Predictive Assessment of the Antiviral Properties of Imperata cylindrica against SARS-CoV-2 by Frank Eric Tatsing Foka, Hazel Tumelo Mufhandu

“…The omicron variant and its sublineages are highly contagious, and they still constitute a global source of concern despite vaccinations. …”
Get full text

High-frequency PCR-testing as a powerful approach for SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in the field of critical infrastructure: A longitudinal, retrospective study in a German tertiary care... by Bastian Fischer, Martin Farr, Jan Gummert, Cornelius Knabbe, Tanja Vollmer

“…For example, the omicron-variant led to high reinfection-rates as well as lower Ct-values. …”
Get full text

Preventing Severe COVID-19 with Tixagevimab-Cilgavimab in Hematological Patients Treated with Anti-CD20 Monoclonal Antibodies: An International Multicenter Study by Hovav Azuly, Tali Shafat, Daniel Grupel, Tzvika Porges, Ran Abuhasira, Ana Belkin, Ofir Deri, Yonatan Oster, Shadi Zahran, Ehud Horwitz, Netanel A. Horowitz, Hazim Khatib, Marjorie Vieira Batista, Anita Cassoli Cortez, Tal Brosh-Nissimov, Yafit Segman, Linor Ishay, Regev Cohen, Alaa Atamna, Amy Spallone, Roy F. Chemaly, Juan Carlos Ramos, Michal Chowers, Evgeny Rogozin, Noga Carmi Oren, Şiran Keske, Orit Wolfovitz Barchad, Lior Nesher, on behalf of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Study Group for Respiratory Viruses (ESGREV)

“…We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of tixagevimab-cilgavimab (T-C) prophylaxis in preventing severe COVID-19 in patients with hematologic malignancies (HM) treated with anti-CD20 therapy during the early Omicron variant phase of the pandemic. Methods The European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Study Group for Respiratory Viruses (ESGREV) conducted a multicenter retrospective cohort study involving 15 centers from 5 countries. …”
Get full text

SARS-CoV-2 infections in pediatric and young adult recipients of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy: an international registry report by Hongyan Liu, Colleen Callahan, Shannon L Maude, Kevin Owen McNerney, Rebecca M Richards, Paibel Aguayo-Hiraldo, Friso G Calkoen, Julie-An Talano, Amy Moskop, Adriana Balduzzi, Jennifer Krajewski, Hema Dave, Anant Vatsayan, Yimei Li, Kara Lynn Davis

“…Prior to the emergence of the Omicron variant, of 47 infections, 19 (40.4%) resulted in hospital admission and 7 (14.9%) required intensive care, while after the emergence of the Omicron variant, of 23 infections, only 1 (4.3%) required admission and the remaining 22 (95.7%) had asymptomatic or mild COVID-19. …”
Get full text

A Dynamic Model of Information-Vaccination-Disease That Accounts for Emerging Viral Variants: Model Development and a Case Study for COVID-19 in Iceland by Laijun Zhao, Mingmin Ying, Ying Qian, Lixin Zhou, Pingle Yang

“…To analyze these factors, we developed mean-field equations for system dynamics to model the complex system of vaccine information dissemination and vaccination, calculated the basic reproduction rate number, and used the Icelandic COVID-19 outbreak (Omicron variant) as a case study. We found that in the face of emerging variants, increasing vaccine efficacy is more effective than increasing vaccination rates. …”
Get full text

Contagious disease outbreaks: Distinguishing between constant and variable order using the SEIAR model by S.Sepehr Tabatabaei, Mohammadreza Dehghan

“…The approach is validated on the Delta and Omicron variants of the Coronavirus epidemic in Iran. The variable-order model achieves a Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 0.80 % for the Delta variant and 0.51 % for the Omicron variant, significantly outperforming the best constant-order models with MAPEs of 0.92 % and 1.32 %, respectively. …”
Get full text

