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COVID-19: Does the infectious inoculum dose-response relationship contribute to understanding heterogeneity in disease severity and transmission dynamics?

The variation in the speed and intensity of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and severity of the resulting COVID-19 disease are still imperfectly understood. We postulate a dose-response relationship in COVID-19, and that “the dose of virus in the initial inoculum” is an important missing link in understandi...

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Autores principales: Van Damme, Wim, Dahake, Ritwik, van de Pas, Remco, Vanham, Guido, Assefa, Yibeltal
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7686757/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33288314
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2020.110431
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author Van Damme, Wim
Dahake, Ritwik
van de Pas, Remco
Vanham, Guido
Assefa, Yibeltal
author_facet Van Damme, Wim
Dahake, Ritwik
van de Pas, Remco
Vanham, Guido
Assefa, Yibeltal
author_sort Van Damme, Wim
collection PubMed
description The variation in the speed and intensity of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and severity of the resulting COVID-19 disease are still imperfectly understood. We postulate a dose-response relationship in COVID-19, and that “the dose of virus in the initial inoculum” is an important missing link in understanding several incompletely explained observations in COVID-19 as a factor in transmission dynamics and severity of disease. We hypothesize that: (1) Viral dose in inoculum is related to severity of disease, (2) Severity of disease is related to transmission potential, and (3) In certain contexts, chains of severe cases can build up to severe local outbreaks, and large-scale intensive epidemics. Considerable evidence from other infectious diseases substantiates this hypothesis and recent evidence from COVID-19 points in the same direction. We suggest research avenues to validate the hypothesis. If proven, our hypothesis could strengthen the scientific basis for deciding priority containment measures in various contexts in particular the importance of avoiding super-spreading events and the benefits of mass masking.
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spelling pubmed-76867572020-11-25 COVID-19: Does the infectious inoculum dose-response relationship contribute to understanding heterogeneity in disease severity and transmission dynamics? Van Damme, Wim Dahake, Ritwik van de Pas, Remco Vanham, Guido Assefa, Yibeltal Med Hypotheses Article The variation in the speed and intensity of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and severity of the resulting COVID-19 disease are still imperfectly understood. We postulate a dose-response relationship in COVID-19, and that “the dose of virus in the initial inoculum” is an important missing link in understanding several incompletely explained observations in COVID-19 as a factor in transmission dynamics and severity of disease. We hypothesize that: (1) Viral dose in inoculum is related to severity of disease, (2) Severity of disease is related to transmission potential, and (3) In certain contexts, chains of severe cases can build up to severe local outbreaks, and large-scale intensive epidemics. Considerable evidence from other infectious diseases substantiates this hypothesis and recent evidence from COVID-19 points in the same direction. We suggest research avenues to validate the hypothesis. If proven, our hypothesis could strengthen the scientific basis for deciding priority containment measures in various contexts in particular the importance of avoiding super-spreading events and the benefits of mass masking. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2021-01 2020-11-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7686757/ /pubmed/33288314 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2020.110431 Text en © 2020 The Authors Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Van Damme, Wim
Dahake, Ritwik
van de Pas, Remco
Vanham, Guido
Assefa, Yibeltal
COVID-19: Does the infectious inoculum dose-response relationship contribute to understanding heterogeneity in disease severity and transmission dynamics?
title COVID-19: Does the infectious inoculum dose-response relationship contribute to understanding heterogeneity in disease severity and transmission dynamics?
title_full COVID-19: Does the infectious inoculum dose-response relationship contribute to understanding heterogeneity in disease severity and transmission dynamics?
title_fullStr COVID-19: Does the infectious inoculum dose-response relationship contribute to understanding heterogeneity in disease severity and transmission dynamics?
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19: Does the infectious inoculum dose-response relationship contribute to understanding heterogeneity in disease severity and transmission dynamics?
title_short COVID-19: Does the infectious inoculum dose-response relationship contribute to understanding heterogeneity in disease severity and transmission dynamics?
title_sort covid-19: does the infectious inoculum dose-response relationship contribute to understanding heterogeneity in disease severity and transmission dynamics?
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7686757/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33288314
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2020.110431
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