000112397 001__ 112397 000112397 005__ 20240319080955.0 000112397 0247_ $$2doi$$a10.3390/jcm11092607 000112397 0248_ $$2sideral$$a128503 000112397 037__ $$aART-2022-128503 000112397 041__ $$aeng 000112397 100__ $$aBaselga, Marta 000112397 245__ $$aSARS-CoV-2 Droplet and Airborne Transmission Heterogeneity 000112397 260__ $$c2022 000112397 5060_ $$aAccess copy available to the general public$$fUnrestricted 000112397 5203_ $$aThe spread dynamics of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have not yet been fully understood after two years of the pandemic. The virus’s global spread represented a unique scenario for advancing infectious disease research. Consequently, mechanistic epidemiological theories were quickly dismissed, and more attention was paid to other approaches that considered heterogeneity in the spread. One of the most critical advances in aerial pathogens transmission was the global acceptance of the airborne model, where the airway is presented as the epicenter of the spread of the disease. Although the aerodynamics and persistence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the air have been extensively studied, the actual probability of contagion is still unknown. In this work, the individual heterogeneity in the transmission of 22 patients infected with COVID-19 was analyzed by close contact (cough samples) and air (environmental samples). Viral RNA was detected in 2/19 cough samples from patient subgroups, with a mean Ct (Cycle Threshold in Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction analysis) of 25.7 ± 7.0. Nevertheless, viral RNA was only detected in air samples from 1/8 patients, with an average Ct of 25.0 ± 4.0. Viral load in cough samples ranged from 7.3 × 105 to 8.7 × 108 copies/mL among patients, while concentrations between 1.1–4.8 copies/m3 were found in air, consistent with other reports in the literature. In patients undergoing follow-up, no viral load was found (neither in coughs nor in the air) after the third day of symptoms, which could help define quarantine periods in infected individuals. In addition, it was found that the patient’s Ct should not be considered an indicator of infectiousness, since it could not be correlated with the viral load disseminated. The results of this work are in line with proposed hypotheses of superspreaders, which can attribute part of the heterogeneity of the spread to the oversized emission of a small percentage of infected people. 000112397 540__ $$9info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess$$aby$$uhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ 000112397 590__ $$a3.9$$b2022 000112397 592__ $$a0.935$$b2022 000112397 591__ $$aMEDICINE, GENERAL & INTERNAL$$b58 / 169 = 0.343$$c2022$$dQ2$$eT2 000112397 593__ $$aMedicine (miscellaneous)$$c2022$$dQ1 000112397 594__ $$a5.4$$b2022 000112397 655_4 $$ainfo:eu-repo/semantics/article$$vinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 000112397 700__ $$0(orcid)0000-0002-4437-2581$$aGüemes, Antonio$$uUniversidad de Zaragoza 000112397 700__ $$0(orcid)0000-0003-4440-830X$$aAlba, Juan J.$$uUniversidad de Zaragoza 000112397 700__ $$aSchuhmacher, Alberto J. 000112397 7102_ $$15004$$2530$$aUniversidad de Zaragoza$$bDpto. Ingeniería Mecánica$$cÁrea Ingen.e Infraestr.Transp. 000112397 7102_ $$11013$$2090$$aUniversidad de Zaragoza$$bDpto. Cirugía$$cÁrea Cirugía 000112397 773__ $$g11, 9 (2022), 2607 [22 pp.]$$pJ. clin.med.$$tJournal of Clinical Medicine$$x2077-0383 000112397 8564_ $$s913160$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/112397/files/texto_completo.pdf$$yVersión publicada 000112397 8564_ $$s2681486$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/112397/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon$$xicon$$yVersión publicada 000112397 909CO $$ooai:zaguan.unizar.es:112397$$particulos$$pdriver 000112397 951__ $$a2024-03-18-13:33:03 000112397 980__ $$aARTICLE