Coronavirus [NEW TOPIC PAGE]

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 Coronavirus

Covid-19: Universal screening is likely to miss infected people, review finds
G Iacobucci, BMJ, September 17, 2020

“Low-certainty evidence suggests that screening at travel hubs may slightly slow the importation of infected cases. A high proportion of infected individuals may be missed and go on to infect others, and some healthy individuals may be falsely identified as positive, requiring confirmatory testing and potentially leading to unnecessary isolation of individuals.”

Associations between phone mobility data and COVID-19 cases
O Gatalo et al, Lancet Infectious Diseases, September 15, 2020

Our results suggest that mobile phone mobility data only captured a small component of the behaviors associated with social distancing that reduced transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the early stages of the pandemic. Other factors, such as wearing a mask or maintaining distance even when encountering individuals, are likely to be more important than mobility alone.

Clustering and superspreading potential of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Hong Kong
DC Adam et al, Nature Medicine, September 17, 2020

Using contact tracing data from 1,038 cases in Hong Kong, we identified and characterized all local clusters of infection. We identified 4–7 SSEs across 51 clusters (n?=?309 cases) and estimated that 19% (95% confidence interval, 15–24%) of cases seeded 80% of all local transmission.

Fast coronavirus tests: what they can and can't do
G Guglielmi, Nature, September 16, 2020

Antigen assays are much faster and cheaper than the gold-standard tests that detect viral RNA using a technique called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). But antigen tests aren’t as sensitive as the PCR versions, which can pick up minuscule amounts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Detection of SARS-CoV-2 with SHERLOCK One-Pot Testing
J Joung et al, NEJM, September 16, 2020

We describe a simple test for detection of SARS-CoV-2. The sensitivity of this test is similar to that of reverse-transcription–quantitative polymerase-chain-reaction (RT-qPCR) assays. STOP (SHERLOCK testing in one pot) is a streamlined assay that combines simplified extraction of viral RNA with isothermal amplification and CRISPR-mediated detection.