Dynamics of nasopharyngeal tract phageome and association with disease severity and age of patients during three waves of COVID-1

In December 2019, several patients were hospitalized and diagnosed with severeacute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) infection, whichsubsequently led to a global pandemic. To date, there are no studies evaluatingthe relationship between the respiratory phageome and the SARS‐CoV‐2infection. The current study investigated the phageome profiles in thenasopharyngeal swabs collected from 55 patients during the three differentwaves of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) in the Campania Region(Southern Italy). Data obtained from the taxonomic profiling show that phagefamilies belonging to the orderCaudoviraleshave a high abundance in the patientsamples. Moreover, the severity of the COVID‐19 infection seems to becorrelated with the phage abundance.