Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant, infection rates, antibody seroconversion and seroprevalence rates in secondary school students and staff: Active prospective surveillance, December 2020 to March 2021, England

  1. Shamez N. Ladhani
  2. Georgina Ireland
  3. Frances Baawuah
  4. Joanne Beckmann
  5. Ifeanyichukwu O Okike
  6. Shazaad Ahmad
  7. Joanna Garstang
  8. Andrew J Brent
  9. Bernadette Brent
  10. Felicity Aiano
  11. Zahin Amin-Chowdhury
  12. Meaghan Kall
  13. Ray Borrow
  14. Ezra Linley
  15. Maria Zambon
  16. John Poh
  17. Lenesha Warrener
  18. Angie Lackenby
  19. Joanna Ellis
  20. Gayatri Amirthalingam
  21. Kevin E Brown
  22. Mary E Ramsay

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Abstract

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  1. Version published to 10.1016/j.jinf.2021.08.019
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.14.21260496: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: Participants or their parent/guardian provided informed consent online via SnapSurvey, and completed a short questionnaire prior to the sampling day.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    Serology was performed on the Abbott Architect using a chemiluminescent microparticle immunoglobulin G (IgG) immunoassay targeting the nucleoprotein (N) (SARS-CoV-2 IgG, Abbott Commerce Chicago, USA) with a seropositivity threshold of 0.8 (henceforth referred to as Abbott N assay).(18) This assay was shown to detect SARS-CoV-2 N-antibodies as early as 7 days post symptom onset and is, therefore, particularly useful for assessing SARS-CoV-2 antibody seroconversion (negative to positive antibodies) between testing rounds.
    SARS-CoV-2 IgG
    suggested: None
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Serology was performed on the Abbott Architect using a chemiluminescent microparticle immunoglobulin G (IgG) immunoassay targeting the nucleoprotein (N) (SARS-CoV-2 IgG, Abbott Commerce Chicago, USA) with a seropositivity threshold of 0.8 (henceforth referred to as Abbott N assay).(18) This assay was shown to detect SARS-CoV-2 N-antibodies as early as 7 days post symptom onset and is, therefore, particularly useful for assessing SARS-CoV-2 antibody seroconversion (negative to positive antibodies) between testing rounds.
    Abbott Architect
    suggested: (Abbott ARCHITECT i1000sr System, RRID:SCR_019328)
    Abbott
    suggested: (Abbott, RRID:SCR_010477)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The decision to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for teenagers should consider the added value of vaccinating a group with a high prevalence of natural immunity or, alternatively, whether a single dose, or a lower dose, might be sufficient to confer immunity whilst limiting the risk of potential adverse events, including myocarditis in teenagers and young adults.(37-40) Reassuringly, from 18 June 2020, all school staff are now eligible for vaccination – the School Infection Survey recently reported that 85% of staff had received at least one vaccine dose by May 2021.(23, 41) Limitations: The strength of this surveillance lies in the rapid recruitment and longitudinal assessment of secondary schools as soon as they reopened after national lockdown in September 2020. There are, however, some limitations. We only recruited schools in regions where we had paediatric investigation teams to take blood samples from large numbers of staff and students. Our schools are, therefore, not intended to be representative of all secondary schools in England. We avoided recruiting some secondary school years with end-of-year national examinations to minimise disruption of their education. Additionally, as already discussed, we were unable to assess whether the confirmed infections occurred within or outside the school premises. We are currently conducting a larger national School Infection Survey (SIS) involving 150 schools across England during the 2020/21 academic year.(42)

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.07.14.21260496v1 on medRxiv