Longitudinal Testing for Respiratory and Gastrointestinal Shedding of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Day Care Centers in Hesse, Germany
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Abstract
Background
With the pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) ongoing in Europe in June 2020, day care centers were reopened in the state of Hesse, Germany, after the lockdown. The role young children play in the dynamics of the transmission was unknown.
Methods
We conducted a longitudinal study over 12 weeks and 2 days (18 June 2020–10 September 2020) to screen attendees and staff from day care centers in the state of Hesse, Germany, for both respiratory and gastrointestinal shedding of SARS-CoV-2. A total of 859 children (age range, 3 months-8 years) and 376 staff members from 50 day care centers, which were chosen representatively from throughout the state, participated in the study. Parents were asked to collect both a buccal mucosa and an anal swab from their children once a week. Staff were asked to self-administer the swabs. Reverse transcriptas polymerase chain reaction for SARS-CoV-2 was performed in a multiple-swab pooling protocol.
Results
A total of 7366 buccal mucosa swabs and 5907 anal swabs were analyzed. No respiratory or gastrointestinal shedding of SARS-CoV-2 was detected in any of the children. Shedding of SARS-CoV-2 was detected in 2 staff members from distinct day care centers. One was asymptomatic at the time of testing, and one was symptomatic and did not attend the facility on that day.
Conclusion
Detection of either respiratory or gastrointestinal shedding of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in children and staff members attending day care centers was rare in the context of limited community activity and with infection prevention measures in the facilities in place.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.02.20223859: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Written consent was obtained.
IRB: Ethical approval: This study protocol was approved by the ethics board of the University Hospital Frankfurt, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany.Randomization To verify the pre-analytic quality of the samples, all of which were obtained without observation by a health-care professional, a sample of 800 buccal mucosa swabs were randomly selected from individual study participants to quantitatively test for GAPDH mRNA by RT-PCR. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Questionnaires: At the end of the … SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.02.20223859: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Written consent was obtained.
IRB: Ethical approval: This study protocol was approved by the ethics board of the University Hospital Frankfurt, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany.Randomization To verify the pre-analytic quality of the samples, all of which were obtained without observation by a health-care professional, a sample of 800 buccal mucosa swabs were randomly selected from individual study participants to quantitatively test for GAPDH mRNA by RT-PCR. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Questionnaires: At the end of the study, all study participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire to assess of exposure to SARS-CoV-2, and to evaluate whether an infection with SARS-CoV-2 had been diagnosed outside the study. SARS-CoV-2suggested: (Active Motif Cat# 91351, RRID:AB_2847848)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.
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