Mass Screening for SARS-CoV-2 Uncovers Significant Transmission Risk from Asymptomatic Carriers

Wilmes, Paul; Zimmer, Jacques; Schulz, Jasmin; Glod, Frank; Veiber, Lisa; Mombaerts, Laurent; Rodrigues, Bruno da Costa; Aalto, Atte; Pastore, Jessica; Snoeck, Chantal; Ollert, Markus; Fagherazzi, Guy; Mossong, Joël; Skupin, Alexander; Nehrbass, Ulf

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3738086

Cited by 4 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…To accompany the progressive lifting of lockdown measures, a mass screening programme was started in Luxembourg in May aiming to provide additional testing capacity for screening asymptomatic cases in certain working sectors including pupils and teachers [7]. Briefly, all teachers and pupils received an invitation for a PCR using a throat swab in dedicated Covid-19 screening sites.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

SARS-CoV-2 transmission in educational settings during an early summer epidemic wave in Luxembourg, 2020

et al. 2021

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Background Following a first wave in spring and gradual easing of lockdown, Luxembourg experienced an early second epidemic wave of SARS-CoV-2 before the start of summer school holidays on 15th July. This provided the opportunity to investigate the role of school-age children and school settings for transmission. Methods We compared the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 in school-age children, teachers and the general working population in Luxembourg during two epidemic waves: a spring wave from March–April 2020 corresponding to general lockdown with schools being closed and May–July 2020 corresponding to schools being open. We assessed the number of secondary transmissions occurring in schools between May and July 2020 using routine contact tracing data. Results During the first wave in March–April 2020 when schools were closed, the incidence in pupils peaked at 28 per 100,000, while during the second wave in May–July 2020 when schools were open, incidence peaked 100 per 100,000. While incidence of SARS-CoV-2 was higher in adults than in children during the first spring wave, no significant difference was observed during the second wave in early summer. Between May and July 2020, we identified a total of 390 and 34 confirmed COVID-19 cases among 90,150 school-age children and 11,667 teachers, respectively. We further estimate that 179 primary cases caused 49 secondary cases in schools. While some small clusters of mainly student-to-student transmission within the same class were identified, we did not observe any large outbreaks with multiple generations of infection. Conclusions Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within Luxembourg schools was limited during an early summer epidemic wave in 2020. Precautionary measures including physical distancing as well as easy access to testing, systematic contact tracing appears to have been successful in mitigating transmission within educational settings.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

SARS-CoV-2 transmission in educational settings during an early summer epidemic wave in Luxembourg, 2020

et al. 2021

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“…Luxembourg – that embarked on the first full-population testing strategy points to limited take-up of testing: during the first phase of the large-scale testing in 2020, less than 40% of the over 1.400.000 invitations were taken up. These tests accounted for 26% of all the detected positive cases in Luxembourg, indicating the scope for a higher participation rate to improve the effectiveness of the testing strategy [37] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to make universal, voluntary testing for COVID-19 work? A behavioural economics perspective

Fallucchi¹,

Görges²,

Machado³

et al. 2021

Health Policy

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Testing is widely seen as one core element of a successful strategy to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic and many countries have increased their efforts to provide testing at large scale. As most democratic governments refrain from enacting mandatory testing, a key emerging challenge is to increase voluntary participation. Using behavioural economics insights complemented with data from a novel survey in the US and a survey experiment in Luxembourg, we examine behavioural factors associated with the individual willingness to get tested (WTT). In our analysis, individual characteristics that correlate positively with WTT include age, altruism, conformism, the tendency to abide by government-imposed rules, concern about contracting COVID-19, and patience. Risk aversion, unemployment, and conservative political orientation correlate negatively with WTT. Building on and expanding these insights may prove fruitful for policy to effectively raise people's propensity to get tested.

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“…The inspection ability is uneven in China at the corresponding period, for example, the maximum testing number in Heilongjiang, Shandong, Ningxia, and Shaanxi Province is 20 000, 10 000, 16 000, and 50 000 per day respectively [ 21 22 23 24 ]. When compared with the foreign country, a mass screening conducted in Luxembourg with the peaking testing amount was 20,000 tests per day [ 15 ]. The inspection ability in our integrated healthcare system is relatively advantaged by comparison, which could be used to improve other clinical and technical aspects in the Hospital Group.…”

Section: Discussion: Results Analysis and Experience Learnedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the epidemic of COVID-19 has a severe impact on global health and economic development, it is necessary to adopt useful measures to mitigate the spread in sporadic situations. Mass screening has been adopted as a preventive approach in post-pandemic to implement regularly for high-risk populations and as a controlling approach in a sporadic epidemic situation to screen out the infectious population in communities [ 14 15 16 ]. However, a large-scale screening program conducted in a short time is a great challenge to single medical institutions with limited local medical affordability, limited information sharing ability, and limited material reserve.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It also requires completing personnel regulation, setting up temporary collection teams, carry out sampling and testing work in that short time. Containment of future outbreaks will critically depend on early testing in work sectors and geographical regions [ 15 ]. A single medical institution could not cope with a sporadic pandemic situation and successfully conduct a mass screening, while an integrated healthcare system has potential advantages in response to community outbreaks of highly infectious diseases (such as COVID-19) and their transmission.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Large-Scale Screening Responding Sporadic Epidemic of COVID-19 in China by an Integrated Health-Care System

Sun

Gong

et al. 2022

Int J Integr Care

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Mass Screening for SARS-CoV-2 Uncovers Significant Transmission Risk from Asymptomatic Carriers

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

SARS-CoV-2 transmission in educational settings during an early summer epidemic wave in Luxembourg, 2020

SARS-CoV-2 transmission in educational settings during an early summer epidemic wave in Luxembourg, 2020

How to make universal, voluntary testing for COVID-19 work? A behavioural economics perspective

A Large-Scale Screening Responding Sporadic Epidemic of COVID-19 in China by an Integrated Health-Care System

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