Characterizing the Qatar advanced-phase SARS-CoV-2 epidemic
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Abstract
The overarching objective of this study was to provide the descriptive epidemiology of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) epidemic in Qatar by addressing specific research questions through a series of national epidemiologic studies. Sources of data were the centralized and standardized national databases for SARS-CoV-2 infection. By July 10, 2020, 397,577 individuals had been tested for SARS-CoV-2 using polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR), of whom 110,986 were positive, a positivity cumulative rate of 27.9% (95% CI 27.8–28.1%). As of July 5, case severity rate, based on World Health Organization (WHO) severity classification, was 3.4% and case fatality rate was 1.4 per 1,000 persons. Age was by far the strongest predictor of severe, critical, or fatal infection. PCR positivity of nasopharyngeal/oropharyngeal swabs in a national community survey (May 6–7) including 1,307 participants was 14.9% (95% CI 11.5–19.0%); 58.5% of those testing positive were asymptomatic. Across 448 ad-hoc testing campaigns in workplaces and residential areas including 26,715 individuals, pooled mean PCR positivity was 15.6% (95% CI 13.7–17.7%). SARS-CoV-2 antibody prevalence was 24.0% (95% CI 23.3–24.6%) in 32,970 residual clinical blood specimens. Antibody prevalence was only 47.3% (95% CI 46.2–48.5%) in those who had at least one PCR positive result, but 91.3% (95% CI 89.5–92.9%) among those who were PCR positive > 3 weeks before serology testing. Qatar has experienced a large SARS-CoV-2 epidemic that is rapidly declining, apparently due to growing immunity levels in the population.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.16.20155317: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Ethical approval: Studies were approved by HMC and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar Institutional Review Boards. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Antibodies Sentences Resources Serological testing was performed using the Roche Elecsys® Anti-SARS-CoV-2 (Roche, Switzerland), an electrochemiluminescence immunoassay that uses a recombinant protein representing the nucleocapsid (N) antigen for the determination of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Anti-SARS-CoV-2suggested: NoneResults from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.16.20155317: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Ethical approval: Studies were approved by HMC and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar Institutional Review Boards. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Antibodies Sentences Resources Serological testing was performed using the Roche Elecsys® Anti-SARS-CoV-2 (Roche, Switzerland), an electrochemiluminescence immunoassay that uses a recombinant protein representing the nucleocapsid (N) antigen for the determination of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Anti-SARS-CoV-2suggested: NoneResults 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 found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).
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.
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