ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Just 2% of SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals carry 90% of the virus circulating in communities.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 88 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
88 citing papers in PubMed, 168 citations in OpenAlex.
- A prospective, randomized, open-label trial of early versus late povidone-iodine gargling in patients with COVID-19.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- Species-specific barriers restrict virus spillover potential across the Caenorhabditis genus.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- 8,266 SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Assemblies from Asymptomatic Carriers in Japan.Scientific data · 2026Article
- SARS-CoV-2 Did Not Spread Through Dental Clinics During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan.Infectious disease reports · 2025Article
- Molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2 and medically important respiratory and gastrointestinal virus pathogens on Thai currency.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Do fungi look like macroparasites? Quantifying the patterns and mechanisms of aggregation for host-fungal parasite relationships.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Evolution of parasite transmission dispersion.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Bioaerosols and Airborne Transmission in the Dental Clinic.International dental journal · 2024Review
- Article
- Testing for SARS-CoV-2: lessons learned and current use cases.Clinical microbiology reviews · 2024Review
- Digital droplet RT-LAMP increases speed of SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA detection.Smart medicine · 2024Article
- Estimated relative potential for airborne SARS-CoV-2 transmission in a day care centre.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Host and viral determinants of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the Syrian hamster.eLife · 2024Article
- Reduction of acute respiratory infections in day-care by non-pharmaceutical interventions: a narrative review.Frontiers in public health · 2024Review
- The counterintuitive implications of superspreading diseases.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Host and viral determinants of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the Syrian hamster.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- At the crossroads of epidemiology and biology: Bridging the gap between SARS-CoV-2 viral strain properties and epidemic wave characteristics.Biochimie · 2023Review
- Screening for canine coronavirus, canine influenza virus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in dogs during the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic.Veterinary world · 2023Article
- The QuantuMDx Q-POC SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR assay for rapid detection of COVID-19 at point-of-care: preliminary evaluation of a novel technology.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Positive feedback loops exacerbate the influence of superspreaders in disease transmission.iScience · 2023Article
28 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
- Update of
Authors and funding
25 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
We analyze data from the fall 2020 pandemic response efforts at the University of Colorado Boulder, where more than 72,500 saliva samples were tested for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) using qRT-PCR. All samples were collected from individuals who reported no symptoms associated with COVID-19 on the day of collection. From these, 1,405 positive cases were identified. The distribution of viral loads within these asymptomatic individuals was indistinguishable from what has been previously observed in symptomatic individuals. Regardless of symptomatic status, ∼50% of individuals who test positive for SARS-CoV-2 seem to be in noninfectious phases of the disease, based on having low viral loads in a range from which live virus has rarely been isolated. We find that, at any given time, just 2% of individuals carry 90% of the virions circulating within communities, serving as viral "supercarriers" and possibly also superspreaders.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.