Quantifying SARS-CoV-2 transmission suggests epidemic control with digital contact tracing
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Abstract
New analyses indicate that severe acute respiratory syndrome–coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is more infectious and less virulent than the earlier SARS-CoV-1, which emerged in China in 2002. Unfortunately, the current virus has greater epidemic potential because it is difficult to trace mild or presymptomatic infections. As no treatment is currently available, the only tools that we can currently deploy to stop the epidemic are contact tracing, social distancing, and quarantine, all of which are slow to implement. However imperfect the data, the current global emergency requires more timely interventions. Ferretti et al. explored the feasibility of protecting the population (that is, achieving transmission below the basic reproduction number) using isolation coupled with classical contact tracing by questionnaires versus algorithmic instantaneous contact tracing assisted by a mobile phone application. For prevention, the crucial information is understanding the relative contributions of different routes of transmission. A phone app could show how finite resources must be divided between different intervention strategies for the most effective control.
Science , this issue p. eabb6936
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.08.20032946: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. 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 is an important caveat to this: the Singapore outbreak to date is small and has not implicated children. There has been widespread speculation that children could be frequent asymptomatic carriers and potential sources of …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.08.20032946: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. 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 is an important caveat to this: the Singapore outbreak to date is small and has not implicated children. There has been widespread speculation that children could be frequent asymptomatic carriers and potential sources of SARS-CoV-2 (38,39). We calibrated our estimate of the overall amount of transmission based on the epidemic growth rate observed in China not long after the epidemic started. Growth in Western European countries so far appears to be faster, implying either shorter intervals between individuals becoming infected and transmitting onwards, or a higher R0. We illustrate the latter effect in Figs S18 and S19. If this is an accurate picture of viral spread in Europe and not an artefact of early growth, epidemic control with only case isolation and quarantining of traced contacts appears implausible in this case, requiring near-universal App usage and near-perfect compliance. The App should be one tool among many general preventative population measures such as physical distancing, enhanced hand and respiratory hygiene, and regular decontamination. An App-based intervention could be more powerful than our analysis here suggests, however. The renewal equation mathematical framework we use, while well adapted to account for realistic infectiousness dynamics, is not well adapted to account for benefits of recursion over the transmission network. Once they have been confirmed as cases, individuals identified by tracing can trigger further tracing, as can their con...
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.
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