A case report of COVID-19 monitoring in the Austrian professional football league

  1. Antje van der Zee-Neuen
  2. Dagmar Schaffler-Schaden
  3. Jürgen Herfert
  4. James O´Brien
  5. Tim Johansson
  6. Patrick Kutschar
  7. Alexander Seymer
  8. Stephan Ludwig
  9. Thomas Stöggl
  10. David Keeley
  11. Herbert Resch
  12. Jürgen Osterbrink
  13. Maria Flamm

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Abstract

Since the beginning of the COVID -19 pandemic, many contact sport teams are facing major challenges to safely continue training and competition. We present the design and implementation of a structured monitoring concept for the Austrian national football league. 146 professional players from five clubs of the professional Austrian football league were monitored for a period of 12 weeks. Subjective health parameters, PCR- test results and data obtained from a geo-tracking app were collected. Simulations modelling the consequences of a COVID-19 case with increasing reproduction number were computed. No COVID -19 infection occurred during the observation period in the players. Infections in the nearer surroundings lead to increased perceived risk of infection. Geo tracking was particularly hindered due to technical problems and reluctance of users. Simulation models suggested a hypothetical shut-down of all training and competition activities. A structured monitoring concept can help to continue contact sports safely in times of a pandemic. Cooperation of all involved is essential.

Trial registration: ID: DRKS00022166 15/6/2020 https://www.who.int/ictrp/search/en/ .

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  1. Version published to 10.1038/s41598-021-03820-9
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.06.20226977: (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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.06.20226977 on medRxiv