tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
JMIR Public Health Surveill
. 2020 Aug 3.
doi: 10.2196/20828. Online ahead of print.
Real-time digital contact tracing: Development of a system to control COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes and long-term care facilities
Gerald Wilmink[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Ilyssa Summer[SUP] 1 [/SUP], David Marsyla[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Subhashree Sukhu[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Jeffrey Grote[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Gregory Zobel[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Howard Fillit[SUP] 2 3 [/SUP], Satish Movva[SUP] 1 [/SUP]
Affiliations
Abstract
Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can spread rapidly in nursing homes and long term care (LTC) facilities. Symptoms-based screening and manual contact tracing have limitations that render them ineffective for containing viral spread in LTC facilities: (i) symptoms-based screening alone cannot identify asymptomatic infected persons; (ii) viral spread is too fast in confined living quarters to be contained by slow manual contact tracing processes.
Objective: We describe the development of a digital contact tracing system that LTC facilities can use to rapidly identify and contain asymptomatic and symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infected contacts. A compartmental model was also developed to simulate disease transmission dynamics and to assess system performance versus conventional methods.
Methods: We developed a compartmental model parameterized specifically to assess COVID-19 transmission in LTC facilities. The model was used to quantify the impact of asymptomatic transmission and to assess the performance of several intervention groups to control outbreaks: no intervention, symptom mapping, PCR testing, manual and digital contact tracing.
Results: Our digital contact tracing system allows users to rapidly identify and then isolate close contacts, store and track infection data in a respiratory line listing tool, and identify contaminated rooms. Our simulation results indicate that the speed and efficiency of digital contact tracing contributed to superior control performance yielding up to 52% fewer cases than conventional methods.
Conclusions: Digital contact tracing systems show promise as effective tool to control COVID-19 outbreaks in LTC facilities. As facilities prepare to relax restrictions and re-open to outside visitors, such tools will allow them to do so in a surgical, cost-effective manner that both controls outbreaks while also safely giving residents back the life they once had before this pandemic hit.
. 2020 Aug 3.
doi: 10.2196/20828. Online ahead of print.
Real-time digital contact tracing: Development of a system to control COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes and long-term care facilities
Gerald Wilmink[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Ilyssa Summer[SUP] 1 [/SUP], David Marsyla[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Subhashree Sukhu[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Jeffrey Grote[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Gregory Zobel[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Howard Fillit[SUP] 2 3 [/SUP], Satish Movva[SUP] 1 [/SUP]
Affiliations
- PMID: 32745013
- DOI: 10.2196/20828
Abstract
Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can spread rapidly in nursing homes and long term care (LTC) facilities. Symptoms-based screening and manual contact tracing have limitations that render them ineffective for containing viral spread in LTC facilities: (i) symptoms-based screening alone cannot identify asymptomatic infected persons; (ii) viral spread is too fast in confined living quarters to be contained by slow manual contact tracing processes.
Objective: We describe the development of a digital contact tracing system that LTC facilities can use to rapidly identify and contain asymptomatic and symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infected contacts. A compartmental model was also developed to simulate disease transmission dynamics and to assess system performance versus conventional methods.
Methods: We developed a compartmental model parameterized specifically to assess COVID-19 transmission in LTC facilities. The model was used to quantify the impact of asymptomatic transmission and to assess the performance of several intervention groups to control outbreaks: no intervention, symptom mapping, PCR testing, manual and digital contact tracing.
Results: Our digital contact tracing system allows users to rapidly identify and then isolate close contacts, store and track infection data in a respiratory line listing tool, and identify contaminated rooms. Our simulation results indicate that the speed and efficiency of digital contact tracing contributed to superior control performance yielding up to 52% fewer cases than conventional methods.
Conclusions: Digital contact tracing systems show promise as effective tool to control COVID-19 outbreaks in LTC facilities. As facilities prepare to relax restrictions and re-open to outside visitors, such tools will allow them to do so in a surgical, cost-effective manner that both controls outbreaks while also safely giving residents back the life they once had before this pandemic hit.