SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern Alpha and Delta Show Increased Viral Load in Saliva

Kylie L. King¹, Stevin Wilson², Justin M. Napolitano¹, Keegan Sell¹, Lior Rennert³, Christopher Parkinson², Delphine Dean^1,4.

COVID-19 variants Alpha and Delta have substantially higher viral loads in saliva compared to more historic lineages. This trend is especially observed in healthy, young individuals who are pre- or asymptomatic, which provides evidence to the high transmissibility and rapid spread of these new variants.

Statistical_analysis_Ct_delta_gamma_alpha.Rmd contains details regarding the statistical analysis and R code used for the article. weekly_positivity_rate.Rmd contains code used to generate Figure 3 in the article.

Affiliations

¹Center for Innovative Medical Devices and Sensors (REDDI Lab), Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA. ²Clemson University Genomics and Bioinformatics Facility, Clemson, SC, USA ³Department of Public Health Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA. ⁴Department of Bioengineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA.