The spread of the omicron variant: Identification of knowledge gaps, virus diffusion modelling, and future research needs

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2023.115612

. 2023 May 15:225:115612.

doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.115612. Epub 2023 Mar 5.

The spread of the omicron variant: Identification of knowledge gaps, virus diffusion modelling, and future research needs

Uttpal Anand¹, Tarun Pal¹, Alessandra Zanoletti², Suresh Sundaramurthy³, Sunita Varjani⁴, Anushka Upamali Rajapaksha⁵, Damià Barceló⁶, Elza Bontempi⁷

Affiliations

¹ Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer Campus, Midreshet Ben-Gurion, 8499000, Israel.
² INSTM and Chemistry for Technologies Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Brescia, Via Branze, 38, 25123, Brescia, Italy.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, 462003, Madhya Pradesh, India.
⁴ School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong; Sustainability Cluster, School of Engineering, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, 248007, Uttarakhand, India.
⁵ Ecosphere Resilience Research Center, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, CO, 10250, Sri Lanka; Instrument Center, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, 10250, Sri Lanka.
⁶ Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA-CERCA), H2O Building, Scientific and Technological Park of the University of Girona, Emili Grahit 101, Girona, 17003, Spain; Water and Soil Quality Research Group, Department of Environmental Chemistry, Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA-CSIC), JordiGirona, 1826, Barcelona, 08034, Spain.
⁷ INSTM and Chemistry for Technologies Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Brescia, Via Branze, 38, 25123, Brescia, Italy. Electronic address: elza.bontempi@unibs.it.

PMID: 36871942
PMCID: PMC9985523
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.115612

The spread of the omicron variant: Identification of knowledge gaps, virus diffusion modelling, and future research needs

Uttpal Anand et al. Environ Res. 2023.

. 2023 May 15:225:115612.

doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.115612. Epub 2023 Mar 5.

Authors

Uttpal Anand¹, Tarun Pal¹, Alessandra Zanoletti², Suresh Sundaramurthy³, Sunita Varjani⁴, Anushka Upamali Rajapaksha⁵, Damià Barceló⁶, Elza Bontempi⁷

Affiliations

¹ Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer Campus, Midreshet Ben-Gurion, 8499000, Israel.
² INSTM and Chemistry for Technologies Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Brescia, Via Branze, 38, 25123, Brescia, Italy.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, 462003, Madhya Pradesh, India.
⁴ School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong; Sustainability Cluster, School of Engineering, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, 248007, Uttarakhand, India.
⁵ Ecosphere Resilience Research Center, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, CO, 10250, Sri Lanka; Instrument Center, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, 10250, Sri Lanka.
⁶ Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA-CERCA), H2O Building, Scientific and Technological Park of the University of Girona, Emili Grahit 101, Girona, 17003, Spain; Water and Soil Quality Research Group, Department of Environmental Chemistry, Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA-CSIC), JordiGirona, 1826, Barcelona, 08034, Spain.
⁷ INSTM and Chemistry for Technologies Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Brescia, Via Branze, 38, 25123, Brescia, Italy. Electronic address: elza.bontempi@unibs.it.

PMID: 36871942
PMCID: PMC9985523
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.115612

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognised variant B.1.1.529 of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as a variant of concern, termed "Omicron", on November 26, 2021. Its diffusion was attributed to its several mutations, which allow promoting its ability to diffuse worldwide and its capability in immune evasion. As a consequence, some additional serious threats to public health posed the risk to undermine the global efforts made in the last two years to control the pandemic. In the past, several works were devoted to discussing a possible contribution of air pollution to the SARS-CoV-2 spread. However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, there are still no works dealing with the Omicron variant diffusion mechanisms. This work represents a snapshot of what we know right now, in the frame of an analysis of the Omicron variant spread. The paper proposes the use of a single indicator, commercial trade data, to model the virus spread. It is proposed as a surrogate of the interactions occurring between humans (the virus transmission mechanism due to human-to-human contacts) and could be considered for other diseases. It allows also to explain the unexpected increase in infection cases in China, detected at beginning of 2023. The air quality data are also analyzed to evaluate for the first time the role of air particulate matter (PM) as a carrier of the Omicron variant diffusion. Due to emerging concerns associated with other viruses (such as smallpox-like virus diffusion in Europe and America), the proposed approach seems to be promising to model the virus spreading.

Keywords: Global health perspective; Omicron (B.1.1.529); Particulate matter (PM); Public health concern; SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern; Virus spread.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

**Fig. 1**
Cumulative detected infection cases of Omicron around the world (see (GISAID, 2023)). Data are reported on a logarithmic scale and were updated on September 26, 2022.

**Fig. 2**
Worldwide infection cases sample showing the SARS-CoV-2 variants per cent till September 26, 2022. It can be concluded that the Omicron variant can be considered the prevalent one. All the interactive data are available at (GISAID, 2022).

