July 30, 2020

The Risk of COVID-19 Transmission in Train Passengers: An Epidemiological and Modelling Study

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Transmission

• The risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission among train passengers varied considerably depending on shared travel time and seat location, with a peak attack rate of 4% among passengers who were sitting adjacent to an index case. Transmission risk increased with longer duration of co-travel, increasing by 1.3% per hour for adjacent passengers. These findings are based on an analysis of the spatial and temporal distribution of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from index patients on high-speed trains in China (n=2,334) and close contacts (n=72,093) who had co-travel times of 0-8 hours.  

Hu et al. (July 2020). The Risk of COVID-19 Transmission in Train Passengers: An Epidemiological and Modelling Study. Clinical Infectious Diseases. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa1057