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Tag: non-pharm interventions
November 19, 2020
Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers
An individually randomized controlled trial in Denmark from April to May 2020 (n=4,862) found that among participants spending at least 3 hours outside of home per day without occupational mask use and already practicing physical distancing, the intervention to recommend wearing a surgical mask when outside of home did not significantly reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection among…
November 17, 2020
Optimizing COVID-19 Control with Asymptomatic Surveillance Testing in a University Environment
[Pre-print, not peer reviewed] A SARS-CoV-2 transmission model parametrized to the University of California, Berkeley community found that an approach combining group size limits, rapid symptom-based isolation and contact tracing, and targeted high frequency asymptomatic surveillance testing offers the most cost-effective outbreak control. The model suggests reducing group sizes to a maximum of 12 greatly…
Implementation of a Pooled Surveillance Testing Program for Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infections on a College Campus — Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, August 2–October 11, 2020
Duke University observed limited SARS-CoV-2 transmission during fall 2020, which is likely due to widespread adoption of risk-reduction behaviors, large-scale asymptomatic pooled testing for SARS-CoV-2, and contact tracing. Participation in asymptomatic testing was 95%, with 68,913 tests performed among 10,265 students, resulted in 84 positive cases detected. Most were identified through pool testing (35%) and…
November 13, 2020
Association of Social Distancing and Masking with Risk of COVID-19
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] People living in communities with the greatest social distancing had a 31% lower risk of predicted COVID-19 compared to those living in communities with poor social distancing, according to a prospective study of 198,077 participants using the COVID Symptom Study smartphone app. In addition, among people living in communities with poor social…
November 10, 2020
The Effect of SARS-CoV-2 Mitigation Strategies on Seasonal Respiratory Viruses: A Tale of Two Large Metropolitan Centers in the United States
Public health measures implemented to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission may have reduced the transmission of other seasonal respiratory viruses. In a retrospective review of medical records from health systems in Atlanta and Boston, average reproductive number (Rt) was found to remain above 1 for much longer in the past 5 seasons for influenza A, influenza B,…
November 9, 2020
The Prevalence of Asymptomatic and Symptomatic COVID19 Disease in a Cohort of Quarantined Subjects
In a cohort of 2,714 travelers returning to Bahrain by air between February 25th and March 14th, 2020, 136 were SARS-CoV-2 positive on arrival, 68% of whom were asymptomatic. A further 52 became SARS-CoV-2 positive during the mandatory 14-day quarantine following arrival, 46% of whom remained asymptomatic until viral clearance. Al-Qahtani et al. (Nov 2,…
Effectiveness of Contact Tracing and Quarantine on Reducing COVID-19 Transmission: A Retrospective Cohort Study
A cohort study among COVID-19 patients in Portugal (n=551) from March 1 to April 30, 2020 found no significant difference in the attack rate from index cases between patients who received contact tracing, isolated and had close contacts who were quarantined and those who did not (12%, 95% CI 7–19% vs. 9%, 95% CI 8–11%,…
November 6, 2020
Implication of Backward Contact Tracing in the Presence of Overdispersed Transmission in COVID-19 Outbreaks
Identification of the source of newly-detected SARS-CoV-2 infections (“backward contact tracing”), was found to be a potentially effective outbreak control measure. Endo et. al used a simple branching process model and found that backward tracing was expected to identify a primary case generating 3-10 times more infections than average, which could increase the proportion of…
Declines in SARS-CoV-2 Transmission, Hospitalizations, and Mortality After Implementation of Mitigation Measures— Delaware, March–June 2020
COVID-19 mitigation measures in Delaware, including stay-at-home orders, public mask mandates, and case investigations with contact tracing followed by isolation or quarantine, likely contributed to an observed 82% reduction in COVID-19 incidence, an 88% reduction in hospitalizations, and a 100% reduction in mortality in the state during late April–June. The authors note that barriers to…
November 5, 2020
Public Perceptions of the Effectiveness of Recommended Non-Pharmaceutical Intervention Behaviors to Mitigate the Spread of SARS-CoV-2
In a cross-sectional survey among US adults (n=3,474), 52.7% reported having “high” perceptions of the effectiveness of recommended behaviors against COVID-19 infection. In regression analysis, COVID-19 related worry and perceived threat to physical health were positively associated with perceived effectiveness. Adjusting for demographics, healthcare characteristics, and health beliefs, perceived severity of COVID-19 and perceived likelihood…
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