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Article: Characterization of Unlinked Cases of COVID-19 and Implications for Contact Tracing Measures: Retrospective Analysis of Surveillance Data

TitleCharacterization of Unlinked Cases of COVID-19 and Implications for Contact Tracing Measures: Retrospective Analysis of Surveillance Data
Authors
KeywordsCOVID-19
contact tracing
unlinked
superspreading
dispersion
Issue Date2021
PublisherJMIR Publications, Inc. The Journal's web site is located at http://publichealth.jmir.org/
Citation
JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 2021, v. 7 n. 11, p. article no. e30968 How to Cite?
AbstractBackground: Contact tracing and intensive testing programs are essential for controlling the spread of COVID-19. However, conventional contact tracing is resource intensive and may not result in the tracing of all cases due to recall bias and cases not knowing the identity of some close contacts. Few studies have reported the epidemiological features of cases not identified by contact tracing (“unlinked cases”) or described their potential roles in seeding community outbreaks. Objective: For this study, we characterized the role of unlinked cases in the epidemic by comparing their epidemiological profile with the linked cases; we also estimated their transmission potential across different settings. Methods: We obtained rapid surveillance data from the government, which contained the line listing of COVID-19 confirmed cases during the first three waves in Hong Kong. We compared the demographics, history of chronic illnesses, epidemiological characteristics, clinical characteristics, and outcomes of linked and unlinked cases. Transmission potentials in different settings were assessed by fitting a negative binomial distribution to the observed offspring distribution. Results: Time interval from illness onset to hospital admission was longer among unlinked cases than linked cases (median 5.00 days versus 3.78 days; P<.001), with a higher proportion of cases whose condition was critical or serious (13.0% versus 8.2%; P<.001). The proportion of unlinked cases was associated with an increase in the weekly number of local cases (P=.049). Cluster transmissions from the unlinked cases were most frequently identified in household settings, followed by eateries and workplaces, with the estimated probability of cluster transmissions being around 0.4 for households and 0.1-0.3 for the latter two settings. Conclusions: The unlinked cases were positively associated with time to hospital admission, severity of infection, and epidemic size—implying a need to design and implement digital tracing methods to complement current conventional testing and tracing. To minimize the risk of cluster transmissions from unlinked cases, digital tracing approaches should be effectively applied in high-risk socioeconomic settings, and risk assessments should be conducted to review and adjust the policies.
Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/308391
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 3.5
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 1.421
PubMed Central ID
ISI Accession Number ID

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorChong, KC-
dc.contributor.authorJia, K-
dc.contributor.authorLee, SS-
dc.contributor.authorHung, CT-
dc.contributor.authorWong, NS-
dc.contributor.authorLai, FTT-
dc.contributor.authorChau, N-
dc.contributor.authorYam, CHK-
dc.contributor.authorChow, TY-
dc.contributor.authorWei, Y-
dc.contributor.authorGuo, Z-
dc.contributor.authorYeoh, EK-
dc.date.accessioned2021-12-01T07:52:43Z-
dc.date.available2021-12-01T07:52:43Z-
dc.date.issued2021-
dc.identifier.citationJMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 2021, v. 7 n. 11, p. article no. e30968-
dc.identifier.issn2369-2960-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/308391-
dc.description.abstractBackground: Contact tracing and intensive testing programs are essential for controlling the spread of COVID-19. However, conventional contact tracing is resource intensive and may not result in the tracing of all cases due to recall bias and cases not knowing the identity of some close contacts. Few studies have reported the epidemiological features of cases not identified by contact tracing (“unlinked cases”) or described their potential roles in seeding community outbreaks. Objective: For this study, we characterized the role of unlinked cases in the epidemic by comparing their epidemiological profile with the linked cases; we also estimated their transmission potential across different settings. Methods: We obtained rapid surveillance data from the government, which contained the line listing of COVID-19 confirmed cases during the first three waves in Hong Kong. We compared the demographics, history of chronic illnesses, epidemiological characteristics, clinical characteristics, and outcomes of linked and unlinked cases. Transmission potentials in different settings were assessed by fitting a negative binomial distribution to the observed offspring distribution. Results: Time interval from illness onset to hospital admission was longer among unlinked cases than linked cases (median 5.00 days versus 3.78 days; P<.001), with a higher proportion of cases whose condition was critical or serious (13.0% versus 8.2%; P<.001). The proportion of unlinked cases was associated with an increase in the weekly number of local cases (P=.049). Cluster transmissions from the unlinked cases were most frequently identified in household settings, followed by eateries and workplaces, with the estimated probability of cluster transmissions being around 0.4 for households and 0.1-0.3 for the latter two settings. Conclusions: The unlinked cases were positively associated with time to hospital admission, severity of infection, and epidemic size—implying a need to design and implement digital tracing methods to complement current conventional testing and tracing. To minimize the risk of cluster transmissions from unlinked cases, digital tracing approaches should be effectively applied in high-risk socioeconomic settings, and risk assessments should be conducted to review and adjust the policies.-
dc.languageeng-
dc.publisherJMIR Publications, Inc. The Journal's web site is located at http://publichealth.jmir.org/-
dc.relation.ispartofJMIR Public Health and Surveillance-
dc.rightsJMIR Public Health and Surveillance. Copyright © JMIR Publications, Inc.-
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.-
dc.subjectCOVID-19-
dc.subjectcontact tracing-
dc.subjectunlinked-
dc.subjectsuperspreading-
dc.subjectdispersion-
dc.titleCharacterization of Unlinked Cases of COVID-19 and Implications for Contact Tracing Measures: Retrospective Analysis of Surveillance Data-
dc.typeArticle-
dc.identifier.emailLai, FTT: fttlai@hku.hk-
dc.identifier.authorityLai, FTT=rp02802-
dc.description.naturepublished_or_final_version-
dc.identifier.doi10.2196/30968-
dc.identifier.pmid34591778-
dc.identifier.pmcidPMC8598156-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-85120171412-
dc.identifier.hkuros330576-
dc.identifier.volume7-
dc.identifier.issue11-
dc.identifier.spagearticle no. e30968-
dc.identifier.epagearticle no. e30968-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000738935100014-
dc.publisher.placeCanada-

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