Viral Cultures for Assessing Airborne Transmission of SARs-CoV-2: a Systematic Review Protocol (version 1)

  1. Carl J. Heneghan
  2. Elizabeth A. Spencer
  3. Jon Brassey
  4. Elena C. Rosca
  5. Annette Plüddemann
  6. David H. Evans
  7. John M. Conly
  8. Susanna Maltoni
  9. Tom Jefferson
  10. Igho J. Onakpoya

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Abstract

This is a protocol for a systematic review that aims to evaluate the role of viral cultures for assessing airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The review will address the following research questions:

Are airborne samples infectious?

If so, what proportion are infectious, and what is the distance and duration of infectiousness in the air?

What is the relationship between infectiousness and airborne PCR cycle threshold (Ct)?

Is there evidence of a chain of transmission that establishes an actual instance of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2?

What circumstances might facilitate infectious viruses being airborne over long distances?

We will search LitCovid, medRxiv, Google Scholar, and the WHO Covid-19 database to identify relevant studies. We will include studies reporting airborne transmission attempting viral culture or serial qRT-PCR with or without genomic sequencing. Predictive or modelling studies will be excluded. We will assess the quality of included studies using previously published criteria.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.28.22270021: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Search Strategy: We will update our searches using four databases: LitCovid, medRxiv, Google Scholar, and the WHO Covid-19 database, using the terms aerosol OR airborne OR airborne OR inhalation OR air OR droplet and viral replication, viral culture, viral transmission and various synonyms from 10 September 2020 (the date our last systematic review search finished) to 30 December 2021.
    Google Scholar
    suggested: (Google Scholar, RRID:SCR_008878)
    Where the data permits we will undertake meta-analyses using R and Stata software packages.
    Stata
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    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 10.1101/2022.01.28.22270021v1 on medRxiv