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Prospective Observational Study of Screening Asymptomatic Healthcare Workers for SARS-CoV-2 at a Canadian Tertiary Care Center
Preprint
in English
| medRxiv
| ID: ppmedrxiv-20159053
ABSTRACT
We screened three separate cohorts of healthcare workers for SARS-CoV-2 via nasopharyngeal swab PCR. A seroprevalence analysis using multiple assays was performed in a subgroup. The asymptomatic health care worker cohorts had a combined swap positivity rate of 29/5776 (0.50%, 95%CI 0.32-0.75) compared to the symptomatic cohort rate of 54/1597 (3.4%) (ratio of symptomatic to asymptomatic 6.81). Sequencing demonstrated several variants. The seroprevalence (n=996) was 1.4-3.4% depending on assay. Protein microarray analysis showed differing SARS-CoV-2 protein reactivities and helped define likely true positives vs. suspected false positives. Routine screening of asymptomatic health care workers helps identify a significant proportion of infections.
cc_no
Full text:
Available
Collection:
Preprints
Database:
medRxiv
Type of study:
Cohort_studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Language:
English
Year:
2020
Document type:
Preprint
