{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,14]],"date-time":"2026-10-14T16:10:11Z","timestamp":1791994211495,"version":"4.4.0"},"reference-count":34,"publisher":"The Royal Society","issue":"2067","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,18]],"date-time":"2026-03-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1773792000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,18]],"date-time":"2026-03-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1773792000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000054","name":"National Cancer Institute","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000054","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,18]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Understanding the spatio-temporal spread of infectious diseases is important to improve control, yet most studies lack granular epidemiological data and are complicated by heterogeneities in pre-existing immunity. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to study the invasion of a novel pathogen in a naive population. Here we apply correlation statistics and mathematical modelling to daily city-level COVID-19 case data between 2020 and 2022 to dissect the spatial diffusion of different virus variants across the United States. We find that between-city correlation in case incidences varies with geographical distance, supporting the idea that infections are propagated from neighbour to neighbour up to a radius of 1000\u20131500 km, a process we call diffusive spread. We fitted mechanistic transmission models to onset times and find that models combining geographical distance with the population size of recipient cities produce the best fit to the winter 2020\u20132021 and Omicron waves, while indicators for pre-existing immunity and vaccination do not improve model fit. A similar model does not capture transmission dynamics for the Delta wave. In both the winter 2020\u20132021 and Omicron waves, a few large cities, but also smaller cities, mostly in the Midwest, disproportionately contributed to the onward spread of COVID-19. These could be useful for sentinel surveillance.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1098\/rspb.2025.1729","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,18]],"date-time":"2026-03-18T00:18:32Z","timestamp":1773793112000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Spatio-temporal spread of COVID-19 over three variant waves in the continental United States"],"prefix":"10.1098","volume":"293","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9754-560X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Viviane","family":"Callier","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"National Cancer Institute Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, 1","place":["Frederick,, MD,, USA"],"department":["Clinical Monitoring Research Program Directorate,"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Rob","family":"Deardon","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Calgary, 2","place":["Calgary,, Alberta,, Canada"],"department":["Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Faculty of Science,"]},{"name":"University of Calgary, 3","place":["Calgary,, Alberta,, Canada"],"department":["Faculty of Veterinary Medicine,"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"C\u00e9cile","family":"Viboud","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"National Institutes of Health, 4","place":["Bethesda,, MD,, USA"],"department":["Division of International Epidemiology and Population Studies, Fogarty International Center,"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"175","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"2026072215215889000_R1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1005382","article-title":"Human mobility and the spatial transmission of influenza in the United States","volume":"13","author":"Charu","year":"2017","journal-title":"PLoS Comput. 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