GENOMIC EPIDEMIOLOGY OF THE MAIN SARS-CoV-2 VARIANTS CIRCULATING IN
ITALY DURING THE OMICRON ERA
Abstract
Since early 2022 the Omicron variant has rapidly spread worldwide,
becoming the dominant variant to date. The study aimed to investigate
the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 patients
and to reconstruct the genomic epidemiology of main SARS-CoV-2 Omicron
sub-lineages in Italy in 2022. 8,970 SARS-CoV-2 samples were studied,
and phylogenetic analyses were focused on BA.1, BA.2 and BA.5
sub-variants. More than half of subjects received three doses of vaccine
and experienced a reinfection. A significant larger proportion of
unvaccinated subjects presented reinfection compared to vaccinated.
Clusters presented a tMRCA between September-November 2021 (BA.1),
November 2021-January 2022 (BA.2) and October 2021-May 2022 (BA.5). R
e values showed the highest level between
September-October, January-February 2022, and May 2022 for BA.1, BA.2
and BA.5, respectively. Limited number of studied variant sequences are
included in clusters. The analyses dissect the epidemiological dynamics
of Omicron sub-lineages in Italy over a period of great epidemiological
changes in the COVID-19 epidemic. The spread rate of the studied variant
exceeded its evolutionary rate. No single sub-lineage had sufficient
time to differentiate into large clusters, but only into small and
fragmented groups sharing the same recent ancestor. These analyses
dissect the epidemiological dynamics of Omicron sub-lineages in Italy
over a period of great epidemiological changes in the COVID-19 epidemic.