Index Cases First Identified by Nasal-Swab Rapid COVID-19 Tests Had More Transmission to Household Contacts Than Cases Identified by Other Test Types

Abstract

Importance: At-home rapid COVID-19 tests utilize nasal-swab specimens and require high viral loads to reliably give positive results. Longitudinal studies from the onset of infection have found infectious virus can present in oral specimens days before nasal. Detection and initiation of infection-control practices may therefore be delayed when nasal-swab rapid tests are used, resulting in greater exposure and transmission to contacts. Objective: We assessed whether index cases first identified by rapid nasal-swab COVID-19 tests had more transmission to household contacts than index cases who used other test types (tests with higher analytical sensitivity but longer turnaround times, and/or that utilize non-nasal specimen types). Design: In this observational cohort study, members of households with a recent COVID-19 case were screened for infection at least daily by RT-qPCR on one or more self-collected upper-respiratory specimen types. Participants reported demographic/medical information (including COVID-19 testing), symptom and exposure information, and household infection-control practices. A two-level random intercept model was used to assess the association between the infection outcome of household contacts and each covariable (household size, race/ethnicity, age, vaccination status, viral variant, infection-control practices, and whether a rapid nasal-swab test was used to initially identify the household index case). Setting: Southern California, September 2020-June 2021 and November 2021-March 2022. Participants: Cohort of 370 individuals from 85 households. Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s): Transmission was quantified by adjusted secondary attack rates (aSAR) and adjusted odds ratios (aOR). Results: An aSAR of 53.6% (95%CI 38.8-68.3%) was observed among households where the index case first tested positive by a rapid nasal-swab COVID-19 test, which was significantly higher than the aSAR for households where the index case utilized another test type (27.2% [19.5-35.0%], P=0.003 pairwise comparisons of predictive margins). We observed an aOR of 4.90 (95%CI 1.65-14.56) for transmission to household contacts when a nasal-swab rapid test was used to identify the index case, compared to other test types. Conclusions and Relevance: Use of nasal-swab rapid COVID-19 tests for initial detection of infection and initiation of infection control may not limit transmission as well as other test types.

The asymptomatic proportion of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron-variant infections in households: A systematic review

“…Ji et al, (2023) recruited households through the California Institute of Technology in California, USA, between November 2021 and March 2022. (23) Only household members aged 6 years and older were included. Household contacts were tested daily using RATs as well as providing symptom information.…”

The Asymptomatic Proportion of SARS‐CoV‐2 Omicron Variant Infections in Households: A Systematic Review

“…Ji et al. recruited households through the California Institute of Technology in California, USA, between November 2021 and March 2022 [26]. Only household members aged 6 years and older were included.…”

“…Two studies were assessed as having a moderate risk of bias [24,25], and one study was assessed as having a high risk of bias [26] (Supporting Information S1: Figure 1).…”

“…The three included studies were all based in the United States and were conducted from November 2021 to March 2022 (Table 1) [24][25][26].…”

The ratio between SARS-CoV-2 RNA viral load and culturable viral titer differs depending on stage of infection

“…after symptom onset) [4,[14][15][16][17][18]. However, during the earliest phase of infection, detection of infected individuals can help reduce subsequent transmission [19,20] and improve clinical outcomes [21]. Few studies report viral loads starting from the incidence of acute SARS-CoV-2 infection [13,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29], and of these, few report both viralload and viral-culture data [25,27].…”