Epidemiological and Clinical Features of SARS-CoV-2 Variants Circulating between April-December 2021 in Italy

Alessia Lai; Annalisa Bergna; Carla Della Ventura; Stefano Menzo; Bianca Bruzzone; Fabio Sagradi; Francesca Ceccherini-Silberstein; Alessandro Weisz; Nicola Clementi; Gaetano Brindicci; Ilaria Vicenti; Lolita Sasset; Sara Caucci; Benedetta Corvaro; Silvia Ippoliti; Carla Acciarri; Vanessa De Pace; Leonardo Lanfranchi; Maria Concetta Bellocchi; Giorgio Giurato; Roberto Ferrarese; Antonella Lagioia; Daniela Francisci; Martina Laura Colombo; Samuel Lazzarin; Matilde Ogliastro; Maria Rosa Cappelletti; Marco Iannetta; Francesca Rizzo; Carmen Rita Santoro; Chiara Fraccalvieri; Sophie Testa; Luca Carioti; Teresa Rocco; Annalisa Saracino; Annamaria Cattelan; Massimo Clementi; Loredana Sarmati; Agostino Riva; Spinello Antinori; Gianguglielmo Zehender

doi:10.20944/preprints202209.0241.v1

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Lai, A.; Bergna, A.; Della Ventura, C.; Menzo, S.; Bruzzone, B.; Sagradi, F.; Ceccherini-Silberstein, F.; Weisz, A.; Clementi, N.; Brindicci, G.; Vicenti, I.; Sasset, L.; Caucci, S.; Corvaro, B.; Ippoliti, S.; Acciarri, C.; De Pace, V.; Lanfranchi, L.; Bellocchi, M.C.; Giurato, G.; Ferrarese, R.; Lagioia, A.; Francisci, D.; Colombo, M.L.; Lazzarin, S.; Ogliastro, M.; Cappelletti, M.R.; Iannetta, M.; Rizzo, F.; Torti, C.; Fumi, M.; d’Avenia, M.; Brusa, S.; Greco, F.; Menchise, A.; Letizia, V.; Vaccaro, E.; Santoro, C.R.; Fraccalvieri, C.; Testa, S.; Carioti, L.; Rocco, T.; Saracino, A.; Cattelan, A.; Clementi, M.; Sarmati, L.; Riva, A.; Galli, M.; Antinori, S.; Zehender, G.; SARS-CoV- ITALIAN RESEARCH ENTERPRISE–(SCIRE) Collaborative Group. Epidemiological and Clinical Features of SARS-CoV-2 Variants Circulating between April–December 2021 in Italy. Viruses 2022, 14, 2508. Lai, A.; Bergna, A.; Della Ventura, C.; Menzo, S.; Bruzzone, B.; Sagradi, F.; Ceccherini-Silberstein, F.; Weisz, A.; Clementi, N.; Brindicci, G.; Vicenti, I.; Sasset, L.; Caucci, S.; Corvaro, B.; Ippoliti, S.; Acciarri, C.; De Pace, V.; Lanfranchi, L.; Bellocchi, M.C.; Giurato, G.; Ferrarese, R.; Lagioia, A.; Francisci, D.; Colombo, M.L.; Lazzarin, S.; Ogliastro, M.; Cappelletti, M.R.; Iannetta, M.; Rizzo, F.; Torti, C.; Fumi, M.; d’Avenia, M.; Brusa, S.; Greco, F.; Menchise, A.; Letizia, V.; Vaccaro, E.; Santoro, C.R.; Fraccalvieri, C.; Testa, S.; Carioti, L.; Rocco, T.; Saracino, A.; Cattelan, A.; Clementi, M.; Sarmati, L.; Riva, A.; Galli, M.; Antinori, S.; Zehender, G.; SARS-CoV- ITALIAN RESEARCH ENTERPRISE–(SCIRE) Collaborative Group. Epidemiological and Clinical Features of SARS-CoV-2 Variants Circulating between April–December 2021 in Italy. Viruses 2022, 14, 2508.

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 is constantly evolving leading to new variants. We analysed data from 4,400 SARS-CoV-2-positive samples in order to continue variant surveillance in Italy to evaluate their epidemiological and relative impact on public health in the period April-December 2021. The main circulating strain (76.2%) was Delta followed by Alpha (13.3%), Omicron (5.3%) and Gamma variants (2.9%). B.1.1 lineages, Eta, Beta, Iota, Mu and Kappa variants represented around 1% of cases. Overall, 48.2% of subjects were not vaccinated with a lower median age compared to vaccinated subjects (47 vs. 61 years). An increasing number of infections in vaccinated subjects was observed overtime, with the highest proportion in November (85.2%). Variants correlated with clinical status; the largest proportion of symptomatic patients (59.6%) was observed among Delta variant, while subjects harboring Gamma variant showed the highest proportion of asymptomatics (21.6%), albeit also of deaths (5.4%). The Omicron variant was only found in vac-cinated subjects, of which 47% were hospitalized. Diffusivity and pathogenicity associated with the different SARS-CoV-2 variants are likely to have relevant public health implications, both at national and international level. Our study pro-vides data on the rapid changes in the epidemiological landscape of SARS-CoV-2 variants in Italy.

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Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Epidemiological and Clinical Features of SARS-CoV-2 Variants Circulating between April-December 2021 in Italy

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