Similar aerosol emission rates and viral loads in upper respiratory tracts for COVID-19 patients with Delta and Omicron variant infection
Dear Editor,
In 2021,the Delta variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2)caused the coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)pandemic to spread in the UK,Nepal,southeast Asia and elsewhere,which seems to be approximately 60％more transmissible than the already highly infectious Alpha variant in late 2020(Callaway,2021).In addition to the high efficiency of the invading infection and the acquired immune escape ability,changes in the aerodynamic charac-teristics of SARS-CoV-2 aerosols may be another important reason for the Delta variant spread.Previously,it was identified that SARS-CoV-2 can spread through close contact and airborne routes(Guo et al.,2020;Morawska and Milton,2020).Exhalation of viral aerosols is the first step in causing airborne transmission(Zhang et al.,2021).In 2020,CO VID-19 patients in earlier stages were found to exhale millions of SARS-CoV-2 aerosols per hour(Ma et al.,2021).Furthermore,studies on viral aero-sol emission from patients with Omicron variant infection were also performed(Zheng et al.,2022).However,whether viral loads in exhaled air changed or not during the spread of different variants were still un-known.Here,we investigated viral loads of throat swabs and breath emission rates(BER)of Alpha,Delta or Omicron patients,to provide evidence for changing process during different SARS-CoV-2 variants spreading.
covid-19、emission、variant、delta、with、aerosol、infection、loads、omicron、patients
37
U464;TP391.72;R563.1
2023-05-16（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）
共3页
762-764
