A large outbreak of COVID-19 in a UK prison, October 2020 to April 2021

This article has been Reviewed by the following groups

Read the full article See related articles

Discuss this preprint

Start a discussion What are Sciety discussions?

Abstract

No abstract available

Article activity feed

  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.02.22269960: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Case data were managed using an Excel line list containing demographic information (age, sex), staff residence postcode, resident cell number, work areas/dates, laboratory results (test dates, result status, laboratory IDs, whole genome sequencing (WGS) links), interview dates/notes and resident prison-transfer dates.
    WGS
    suggested: None

    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:
    Our methods had several limitations. Different testing pathways for staff and residents limited the number of samples available for WGS, particularly early in this outbreak. Additional, early WGS intelligence might have identified other transmission routes, especially in terms of community introduction via staff and inter-prison introduction via A-block. However, there were huge pressure on WGS services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it wasn’t until January 2021 that issues around accessing and sequencing Welsh Pillar 2 samples tested by Lighthouse Laboratories were largely resolved. We only considered activities and movements of staff and residents inside Prison A; it is likely that staff socialised outside Prison A, potentially in contact with asymptomatic cases. Telephone interviews with staff cases investigated plausible vehicles of transmission, such as household contacts, but asymptomatic spread in their communities was not investigated and would have been difficult to measure. Despite agreement of the OCT members, not interviewing resident cases was an information bias and could have revealed additional information relevant to the investigation and control measures. Lack of ascertainment of resident denominators by accommodation area due to prison churn meant comparing staff and resident attack rates was not regularly possible. We conclude that sufficient epidemiological capacity to investigate outbreaks thoroughly allows OCTs to assess changes and implement appropr...

    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.