections tend to have a 1.7× higher viral load compared to Alpha infections (a decrease of 0.8 Cq) on average. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the increased transmissibility of the Delta variant could be due to the ability of the Delta variant to establish a higher viral load earlier in the infection as compared to the Alpha variant.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
SARS-CoV-2
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Observational study
Topics:
Variants
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
North America
Language:
English
Journal:
Cell Rep Med
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
J.xcrm.2022.100564
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