University students and staff able to maintain low daily contact numbers during various COVID-19 guideline periods
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Abstract
Introduction
UK universities re-opened in September 2020, despite the on-going coronavirus epidemic. During the first term, various national social distancing measures were introduced, including banning groups of >6 people and the second lockdown in November. COVID-19 can spread rapidly in university-settings, and students’ adherence to social distancing measures is critical for controlling transmission.
Methods
We measured university staff and student contact patterns via an online, longitudinal survey capturing self-reported contacts on the previous day. We investigated the change in contacts associated with COVID-19 guidance periods: post-first lockdown (23/06/2020-03/07/2020), relaxed guidance period (04/07/2020-13/09/2020), “rule-of-six” period (14/09/2020-04/11/2020), and the second lockdown (05/11/2020-25/11/2020).
Results
722 staff (4199 responses) (mean household size: 2.6) and 738 students (1906 responses) (mean household size: 4.5) were included in the study. Contact number decreased with age. Staff in single-person households reported fewer contacts than individuals in 2-and 3-person households, and individuals in 4-and 5-person households reported more contacts.
For staff, daily contacts were higher in the relaxed guidance and “rule-of-six” periods (means: 3.2 and 3.5, respectively; medians: 3) than the post-first lockdown and second lockdown periods (means: 4.5 and 5.4, respectively; medians: 2). Few students responded until 05/10/2020, after which the median student contacts was 2 and the mean was 5.7, until the second lockdown when it dropped to 3.1.
Discussion
University staff and students responded to national guidance by altering their social contacts. The response in staff and students was similar, suggesting that students are able to adhere to social distancing guidance while at university.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.19.21250097: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Ethical approval: Ethical approval was granted on the 14/05/2020 by the Health Sciences University Research Ethics Committee at the University of Bristol (ID 104903), with four amendment requests approved on the 22/05/2020, 09/06/2020, 27/08/2020, and 07/09/2020 to update the relevance of the questions or to make the survey faster and easier to complete.
Consent: Participants were aged ≥18, voluntarily opted-in to the study and were required to give their informed consent before starting the survey.Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Re…
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.19.21250097: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Ethical approval: Ethical approval was granted on the 14/05/2020 by the Health Sciences University Research Ethics Committee at the University of Bristol (ID 104903), with four amendment requests approved on the 22/05/2020, 09/06/2020, 27/08/2020, and 07/09/2020 to update the relevance of the questions or to make the survey faster and easier to complete.
Consent: Participants were aged ≥18, voluntarily opted-in to the study and were required to give their informed consent before starting the survey.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:Strengths and limitations: The strengths of this survey include the sample size, longitudinal format, and anonymous nature that enabled us to capture self-reported contact patterns of a large number of staff and students during a key period in the UK’s COVID-19 pandemic. It provides a unique data source on student and staff behaviour during the pandemic for informing public health action and mathematical models. Results for students are likely generalisable to other UK city-based universities, and to some city-based universities in other countries. Meanwhile, the staff results are likely generalisable to a working cohort of the general population, due to their age profile. Survey questions were designed to be comparable to existing contact surveys17-19. However, the survey started after the first lockdown period, so we are unable to compare whether contacts during the second lockdown were higher than in the first. Also, we cannot ascertain what caused the changes in numbers of contacts. We lack student data for the early period of the survey, as data collection could not be scaled up until October, therefore, we only have robust data on students from October onwards. Additionally, those with many contacts or with little available time may have been deterred from completing it, which may mean it is not representative. We include clear instructions defining “contacts” in the survey; however, people may interpret the instructions differently leading to variation in what people c...
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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