Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

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Topic: Transmission


December 18, 2020

Postmortem Stability of SARS-CoV-2 in Nasopharyngeal Mucosa

Infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus is persistent in postmortem tissue. A study of SARS-CoV-2 postmortem viral RNA stability found evidence for maintained infectivity of the virus from the tissues of deceased individuals, and no time-dependent decrease in viral load. There was also no correlation between the postmortem interval (time of death until cooling at 4°C; median 17.8…


December 17, 2020

SARS-CoV-2 Detected on Environmental Fomites for Both Asymptomatic and Symptomatic COVID-19 Patients

SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected on surfaces in the rooms of both symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infected patients in a hospital in Shenzen, China. Among asymptomatic patients, samples from squat toilets showed the highest positivity rate, followed by samples related to mouth or nose contact (e.g. water cup, straw), and then samples from inside masks worn…


December 16, 2020

Nursing Home Staff Networks and COVID-19. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

A higher degree of connectedness between nursing homes via shared staff and contractors was associated with reporting COVID-19 cases. A large-scale analysis of nursing home connections via shared staff and contractors that used smartphone geolocation data found that 5% of smartphone users who visited a nursing home for at least one hour also visited another…


December 15, 2020

Community Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England from April to November, 2020: Results from the ONS Coronavirus Infection Survey

A nationwide serial sampling study in England (n=1.1 million samples from 280,000 individuals) shows that the first wave (April to June) and the first part of the second wave (August to November) were characterized by different risk factors. Having a patient-facing role was a significant factor in the first wave but not in the second,…


Factors Associated with Positive SARS-CoV-2 Test Results in Outpatient Health Facilities and Emergency Departments Among Children and Adolescents Aged <18 Years — Mississippi, September–November 2020

In a case-control study of 397 children and adolescents in Mississippi, in-person school or child care attendance two weeks prior to a SARS-CoV-2 test was not associated with a positive test result (aOR=0.8). Close contact with persons with COVID-19 (aOR=3.2), gatherings with persons outside the household such as social functions (aOR=2.4) and playdates (aOR=3.3), and…


Assessment of the Risk of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection in an Intense Re-Exposure Setting

Among 101,349 lab-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases in Qatar, the risk of reinfection was estimated to be 0.02%, with a reinfection incidence rate of 0.36 per 10,000 person-weeks. Out of 243 patients with at least one positive swab ≥45 days from the first positive swab, 54 (22%) had strong or good evidence for reinfection. Viral genome sequencing…


December 14, 2020

Environmental Monitoring Shows SARS-CoV-2 Contamination of Surfaces in Food Plants

[Preprint, not peer-reviewed] In a study collecting 22,643 surface samples from 116 food processing facilities in the US from Mar 17 to Sep 3, 2020, 1.2% of the total samples tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by PCR. 62 (53%) facilities had at least one sample positive for SARS-CoV-2. Among the positive samples, 33% were found on…


Household Transmission of SARS-CoV-2: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

A meta-analysis of 54 studies including 77,758 participants estimated an overall household secondary transmission rate of SARS-CoV-2 of 17% (95% CI 14%-19%). The rate was higher from symptomatic index cases than from asymptomatic index cases (18% vs. 1%), to adult contacts than to child contacts (28% vs. 17%), to spouses than to other family contacts…


On the Concentration of SARS-CoV-2 in Outdoor Air and the Interaction with Pre-Existing Atmospheric Particles

An environmental modeling study of respiratory emissions reported a very low probability of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (< 1 RNA copy/m3) through respiratory aerosol in outdoor public areas using the environmental characteristics of the cities Milan and Bergamo in northern Italy.  Belosi et al. (Dec 8, 2020). On the Concentration of SARS-CoV-2 in Outdoor Air…


December 11, 2020

SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV viral load dynamics, duration of viral shedding, and infectiousness: a systematic review and meta-analysis

A meta-analysis of viral RNA shedding of SARS-CoV-2 (79 studies, 5,340 individuals), SARS-CoV (8 studies, 1,858 individuals), and MERS-CoV (11 studies, 799 individuals) found the mean duration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding was 17 days in upper respiratory tract, 14.6 days in lower respiratory tract, 17.2 days in stool, and 16.6 days in serum samples. No…



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