Eurosurveillance
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Only strict quarantine measures can curb the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Italy, 2020.
Several Italian towns are under lockdown to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. The level of transmission reduction required for physical distancing interventions to mitigate the epidemic is a crucial question. We show that very high adherence to community quarantine (total stay-home policy) and a small household size is necessary for curbing the outbreak in a locked-down town. The larger the household size and amount of time in the public, the longer the lockdown period needed.
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The World Health Organization has declared COVID-19 caused by the newly discovered SARS-CoV-2 a pandemic. Due to growing demand for reagents and/or kits to extract SARS-CoV-2 RNA for subsequent RT-qPCR diagnostics, there is a worldwide risk of shortages. With a detection sensitivity of 97.4% (95% CI: 86.2-99.9%), we describe a simple, fast, alternative workflow for molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2, where samples are simply heat-processed for 5 min at 98 °C before a commonly-used RT-qPCR procedure.
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We describe clinical characteristics, treatments and outcomes of 44 Caucasian patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a single hospital in Pavia, Italy, from 21-28 February 2020, at the beginning of the outbreak in Europe. Seventeen patients developed severe disease, two died. After a median of 6 days, 14 patients were discharged from hospital. Predictors of lower odds of discharge were age > 65 years, antiviral treatment and for severe disease, lactate dehydrogenase > 300 mg/dL.
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BackgroundEstimating key infectious disease parameters from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak is essential for modelling studies and guiding intervention strategies. AimWe estimate the generation interval, serial interval, proportion of pre-symptomatic transmission and effective reproduction number of COVID-19. We illustrate that reproduction numbers calculated based on serial interval estimates can be biased. ⋯ Sensitivity analyses showed that estimating these quantities from outbreak data requires detailed contact tracing information. ConclusionHigh estimates of the proportion of pre-symptomatic transmission imply that case finding and contact tracing need to be supplemented by physical distancing measures in order to control the COVID-19 outbreak. Notably, quarantine and other containment measures were already in place at the time of data collection, which may inflate the proportion of infections from pre-symptomatic individuals.
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BackgroundCOVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, first appeared in China and subsequently developed into an ongoing epidemic. Understanding epidemiological factors characterising the transmission dynamics of this disease is of fundamental importance. AimsThis study aimed to describe key epidemiological parameters of COVID-19 in Hong Kong. ⋯ The secondary attack rate among close contacts was 11.7%. ConclusionWith a considerable containment delay and short serial interval, contact-tracing effectiveness may not be optimised to halt the transmission with rapid generations replacement. Our study highlights the transmission risk of social interaction and pivotal role of physical distancing in suppressing the epidemic.