The significantly higher viral loads observed by Chinese scientists seem to support other research that has focused on the delta variant's increased transmissibility.
of the coronavirus, now the most common strain circulating in the United States, is causing cases of Covid-19 to surge across the country. Key to the variant's dominance is its supercharged transmissibility, driven in part by how the mutated virus behaves in the body after infection.
Research is ongoing, but the findings, which were posted July 12 to the preprint server MedRxiv, help explain why the delta variant has been"Patients with higher viral loads are more likely to pass the virus on to other people," said Dr. Randall Olsen, medical director of the Molecular Diagnostics Lab at Houston Methodist hospital. "Also, the higher the viral load, the sicker the patient generally is.
As such, Ct values have sometimes been used as a proxy for viral load and transmissibility, but Butler-Wu said it's not an accurate gauge. That's because the quality of a sample can affect Ct values, in addition to when a person was tested in the course of their infection, Butler-Wu said.
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