TWiV 854: Omicron is evasive

This Week in Virology

Jan 16, 2022•2 hr 6 min•Ep. 854

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Episode description

TWiV reviews findings that increased fitness of the Omicron variant is due to immune evasion, not an increase in intrinsic transmissibility, and determination of infectious viral load in patients infected with wild type, Delta and Omicron viruses reveals lack of correlation with RNA loads determined by RT-PCR, similar levels of shedding among Delta and Omicron, and greatly reduced shedding in vaccinated people.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Rich Condit, Kathy Spindler, and Brianne Barker

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Links for this episode

Travel Award Applications (ASV) 2:11
Omicron transmission in Danish households (medRxiv)
Infectious viral load in vaccinated and unvaccinated patients (medRxiv)
Fred Murphy on TWiV 625
Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Weekly Picks

Dickson – Favorite Science Photos of 2021
Brianne – Viruses, Vaccines, and COVID-19 videos from American Museum of Natural History
Kathy – Klompas et al. “Current insights into respiratory virus transmission…”
Rich – Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey
Vincent – Ebola (1996) by David Molesky at The Incubator

Listener Picks

Randall – Robert Malone & Peter McCullough: A litany of untruths
Suellen – Omicron and the case of the hidden evolution – Understanding Evolution

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

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