A rapid systematic review and case study on test, contact tracing, testing, and isolation policies for Covid-19 prevention and control

  1. Sheng-Chia Chung
  2. Sushila Marlow
  3. Nicholas Tobias
  4. Ivano Alogna
  5. Alessio Alogna
  6. San-Lin You

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Abstract

Objectives

To conduct a rapid review on the efficacy and policy of contact tracing, testing, and isolation (TTI) in Covid-19 prevention and control, including a case study for their delivery.

Method

Research articles and reviews on the use of contact tracing, testing, self-isolation and quarantine for Covid-19 management published in English within 1 year (2019 to 28 th May, 2020) were eligible to the review. We searched MEDLINE (PubMed), Cochrane Library, SCOPUS and JSTOR with search terms included “contact tracing” or “testing” or “self-isolation” or “quarantine” in the title in combination with “Covid-19” or “COVID-19” or “coronavirus” in the title or abstract. Studies not associated with TTI or Covid-19 or being solely commentary were excluded. A narrative synthesis with a tabulation system was used to analyse studies for their diverse research designs, methods, and implications. Data for the case study were obtained from the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Centers for Disease Control Taiwan.

Results

Among the 160 initial publications, 48 eligible studies are included in the review. Included studies applied various designs: experiments, clinical studies, Government Documents, systematic reviews, observational studies, surveys, practice guidelines, technical reports. A case study on TTI delivery is summarised based on policy and procedures in Taiwan.

Conclusions

The information included in the review may inform the TTI program in the UK.

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  1. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.04.20122614v2 on medRxiv
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.04.20122614: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: The data was lawfully accessed and linked under the Taiwan Infectious Disease Control Act, for the purpose of containing disease outbreak, authorization or consent to the retrieval of individual information by the relevant government authorities can be waived.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.

    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.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.04.20122614v1 on medRxiv