ArticleThe Lancet regional health. Europe2022
Intrinsic generation time of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant: An observational study of household transmission.
Article in The Lancet regional health. Europe, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
41 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Consolidating Estimates of the Incubation Period for Omicron Subvariants From the Literature and Their Comparison to the Estimate From Taiwan: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, September 2024.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2025Pooled it
- Effectiveness of testing, contact tracing and isolation interventions among the general population on reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2: a systematic review.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Assessing changes in incubation period, serial interval, and generation time of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Why Andes hantavirus is not the next SARS-CoV-2: contrasting viral shedding, transmissibility and genomic patterns.Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin · 2026Article
- Network structure induced bias in estimates of intrinsic generation times.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Estimating the generation time for SARS-CoV-2 transmission using United States household data, December 2021-May 2023.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- China's post-zero-COVID Omicron wave: A Bayesian analysis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Mitigating norovirus spread on cruise ships: a model-based assessment of diagnostic timing and isolation.Journal of travel medicine · 2025Article
- COVID-19 infection and return-to-play outcomes of elite athletes in Japan: a retrospective descriptive study.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2025Article
- COVID-19 clinical presentation, management, and epidemiology: a concise compendium.Frontiers in public health · 2025Review
- Modelling the effectiveness of antiviral treatment strategies to prevent household transmission of acute respiratory viruses.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Novel travel time aware metapopulation models and multi-layer waning immunity for late-phase epidemic and endemic scenarios.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Modeling the Impact of Ensitrelvir on SARS-CoV-2 Dynamics and Its Application for Assessment of Transmission Mitigation of Patients with COVID-19.Infectious diseases and therapy · 2024Article
- A retrospective assessment of forecasting the peak of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 wave in England.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Assessing the impact of interventions on the major Omicron BA.2 outbreak in spring 2022 in Shanghai.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2024Article
- Counterfactual analysis of the 2023 Omicron XBB wave in China.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2024Article
- Comparison of control and transmission of COVID-19 across epidemic waves in Hong Kong: an observational study.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2024Article
- Key Challenges for Respiratory Virus Surveillance while Transitioning out of Acute Phase of COVID-19 Pandemic.Emerging infectious diseases · 2024Article
- Evaluation of the effectiveness of Washington State's digital COVID-19 exposure notification system over one pandemic year.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Increasing situational awareness through nowcasting of the reproduction number.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
23 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Starting from the final months of 2021, the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant expanded globally, swiftly replacing Delta, the variant that was dominant at the time. Many uncertainties remain about the epidemiology of Omicron; here, we aim to estimate its generation time. Methods: We used a Bayesian approach to analyze 23,122 SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals clustered in 8903 households as determined from contact tracing operations in Reggio Emilia, Italy, throughout January 2022. We estimated the distribution of the intrinsic generation time (the time between the infection dates of an infector and its secondary cases in a fully susceptible population), realized household generation time, realized serial interval (time between symptom onset of an infector and its secondary cases), and contribution of pre-symptomatic transmission. Findings: We estimated a mean intrinsic generation time of 6.84 days (95% credible intervals, CrI, 5.72-8.60), and a mean realized household generation time of 3.59 days (95%CrI: 3.55-3.60). The household serial interval was 2.38 days (95%CrI 2.30-2.47) with about 51% (95%CrI 45-56%) of infections caused by symptomatic individuals being generated before symptom onset. Interpretation: These results indicate that the intrinsic generation time of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant might not have shortened as compared to previous estimates on ancestral lineages, Alpha and Delta, in the same geographic setting. Like for previous lineages, pre-symptomatic transmission appears to play a key role for Omicron transmission. Estimates in this study may be useful to design quarantine, isolation and contact tracing protocols and to support surveillance (e.g., for the accurate computation of reproduction numbers). Funding: The study was partially funded by EU grant 874850 MOOD.
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.