Identification of G-quadruplex-forming Sequences in Nucleocapsid Gene of SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern: An In Silico Analysis by Saeedeh Ghazaey Zidanloo

“…The main difference was observed in the Delta variant, in which a PQS was deleted at position 630 of the gene, which is the top-ranked highly conserved G-quadruplex. The Omicron variant had this PQS back at position 621 as it had acquired several mutations. …”
Get full text

In Silico Study of Coumarins: Wedelolactone as a Potential Inhibitor of the Spike Protein of the SARS-CoV-2 Variants by Saurav Katuwal, Siddha Raj Upadhyaya, Rishab Marahatha, Asmita Shrestha, Bishnu P. Regmi, Karan Khadayat, Saroj Basnet, Ram Chandra Basnyat, Niranjan Parajuli

“…Molecular docking studies revealed 26 coumarins with better binding energies than the reference ligands, molnupiravir and ceftazidime, against the S-RBD of the omicron variant. The top 10 best-docked coumarins were further analyzed to understand their binding interactions against the spike proteins of other variants (wild-type, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta), and these studies also demonstrated decent binding energies. …”
Get full text

Update on Remdesivir in the Treatment of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia by Huang Feng, K. Vijaya Lakshmi, Chin Tat Ng, Murthy Sasikumar, Masita Arip, Masriana Hassan, Voon Kin Chin, Mogana Rajagopal, Omotayo Fatokun, N. Parvathi, Malarvili Selvaraja

“…Remdesivir has maintained high inhibitory activity against all existing SARS-CoV-2 variants, including the Omicron variant. We systematically retrieved Web of Science, CNKI, PubMed, and Clinicaltrials.gov to gather information related to Remdesivir on COVID-19 treatment. …”
Get full text

Persistent Health and Cognitive Impairments up to Four Years Post-COVID-19 in Young Students: The Impact of Virus Variants and Vaccination Timing by Ashkan Latifi, Jaroslav Flegr

“…The data further indicate that the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 variant may have the most significant long-term impact, while the Omicron variant appears to have the least. Interestingly, the severity of the acute illness was not correlated with the variant of SARS-CoV-2. …”
Get full text

Influence of sleep duration and quality on depression symptoms among nurses during the Omicron outbreak: a cross-sectional survey by Yingying Gu, Pinglang Hu, Caijun Dai, Shuhong Ni, Qiqi Huang

“…This study aimed to explore the relationships between sleep duration, sleep quality, and depression symptoms among nurses during the outbreak of the Omicron variant. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted between August 2022 and September 2022. …”
Get full text

Demographic and Clinical Presentation of Hospitalised Patients with SARS-CoV-2 During the First Omicron Wave by Mehool Patel, Elizabeth Aitken

“… Introduction: The objectives of this retrospective study were to describe clinical presentations and mortality outcomes of hospitalised patients with the COVID-19 Omicron variant within two acute district general hospitals, and to evaluate demographic factors associated with these presentations and mortality. …”
Get full text

The rapid rise of SARS‐CoV‐2 Omicron subvariants with immune evasion properties: XBB.1.5 and BQ.1.1 subvariants by Danyi Ao, Xuemei He, Weiqi Hong, Xiawei Wei

“…Abstract As the fifth variant of concern of the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus, the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) has quickly become the dominant type among the previous circulating variants worldwide. …”
Get full text

Evaluation of a pragmatic approach to predicting COVID-19-positive hospital bed occupancy by Azeem Majeed, Thomas Woodcock, Paul Aylin, Julian Redhead, Derryn Lovett, Jacques Naude

“…Model outputs were used by senior healthcare system leaders to aid the planning, organisation and provision of healthcare services to meet demand for hospital beds.Conclusions The model produced useful predictions of COVID-19-positive bed occupancy prior to the emergence of the Omicron variant, but accuracy deteriorated after this. …”
Get full text

