August 12, 2020

Strategic Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Serology Testing in a Low Prevalence Pandemic The COVID-19 Contact (CoCo) Study in Health Care Professionals

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Clinical Characteristics and Health Care Setting

• [pre-print, not peer-reviewed] A longitudinal cohort study of frontline healthcare professionals in a large German university hospital (n=217 participants, corresponding to 1,080 weekly measurements over 6 weeks) found a cumulative incidence of 1.8% for seroconversion to anti-SARS CoV-2 seropositivity by ELISA. Confirmatory testing indicated that only 1 of the 8 initial positive results were true positives, resulting in a true cumulative incidence of 0.5%. The authors caution that the results of a single positive serology test should be interpreted with caution in a low prevalence setting. 

Behrens et al. (Aug 7, 2020). Strategic Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Serology Testing in a Low Prevalence Pandemic The COVID-19 Contact (CoCo) Study in Health Care Professionals. Pre-print downloaded Aug 12 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.06.20169250