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Self-administered, remote assessment of SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in health care workers
Lauren Card1, Christine M Litwin2, Scott Curry3
1South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research Institute, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA.
Background:
Our objective was to safely and remotely assess longitudinal SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in at-risk health care workers at the onset of the epidemic.
Methods:
Self-administered serologic testing was performed every 30 days up to 5 times using a point-of-care, lateral flow SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid IgG immunoassay in a cohort of at-risk health care workers (n = 339) and lower-risk controls (n = 100).
Results:
Subjects were enrolled between 4/14/20-5/6/20 and most were clinicians (41%) or nurses (27%). Of 20 subjects who reported confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection prior to (n = 5, 1%) or during the study (n = 15, 3%), half (10/20) were seropositive. Five additional subjects were seropositive and did not report documented infection. Estimated infection rates in health care workers did not differ from concurrent community rates.
Conclusions:
This remotely conducted, contact-free study did not identify serologic evidence of widespread occupational SARS-CoV-2 infection in health care workers.