**Fig. 3**
Omicron cumulative detected cases (source (GISAID, 2023)) on September 26, 2022, versus import + export 2017 data reported in millions of $ for the corresponding countries (source: World Integrated Trade Solution – WITS (World Bank, 2023). China data are highlighted because it is evident that the imposed lockdown measures allowed to reach an Omicron variant spread much lower than the expected one (it is possible to estimate that it was lower by at least 4 orders of magnitude). The Omicron cumulative detected cases are also reported on February 10, 2023, as red bubbles, for some representative countries (in this case the country name is highlighted in red colour).

**Fig. 4**
Exposure to PM_2.5 concentration expressed in micrograms per cubic meter of air (Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD.Stat, 2023) in 2019 versus the Omicron cumulative detected cases (source (GISAID, 2023):) on September 26, 2022.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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[1] Accorsi E.K., Britton A., Fleming-Dutra K.E., Smith Z.R., Shang N., Derado G., Miller J., Schrag S.J., Verani J.R. Association between 3 doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and symptomatic infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 omicron and delta variants. JAMA. 2022;327:639–651. doi: 10.1001/jama.2022.0470. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

[2] Accorsi E.K., Britton A., Fleming-Dutra K.E., Smith Z.R., Shang N., Derado G., Miller J., Schrag S.J., Verani J.R. Association between 3 doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and symptomatic infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 omicron and delta variants. JAMA. 2022;327:639–651. doi: 10.1001/jama.2022.0470. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

[3] Ai J., Zhang H., Zhang Yi, Lin K., Zhang Yanliang, Wu J., Wan Y., Huang Y., Song J., Fu Z., Wang H., Guo J., Jiang N., Fan M., Zhou Y., Zhao Y., Zhang Q., Liu Q., Lv J., Li P., Qiu C., Zhang W. Omicron variant showed lower neutralizing sensitivity than other SARS-CoV-2 variants to immune sera elicited by vaccines after boost. Emerg. Microb. Infect. 2022;11:337–343. doi: 10.1080/22221751.2021.2022440. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

[4] Ai J., Zhang H., Zhang Yi, Lin K., Zhang Yanliang, Wu J., Wan Y., Huang Y., Song J., Fu Z., Wang H., Guo J., Jiang N., Fan M., Zhou Y., Zhao Y., Zhang Q., Liu Q., Lv J., Li P., Qiu C., Zhang W. Omicron variant showed lower neutralizing sensitivity than other SARS-CoV-2 variants to immune sera elicited by vaccines after boost. Emerg. Microb. Infect. 2022;11:337–343. doi: 10.1080/22221751.2021.2022440. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

[5] Akif A., Bhuiyan M.A., Islam M.R. Sars - COV - 2 Omicron subvariant BF. 7 is again triggering the Covid fear : what we need to know and what we should do. 2023. - DOI - PubMed

[6] Akif A., Bhuiyan M.A., Islam M.R. Sars - COV - 2 Omicron subvariant BF. 7 is again triggering the Covid fear : what we need to know and what we should do. 2023. - DOI - PubMed

[7] Allen H., Vusirikala A., Flannagan J., Twohig K.A., Zaidi A., Chudasama D., Lamagni T., Groves N., Turner C., Rawlinson C., Lopez-Bernal J., Harris R., Charlett A., Dabrera G., Kall M. Household transmission of COVID-19 cases associated with SARS-CoV-2 delta variant (B.1.617.2): national case-control study. Lancet Reg. Heal. - Eur. 2022;12(100252) doi: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2021.100252. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

[8] Allen H., Vusirikala A., Flannagan J., Twohig K.A., Zaidi A., Chudasama D., Lamagni T., Groves N., Turner C., Rawlinson C., Lopez-Bernal J., Harris R., Charlett A., Dabrera G., Kall M. Household transmission of COVID-19 cases associated with SARS-CoV-2 delta variant (B.1.617.2): national case-control study. Lancet Reg. Heal. - Eur. 2022;12(100252) doi: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2021.100252. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

[9] Anand U., Adelodun B., Pivato A., Suresh S., Indari O., Jakhmola S., Jha H.C., Jha P.K., Tripathi V., Di Maria F. A review of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater and airborne particulates and its use for virus spreading surveillance. Environ. Res. 2021;196(110929) doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2021.110929. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

[10] Anand U., Adelodun B., Pivato A., Suresh S., Indari O., Jakhmola S., Jha H.C., Jha P.K., Tripathi V., Di Maria F. A review of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater and airborne particulates and its use for virus spreading surveillance. Environ. Res. 2021;196(110929) doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2021.110929. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

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The spread of the omicron variant: Identification of knowledge gaps, virus diffusion modelling, and future research needs

Affiliations

The spread of the omicron variant: Identification of knowledge gaps, virus diffusion modelling, and future research needs

Authors

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Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

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References

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Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

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