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eLife Sciences Publications, eLife, (9), 2020

DOI: 10.7554/elife.59391

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Effective control of SARS-CoV-2 transmission between healthcare workers during a period of diminished community prevalence of COVID-19

Journal article published in 2020 by Nick K. Jones, Jamie Young, Hongyi Zhang, Lucy Rivett, Dominic Sparkes, Sally Forrest, Sushmita Sridhar, Michael Gill, Joana Pereira-Dias, Ravi Gupta, Claire Cormie, Paul A. Lyons, Harmeet Gill, M. Estee Torok, Mark Toshner and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Previously, we showed that 3% (31/1032)of asymptomatic healthcare workers (HCWs) from a large teaching hospital in Cambridge, UK, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in April 2020. About 15% (26/169) HCWs with symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) also tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (Rivett et al., 2020). Here, we show that the proportion of both asymptomatic and symptomatic HCWs testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 rapidly declined to near-zero between 25th April and 24th May 2020, corresponding to a decline in patient admissions with COVID-19 during the ongoing UK ‘lockdown’. These data demonstrate how infection prevention and control measures including staff testing may help prevent hospitals from becoming independent ‘hubs’ of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and illustrate how, with appropriate precautions, organizations in other sectors may be able to resume on-site work safely.