The risk of indoor sports and culture events for the transmission of COVID-19

  1. Stefan Moritz
  2. Cornelia Gottschick
  3. Johannes Horn
  4. Mario Popp
  5. Susan Langer
  6. Bianca Klee
  7. Oliver Purschke
  8. Michael Gekle
  9. Angelika Ihling
  10. Frank D. L. Zimmermann
  11. Rafael Mikolajczyk

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Abstract

Nearly all mass gathering events worldwide were banned at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as they were suspected of presenting a considerable risk for the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. We investigated the risk of transmitting SARS-CoV-2 by droplets and aerosols during an experimental indoor mass gathering event under three different hygiene practices, and used the data in a simulation study to estimate the resulting burden of disease under conditions of controlled epidemics. Our results show that the mean number of measured direct contacts per visitor was nine persons and this can be reduced substantially by appropriate hygiene practices. A comparison of two versions of ventilation with different air exchange rates and different airflows found that the system which performed worst allowed a ten-fold increase in the number of individuals exposed to infectious aerosols. The overall burden of infections resulting from indoor mass gatherings depends largely on the quality of the ventilation system and the hygiene practices. Presuming an effective ventilation system, indoor mass gathering events with suitable hygiene practices have a very small, if any, effect on epidemic spread.

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  1. Version published to 10.1038/s41467-021-25317-9
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.28.20221580: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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:
    There are several limitations of our study. First, we did not reach our intended goal of 4000 participants of the event. We addressed this by space restrictions, but it is still possible that the density of contacts was reduced. Second, defining a threshold for a relevant aerosol exposition is quite difficult, as there are many unknown facts about airborne transmission of COVID-19 (e.g. the minimal infectious dose, the viral load of aerosols, etc.). However, since we used the same threshold for all calculations, results are consistent and comparable. Third, while we used a detailed model to simulate transmission, additional structures in the population can affect the results. For example, if only a small group will participate in all the events and transmit infections acquired in one event to another, this would results in higher impact of MGEs. In conclusion, we found visitors of a seated concert in a good ventilated arena to have a high number of short contacts and a low number of long lasting contacts. Already moderate restrictive hygiene concepts (i.e. scenario 2) provided a substantial reduction of infections risk. Wearing masks during the concert was highly accepted by most participants and can provide further risk reduction. When hygiene concepts are applied and conditions of good ventilation are met, MGEs appear to contribute little to epidemic spread of COVID-19. Lack of hygiene concept and inadequate ventilation can increase the number of subjects at risk substantia...

    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.

    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 10.1101/2020.10.28.20221580 on medRxiv