The influence of environmental factors on the detection and quantification of SARS-CoV-2 variants in dormitory wastewater at a primarily undergraduate institution by Chequita Brooks, Sebrina Brooks, Josie Beasley, Jenna Valley, Michael Opata, Ece Karatan, Rachel Bleich

“…We observed significantly higher gene copy numbers of the Omicron variant than the Delta variant within ductile iron pipes but no difference in nucleocapsid abundance (N1 or N2) across the three different sewage pipe types in our data set. …”
Get full text

Genomic evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in Morocco: Insights from whole genome sequences collected from 2020 to 2024 by Hamza GHAMMAZ, Marouane MELLOUL, Ahlam MBARKI, Mouhssine HEMLALI, Taha CHOUATI, Hicham EL ANNAZ, Nadia TOUIL, Mostafa ELOUENNASS, Khalid ENNIBI, Elmostafa EL FAHIME

“…The study highlights the predominance of the GRA clade (Omicron variant) since November 2021, while clades such as G, GH, GR, and GRY were identified earlier. …”
Get full text

Waning neutralizing antibodies through 180 days after homologous and heterologous boosters of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine by Zhifei Chen, Fangqin Xie, Hairong Zhang, Dong Li, Suhan Zhang, Mengping Zhang, Junrong Li, Jianfeng Xie, Lina Zhang, Xiuhui Yang, Dongjuan Zhang

“…By day 14 of post-boost, the ability to neutralize the Delta variant slightly diminished compared to the wild-type, whereas neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron variant exhibited a more pronounced decline, ranging from 10.78 to 19.88 times lower than those against the wild-type. …”
Get full text

The immune landscape and viral shedding of Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants implicate immune escape by Weilong Zhang, Xiaoyan Gai, Zhonghui Duan, Changjian Yan, Chunyuan Huang, Chaoling Wu, Siping Zheng, Zixiang Lin, Qingtao Zhou, Lili Dai, Ping Yang, Fang Bao, Hongmei Jing, Chao Cai, Yingmin Ma, Yongchang Sun

“…This study aims to examine the association between viral shedding and immune escape in the BA.4/5 and BF.7 variants.MethodWe included 542 patients infected with the Omicron variant from Beijing Xiaotangshan shelter hospital. …”
Get full text

Optimization of a micro-scale air–liquid-interface model of human proximal airway epithelium for moderate throughput drug screening for SARS-CoV-2 by Chandani Sen, Tammy M. Rickabaugh, Arjit Vijey Jeyachandran, Constance Yuen, Maisam Ghannam, Abdo Durra, Adam Aziz, Kristen Castillo, Gustavo Garcia, Arunima Purkayastha, Brandon Han, Felix W. Boulton, Eugene Chekler, Robert Garces, Karen C. Wolff, Laura Riva, Melanie G. Kirkpatrick, Amal Gebara-Lamb, Case W. McNamara, Ulrich A. K. Betz, Vaithilingaraja Arumugaswami, Robert Damoiseaux, Brigitte N. Gomperts

“…Using the model, we characterized a new antiviral drug effective against both the parental strain and the Omicron variant. Conclusion This study demonstrates that the 96-well ALI model of primary human mucociliary epithelium can recapitulate the heterogeneity of infection among different donors and SARS-CoV-2 variants and can be used for moderate throughput screening. …”
Get full text

Transcriptomic profiles of monocyte-derived macrophages exposed to SARS-CoV-2 VOCs reveal immune-evasion escape driven by delta by Alessia Gallo, Josè Camilla Sammartino, Roberta Vazzana, Roberto Giambruno, Claudia Carcione, Nicola Cuscino, Salvatore Castelbuono, Vitale Miceli, Matteo Bulati, Daniele Lilleri, Irene Cassaniti, Pier Giulio Conaldi, Fausto Baldanti

“…Surprisingly, our data showed that macrophages exposed to the Delta variant exhibited a transcriptional profile more similar to the naïve control group, while macrophages exposed to the Omicron variant showed intermediate differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the two groups. …”
Get full text