ArticleNature microbiology2022
Daily longitudinal sampling of SARS-CoV-2 infection reveals substantial heterogeneity in infectiousness.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 130 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
130 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 215 citations in OpenAlex.
- Superspreading of SARS-CoV-2: a systematic review and meta-analysis of event attack rates and individual transmission patterns.Epidemiology and infection · 2024Pooled it
- Predicting the presence of infectious virus from PCR data: A meta-analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in non-human primates.PLoS pathogens · 2024Pooled it
- A Viroimmunologic Model to Characterize the Antiviral Effect of Molnupiravir in Outpatients Infected With SARS-CoV-2: Implication for Treatment Duration.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2025Trial
- Temporal changes in SARS-CoV-2 clearance kinetics and the optimal design of antiviral pharmacodynamic studies: an individual patient data meta-analysis of a randomised, controlled, adaptive platform study (PLATCOV).The Lancet. Infectious diseases · 2024Trial
- Variant-Specific Viral Kinetics in Acute COVID-19.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2023Trial
- Exposure route, not dose, is the primary driver of infection patterns for a respiratory virus.Science advances · 2026Article
- Transmission of mutated SARS-CoV-2 variants is favored by relatively prolonged infections due to delayed immunity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Disentangling the drivers of heterogeneity in SARS-CoV-2 transmission from data on viral load and daily contact rates.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- A hybrid framework for compartmental models enabling simulation-based inference.Journal of mathematical biology · 2026Article
- Compartment-specific phase compensation between pulmonary T-Cell immunity and waning systemic responses in BA.5 breakthrough infection.Respiratory research · 2026Article
- Site-specific wastewater-based surveillance in early detection of COVID-19 new cases and prediction of mass testing outcomes in long-term care facilities.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Identifying the optimal rapid antigen test for screening and determining the end of isolation: A modeling study.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Quantifying the role of pre-existing tissue resident cellular immunity in limiting respiratory virus transmission.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- Ordinary differential equation models of SARS-CoV-2 replication dynamics and antiviral drug efficacies.Npj viruses · 2026Review
- Exposure route drives SARS-CoV-2 infection patterns in non-human primates.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- A Nonparametric Approach to Practical Identifiability of Nonlinear Mixed Effects Models.Bulletin of mathematical biology · 2026Article
- Heterogeneity of Airborne Virus Transmission in the Built Environment: A Narrative Review.Pathogens & immunity · 2026Review
- Enhanced Isolation and Detection of COVID-19 in Hospitalized Patients Undergoing Antiviral Therapy.Emerging infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Random time-shift approximation enables hierarchical Bayesian inference of mechanistic within-host viral dynamics models on large datasets.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
70 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
39 authors at 6 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 replication and shedding in humans remain poorly understood. We captured the dynamics of infectious virus and viral RNA shedding during acute infection through daily longitudinal sampling of 60 individuals for up to 14 days. By fitting mechanistic models, we directly estimated viral expansion and clearance rates and overall infectiousness for each individual. Significant person-to-person variation in infectious virus shedding suggests that individual-level heterogeneity in viral dynamics contributes to 'superspreading'. Viral genome loads often peaked days earlier in saliva than in nasal swabs, indicating strong tissue compartmentalization and suggesting that saliva may serve as a superior sampling site for early detection of infection. Viral loads and clearance kinetics of Alpha (B.1.1.7) and previously circulating non-variant-of-concern viruses were mostly indistinguishable, indicating that the enhanced transmissibility of this variant cannot be explained simply by higher viral loads or delayed clearance. These results provide a high-resolution portrait of SARS-CoV-2 infection dynamics and implicate individual-level heterogeneity in infectiousness in superspreading.
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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.