Eat, Pray, Work: A meta-analysis of COVID-19 Transmission Risk in Common Activities of Work and Leisure

  1. Meher K. Prakash

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Abstract

BACKGROUND

When the lockdowns are relaxed, the responsibility of mitigating the COVID-19 spread shifts from the governments to the individuals. To know how to conduct one-self, it is important for everyone to know the risks of transmission during the quotidian activities - meetings, meals, etc, from individuals who are known to them and looking healthy.

METHODS

The detailed case-studies corresponding to 425 infections upon point-exposures over a specified duration are curated. The data from the case studies is summarized and reorganized to reflect different situations from the daily life. A meta-analysis of the attack rates of transmission and the number of infections per infected person are performed.

RESULTS

The attack rates are very high in family dinners (66.7% (48.8-80.8%)) compared to sit-down dinners with lesser mixing among people eating at different tables (15.7% (12.1-20.1%)), both lasting a couple of hours. In an open workspace office floor organized in a two-half structure with shared elevators and restrooms and the employees speaking continuously, the average attack rate over the course of a few days was much higher in one half (78.7% (70.3-85.3%)) than the one for the entire floor (43.5% (37.0-50.1%)). Inferred data suggests that the transmission in elevators and trains may be lower under the conditions of using masks. In most of the instances we studied, the infected individuals spreading (35/44) and even super-spreading (3/6) were mostly without symptoms of coughing, sneezing or a fever.

CONCLUSIONS

Although the basic reproduction number R 0 is around 3.0, the number of infections caused, including the super-spreading events, seem to be limited by the number of personal interactions in a group and their proximity. By acknowledging the risks in daily life, from healthy-looking persons, one may be able to organize their interactions better to reduce the chances of spreading or super-spreading infections.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.22.20110726: (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

    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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.22.20110726v1 on medRxiv