Ecological super-spreaders drive host-range oscillations: Omicron and risk space for emerging infectious disease.

ABSTRACT: The unusual genetic diversity of the Omicron strain has led to speculation about its origin. The mathematical modelling platform developed for the Stockholm Paradigm (SP) indicates strongly that it has retro-colonized humans from an unidentified nonhuman mammal, likely originally infected by humans. The relationship between Omicron and all other SARS-CoV-2 variants indicates oscillations among hosts, a core part of the SP. Such oscillations result from the emergence of novel variants following colonization of new hosts, replenishing and expanding the risk space for disease emergence. The SP predicts that pathogens colonize new hosts using pre-existing capacities. Those events are thus predictable to a certain extent. Novel variants emerge after a colonization and are not predictable. This

SUBMITTER: Boeger WA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9115439 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature