Fig. 6: JN.1 fails to transmit between hamsters via contact and airborne transmission.

Hamsters were inoculated intranasally with 10⁴ TCID₅₀ of indicated Omicron variants, N = 10 per variant. 36 h post-inoculation hamsters were co-housed for 24 h with one contact and one air-sentinel hamster before being single-housed for the remainder of the experiment. A Viral load was determined by subgenomic RNA in oropharyngeal swabs on days 1 and 2 post-inoculation of donor hamsters inoculated intranasally with 10⁴ TCID₅₀. Box defines the upper (75^th percentile) and lower (25^th percentile) quartiles with whiskers extending from minimum to maximum with all values shown. B Viral load was determined by genomic RNA in oropharyngeal swabs of sentinel hamsters at day 1 and 3 post-exposure with each box representing an individual sentinel hamster. Limit of quantification = 3.5 log₁₀ copies per mL. Colors refer to the legend on the right. Seroconversion of sentinel hamsters was determined at day 14 post-exposure by ELISA. C Percentages indicate the fraction of seropositive sentinel hamsters as determined on day 14 post-exposure by ELISA. Statistical analysis was conducted using two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post-test (A). P-values adjusted for multiple comparisons < 0.05 are shown.