Spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the Icelandic Population
By Daniel Fannar Gudbjartsson, A. Helgason, Hákon Jónsson, O. Magnusson, Páll Melsted, G. Norddahl, J. Saemundsdottir, A. Sigurdsson, P. Sulem, A. Agustsdottir and 30 more. New England Journal of Medicine, 2020
1,252 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract Background During the current worldwide pandemic, coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) was first diagnosed in Iceland at the end of February. However, data are limited on how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, enters and spreads in a population. Methods We targeted testing to persons living in Iceland who were at high risk for infection (mainly those who were symptomatic, had recently traveled to high-risk countries, or had contact with infected persons). We also carried out population screening using two strategies: issuing an open invitation to 10,797 persons and sending random invitations to 2283 persons. We sequenced SARS-CoV-2 from 643 samples. Results As of April 4, a total of 1221 of 9199 persons (13.3%) who were recruited for targeted testing had positive results for infection with SARS-CoV-2. Of those tested in the general population, 87 (0.8%) in the open-invitation screening and 13 (0.6%) in the random-population screening tested positive for the virus. In total, 6% of the population was screened. Most persons in the targeted-testing group who received positive tests early in the study had recently traveled internationally, in contrast to those who tested positive later in the study. Children under 10 years of age were less likely to receive a positive result than were persons 10 years of age or older, with percentages of 6.7% and 13.7%, respectively, for targeted testing; in the population screening, no child under 10 years of age had a positive result, as compared with 0.8% of those 10 years of age or older. Fewer females than males received positive results both in targeted testing (11.0% vs. 16.7%) and in population screening (0.6% vs. 0.9%). The haplotypes of the sequenced SARS-CoV-2 viruses were diverse and changed over time. The percentage of infected participants that was determined through population screening remained stable for the 20-day duration of screening. Conclusions In a population-based study in Iceland, children under 10 years of age and females had a lower incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection than adolescents or adults and males. The proportion of infected persons identified through population screening did not change substantially during the screening period, which was consistent with a beneficial effect of containment efforts. (Funded by deCODE Genetics–Amgen.)
Subfields: Infectious Diseases, Modeling and Simulation
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a3986993c0bc2e36f88efe3ff650324e20a3baa8
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
Citations in the corpus
- Assessing the age specificity of infection fatality rates for COVID-19: systematic review, meta-analysis, and public policy implications (2020, neutral): “[29] Studies of Iceland and Korea found that estimated prevalence was moderately higher than the number of reported cases, especially for younger age groups; hence we make corresponding adjustments for other countries with comprehensive tracing programs, and we identify these estimates as subject to”
- Improvements to the ARTIC multiplex PCR method for SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing using nanopore (2020, methodology): “Genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 has provided epidemiological insights into the early outbreak [7–9] and a number of studies have adopted our method [8,10–17].”
- REGN-COV2, a Neutralizing Antibody Cocktail, in Outpatients with Covid-19 (2020, background): “number of patients (percent) Any serious adverse event 1 (1) 0 1 (1) 2 (2) Any adverse event of special interest* 0 2 (2) 2 (1) 2 (2) Any serious adverse event of special interest* 0 0 0 0 Grade ≥2 infusion-related reaction within 4 days 0 2 (2) 2 (1) 1 (1) Grade ≥2 hypersensitivity reaction within ”
- Tracking Changes in SARS-CoV-2 Spike: Evidence that D614G Increases Infectivity of the COVID-19 Virus (2020, neutral): “Changes in sampling strategy during a regional molecular epidemiology survey conducted through the month of March 2020 might explain this exception (Gudbjartsson et al., 2020).”
- Collider bias undermines our understanding of COVID-19 disease risk and severity (2020, background): “(3)), population testing for COVID-19 is not generally performed in random samples.”