COVID-19 outbreaks in Australia during a period of high epidemic control, 2020

  1. Freya G Hogarth
  2. Rachel Nye
  3. Nevada Pingault
  4. Simon Crouch
  5. Cushla Coffey
  6. Kylie Smith
  7. Rowena Boyd
  8. Catherine Kelaher
  9. Tracie Rentin
  10. Moira C Hewitt
  11. Ben Polkinghorne
  12. Martyn D Kirk

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Abstract

To describe characteristics of COVID-19 outbreaks in Australia to guide policy development for mitigation of future outbreaks, we conducted a retrospective analysis of COVID-19 outbreaks affecting two or more people reported to COVID-Net—an Australian national surveillance network—from 28 January until 27 December 2020. The COVID-Net surveillance network covered all Australian states and territories, with an estimated population of 25,649,985 persons as at 31 June 2020. We reported the epidemiology of COVID-19 outbreaks in Australia, including the setting in which they occurred, size, and duration.

853 outbreaks of COVID-19 were reported; associated with 13,957 confirmed cases, of whom 2,047 were hospitalised, and 800 died. The pattern of outbreaks followed a similar trend to the epidemic in Australia, defined by two distinct peaks in mid-March and July. Victoria reported the greatest number of outbreaks across all settings aligned with the second wave of infections. Outbreaks most commonly occurred in the workplace/industry setting (22%, 190/853), followed by education (14%, 122/853), residential aged care (13%, 114/853) and hospitals (10%, 83/853). The majority (40%, 340/853) of outbreaks had 6 to 24 cases, and the median outbreak duration increased in proportion with the number of associated cases.

This report summarising COVID-19 outbreaks in Australia identifies settings of highest risk. Surveillance of outbreaks informs our understanding of transmission dynamics in Australia relative to national and jurisdictional interventions. For settings that are high risk for COVID-19, it is important to prioritise planning, surveillance, and implementation of control measures.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.07.22270575: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsField Sample Permit: Ethics: Surveillance activities were conducted for and on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Health under the National Health Security Act 2007.
    IRB: The activities were approved by the Australian National University Human Ethics Committee [HREC/17/ANU/909].
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot 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.

    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 10.1101/2022.02.07.22270575 on medRxiv