August 5, 2022
New England Journal of Medicine on 7/21/22 published a letter to the editor at NEJM.org signed by “doctors from a variety of hospitals in Boston, Massachusetts From July 2021 through January 2022, researchers studied 66 participants who contracted COVID-19, including 32 people with the Delta variant and 34 with the Omicron variant”. Their observations included:
- “Participants, most of whom had symptomatic, non-severe Covid-19 infection, the viral decay kinetics were similar with omicron infection and delta infection.
- Although vaccination has been shown to reduce the incidence of infection and the severity of disease, we did not find large differences in the median duration of viral shedding among participants who were unvaccinated, those who were vaccinated but not boosted, and those who were vaccinated and boosted.
- Our data suggest that some persons who are infected with the omicron and delta SARS-CoV-2 variants shed culturable virus more than 5 days after symptom onset or an initial positive test”.
- “PCR tests, within the first 10 days of contracting the virus 68.75 percent of unvaccinated subjects were no longer contagious. In contrast, just 29.72 percent of vaccinated and 38.46 percent of boosted people were no longer contagious.
Access National Pulse Article by Natalie Winters here
Access Letter to the NEJM Editor here
