Quantifying the effect of government interventions and virus mutations on transmission advantage during COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has become a major public health threat. This study aims to evaluate the effect of virus mutation activities and policy interventions on COVID-19 transmissibility in Hong Kong.

Methods

In this study, we integrated the genetic activities of multiple proteins, and quantified the effect of government interventions and mutation activities against the time-varying effective reproduction number R_t.

Findings

We found a significantly positive relationship between R_t and mutation activities and a significantly negative relationship between R_t and government interventions. The results showed that the mutations that contributed most to the increase of R_t were from the spike, n

SUBMITTER: Lou J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8813191 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature