SARS-CoV-2 antibodies protect against reinfection for at least 6 months in a multicentre seroepidemiological workplace cohort
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Abstract
Identifying the potential for SARS-CoV-2 reinfection is crucial for understanding possible long-term epidemic dynamics. We analysed longitudinal PCR and serological testing data from a prospective cohort of 4,411 United States employees in 4 states between April 2020 and February 2021. We conducted a multivariable logistic regression investigating the association between baseline serological status and subsequent PCR test result in order to calculate an odds ratio for reinfection. We estimated an odds ratio for reinfection ranging from 0.14 (95% CI: 0.019 to 0.63) to 0.28 (95% CI: 0.05 to 1.1), implying that the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies at baseline is associated with around 72% to 86% reduced odds of a subsequent PCR positive test based on our point estimates. This suggests that primary infection with SARS-CoV-2 provides protection against reinfection in the majority of individuals, at least over a 6-month time period. We also highlight 2 major sources of bias and uncertainty to be considered when estimating the relative risk of reinfection, confounders and the choice of baseline time point, and show how to account for both in reinfection analysis.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.04.21256609: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Antibodies Sentences Resources Study participants were offered SARS-CoV-2 IgG receptor-binding domain (RBD) antibody testing with an in-house ELISA assay with 82·4% sensitivity and 99·6% specificity [19]. SARS-CoV-2 IgG receptor-binding domain (RBDsuggested: NoneResults from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:There are several limitations to the underlying data that should be considered when interpreting these findings. This prospective …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.04.21256609: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Antibodies Sentences Resources Study participants were offered SARS-CoV-2 IgG receptor-binding domain (RBD) antibody testing with an in-house ELISA assay with 82·4% sensitivity and 99·6% specificity [19]. SARS-CoV-2 IgG receptor-binding domain (RBDsuggested: NoneResults from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:There are several limitations to the underlying data that should be considered when interpreting these findings. This prospective cohort was recruited opportunistically from employees at one US company and is unlikely to be representative of the general population. However, as we did not identify any workplace outbreaks, transmission in this cohort is likely to be more reflective of community transmission than in health-care worker cohorts or other specialised populations. Additionally, we only considered possible reinfections (as opposed to probable or true reinfections). As possible reinfections did not meet a stringent case definition, such as confirmation through genomic sequencing, they may include cases of prolonged viral shedding following an initial infection. This would result in an overestimation of the odds ratio for reinfection and so our analysis reflects the minimum possible effect of antibodies on future SARS-CoV-2 infection risk. As well as quantifying reinfection risk over a six-month period among a prospectively followed workplace population, our study highlights the importance of accounting for both individual-level heterogeneity in infection risk and population-level variation in epidemic dynamics when assessing the potential for reinfections.
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.
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