Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among children and staff in German daycare centres
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Abstract
In daycare centres, the close contact of children with other children and employees favours the transmission of infections. The majority of children <6 years attend daycare programmes in Germany, but the role of daycare centres in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is unclear. We investigated the transmission risk in daycare centres and the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to associated households. 30 daycare groups with at least one recent laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 case were enrolled in the study (10/2020–06/2021). Close contact persons within daycare and households were examined over a 12-day period (repeated SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests, genetic sequencing of viruses, symptom diary). Households were interviewed to gain comprehensive information on each outbreak. We determined primary cases for all daycare groups. The number of secondary cases varied considerably between daycare groups. The pooled secondary attack rate (SAR) across all 30 daycare centres was 9.6%. The SAR tended to be higher when the Alpha variant was detected (15.9% vs. 5.1% with evidence of wild type). The household SAR was 53.3%. Exposed daycare children were less likely to get infected with SARS-CoV-2 than employees (7.7% vs. 15.5%). Containment measures in daycare programmes are critical to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, especially to avoid spread to associated households.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.12.21.21268157: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Field Sample Permit: SARS-CoV-2 cases as well as their close contacts within the respective daycare group and household were examined over a 12-day period, including the collection of biological specimens and the documentation of symptoms.
Consent: Written informed consent was obtained from each participant.Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Antibodies Sentences Resources Furthermore, we considered information on exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and IgG-antibody status against SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2suggested: NoneIgG antibodies against SARS-CoV2 were detected in 22 cases (children: n=8, staff: n=12; adults … SciScore for 10.1101/2021.12.21.21268157: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Field Sample Permit: SARS-CoV-2 cases as well as their close contacts within the respective daycare group and household were examined over a 12-day period, including the collection of biological specimens and the documentation of symptoms.
Consent: Written informed consent was obtained from each participant.Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Antibodies Sentences Resources Furthermore, we considered information on exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and IgG-antibody status against SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2suggested: NoneIgG antibodies against SARS-CoV2 were detected in 22 cases (children: n=8, staff: n=12; adults in households n=2); 6 had a simultaneous positive PCR-test and no history of prior infection, and were determined to be in a state of fresh seroconversion (3 of them were primary cases in the daycare group). SARS-CoV2suggested: NoneSoftware and Algorithms Sentences Resources Virus sequences were determined using covpipe (Illumina data, [17]) or poreCov (MinION data, [18]). MinIONsuggested: (MinION, RRID:SCR_017985)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:Strengths and limitations: The study is subject to some limitations. First, the sample size is relatively small, which is why the results show a relatively high statistical uncertainty. Furthermore, sampling of daycare centers was not random and might not be representative. In addition, with the study being voluntary, the participation among close contacts in daycare groups and households was mostly not complete. We cannot rule out a selection bias, for example severely ill persons may have declined more frequently than others the invitation to participate. When determining the probable primary case, we were sometimes also restricted by the fact that not all daycare group members participated, so we could not rule out that maybe the real primary case would be found outside of our sample. Including additional data from local health authorities and daycare directors was meant to compensate for this drawback. A strength of our study is that we were largely successful in determining primary cases. The reconstruction of the transmission chain in each participating daycare group yielded probable primary cases which differed from the registered index cases in four of the daycare groups, twice with a change from staff member to child, thereby producing a different SAR when stratified for child vs. adult. The prospective design was a strength of the study, as it enabled us to detect additional secondary cases which might have not been noticed if the investigation had taken place only ...
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.
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