High amounts of SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols exhaled by patients with Omicron variant infection

•At the early (1–5 days) and middle (6–10 days) stages after the onset of COVID-19 symptom, Omicron variant patients exhaled ten million virus particles per hour.•In the late stage (11–19 days), the breath emission rate was still as high as those of the two other stages.•Omicron variant may be highly transmissible.