Wannigama DL, Amarasiri M, Phattharapornjaroen P, Hurst C, Modchang C, Chadsuthi S, Anupong S, Miyanaga K, Cui L, Fernandez S, Huang AT, Ounjai P, Singer AC, Ragupathi NKD, Sano D, Furukawa T, Sei K, Leelahavanichkul A, Kanjanabuch T, Chatsuwan T, Higgins PG, Nanbo A, Kicic A, Siow R, Trowsdale S, Hongsing P, Khatib A, Shibuya K, Abe S, and Ishikawa H
Competing Interests: MA and CH contributed equally as joint first authors. DLW, CH, and PH: conception, funding acquisition, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, supervision, and writing original draft of the manuscript. MA: conception, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, supervision, and writing original draft of the manuscript. CM: data curation, formal analysis, and supervision. SC and SA: formal analysis, critical review, and editing of the manuscript. PP, KM, LC, SF, ATH, PO, AS, NKDR, DS, TF, KSe, AL, TK, PGH, AN, AKi, RS, ST, AKh, and KSh: supervision, critical review, and editing of the manuscript. TC: critical review and editing of the manuscript. SA and HI: conception, funding acquisition, investigation, supervision, critical review, and editing of the manuscript. DLW was supported by Balvi Philanthropic Fund, Chulalongkorn University (Second Century Fund Postdoctoral Fellowship), University of Western Australia (Overseas Research Experience Fellowship), and Yamagata Prefectural Central Hospital (Clinical Residency Fellowship). CM was supported by the Centre of Excellence in Mathematics, Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, Centre of Excellence on Medical Biotechnology, and Thailand Centre of Excellence in Physics. ATH is a Herchel Smith Postdoctoral Research Fellow. AKi is a Rothwell Family Fellow. The funders had no role in study design, collection, analysis, or interpretation of data, writing of the report, or in the decision to submit the article for publication. All other authors declare no competing interests. This study was conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki, Good Clinical Practice guidelines, and other applicable laws and regulations, including Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology guidelines. The study is part of the COVID-19 surveillance study and was reviewed and approved by the institutional review board at Yamagata Prefectural Central Hospital. All volunteers or their legally acceptable representatives provided written informed consent. We thank all the volunteers who kindly supported the sample collection and all the volunteer participants. We thank especially the LGBTQIA+ community in Yamagata for helping with the sample collection. We embrace inclusive, diverse, and equitable conduct of research. Our team comprises of individuals who self-identify as under-represented ethnic minorities, gender minorities, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and individuals living with disabilities. We actively promote gender balance in our reference list while maintaining scientific relevance.