Low-dose and oral exposure to SARS-CoV-2 may help us understand and prevent severe COVID-19

The effectiveness and sustainability of current public health interventions designed to prevent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission remain of great concern in many settings, especially in the absence of a transmission-preventing vaccine.

It was hypothesized that a more targeted set of interventions focusing on preventing severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), rather than SARS-CoV-2 transmission, would be less disruptive to society. To identify these, it would be helpful to better understand how the infecting dose of SARS-CoV-2 and its route of infection influence the clinical outcome, immunological protection, and likelihood of onward transmission.

It is suggested that carefully controlled human infection model (CHIM) studies involving intranasal and oral administration of progressively increasing doses of SARS-CoV-2, starting with low levels, to healthy young adult volunteers may be the most expeditious and definitive way to answer these questions. Such studies would differ in objective from CHIM proposals designed to expedite vaccine development, although the latter might be adapted to address some of the questions raised here.

Results from the studies proposed here could help elucidate the relationship of infection to COVID-19 and thereby provide a scientific basis for more targeted and sustainable application of public health control measures, and inform the design of improved immunotherapeutics and more targeted vaccine development.