Asymptomatic Employee Screening for SARS-CoV-2: Implementation of and Reactions to an Employer-Based Testing Program
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Abstract
Introduction
Asymptomatic testing for SARS-CoV-2 among healthcare workers or other essential personnel could remove infected carriers from the workforce, decreasing chances for transmission and workplace outbreaks. Results from one-time testing programs have been reported but data regarding longitudinal testing, including information about employee’s reactions to such programs, is not readily available.
Methods
To identify asymptomatic carriers of SARS-CoV-2, we implemented a longitudinal screening program for critical on-site employees within our research institute in early April 2020. We conducted a survey of both on-site employees and those working from home in order to measure their reactions to the testing program. Statistical analysis of the survey was conducted with general linear regression and Pearson’s Chi-Square tests.
Results
Despite an ongoing high community prevalence rate of COVID-19, to date only two asymptomatic employees tested positive out of 1050 tests run during 7 months of the program. However, 12 symptomatic employees not participating in the program have tested positive. The employee survey was completed by 132/306 (43%) employees, with 93% agreeing that asymptomatic employee screening led to a better and safer working environment and 75% agreeing with on-site public health measures to help contain the virus, but only 58% feeling COVID-19 was a serious threat to their health.
Conclusion
Our results suggest that a longitudinal asymptomatic employee screening program for SARS-CoV-2 can be accepted by employees and can be used to maintain the health of the workforce, potentially keeping positivity rates below community levels in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.06.20227314: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: The TGen Offices of Compliance, Human Resources and Legal Counsel approved the protocol and assisted in careful development of the consent forms to avoid any element of coercion, stressing that participation in the protocol was confidential and entirely voluntarily, and emphasizing that there would be no negative repercussions for not participating, such as loss of employment or reassignment of job duties. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.06.20227314: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: The TGen Offices of Compliance, Human Resources and Legal Counsel approved the protocol and assisted in careful development of the consent forms to avoid any element of coercion, stressing that participation in the protocol was confidential and entirely voluntarily, and emphasizing that there would be no negative repercussions for not participating, such as loss of employment or reassignment of job duties. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not 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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:There are several limitations to discuss. The number of employees participating in the screening program remains small, averaging less than 60 per week, and such a program may not be generalizable to larger workplaces. Additionally, the survey instrument we used has not yet been validated, although we plan on exploring this with future IRB-approved research. Our survey response rate was 43%, which is above reported averages for organizational surveys,25 but less than desired. Thus, the overwhelming support shown by respondents to the program could be due to volunteer bias, where those individuals who approve of such a program were more likely to complete the survey. Also, because of the need for complete anonymity we could not collect any demographic or identifying information, thus other important analyses of the survey results were not possible, such as whether or not the responses differed by sex or age of the participant. These variables are known to be important factors in understanding personal behaviors and beliefs about the pandemic 26,27 and by omitting them in our survey, generalizations to the broader population is limited. Another limitation is that we did not conduct a baseline survey prior to implementation of the program, so we are unable to assess whether the beliefs and attitudes about the testing program we collected post hoc were in fact altered by being part of the program, and not reflective of a priori beliefs and attitudes. In addition, the tested emplo...
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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