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Large-Scale SARS-CoV-2 Testing Utilizing Saliva and Transposition Sample Pooling
Published on: June 23, 2022
Asymptomatic surveillance testing for COVID-19 in health care professional students: lessons learned from a low
Alyssa G Burrows1,2, Sophia Linton1,2, Jenny Thiele1,2
1Department of Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
Abstract:
The novel coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has severely impacted the training of health care professional students because of concerns of potential asymptomatic transmission to colleagues and vulnerable patients. From May 27th, 2020, to June 23rd 2021; at a time when B.1.1.7 (alpha) and B.1.617.2 (delta) were the dominant circulating variants, PCR testing was conducted on 1,237 nasopharyngeal swabs collected from 454 asymptomatic health care professional students as they returned to their studies from across Canada to Kingston, ON, a low prevalence area during that period for COVID-19. Despite 46.7% of COVID-19 infections occurring in the 18-29 age group in Kingston, severe-acute-respiratory coronavirus-2 was not detected in any of the samples suggesting that negligible asymptomatic infection occurred in this group and that PCR testing in this setting may not be warranted as a screening tool.
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