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Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China

journal contribution
posted on 2021-01-08, 04:30 authored by S Cao, Y Gan, C Wang, M Bachmann, S Wei, J Gong, Y Huang, T Wang, L Li, K Lu, Heng JiangHeng Jiang, Y Gong, H Xu, X Shen, Q Tian, C Lv, F Song, X Yin, Z Lu
© 2020, The Author(s). Stringent COVID-19 control measures were imposed in Wuhan between January 23 and April 8, 2020. Estimates of the prevalence of infection following the release of restrictions could inform post-lockdown pandemic management. Here, we describe a city-wide SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening programme between May 14 and June 1, 2020 in Wuhan. All city residents aged six years or older were eligible and 9,899,828 (92.9%) participated. No new symptomatic cases and 300 asymptomatic cases (detection rate 0.303/10,000, 95% CI 0.270–0.339/10,000) were identified. There were no positive tests amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases. 107 of 34,424 previously recovered COVID-19 patients tested positive again (re-positive rate 0.31%, 95% CI 0.423–0.574%). The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Wuhan was therefore very low five to eight weeks after the end of lockdown.

Funding

We would like to thank all institutions and all citizens in Wuhan for their support for citywide nucleic acid screening work. We also would like to thank the Wuhan city government for this citywide nucleic acid testing, sampling and management, and thank the big data and investigation group of COVID-19 prevention and control institution in Wuhan (the data and investigation group of Wuhan Municipal Health Commission) for their efforts in the data collection. In addition, we would like to thank the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 18ZDA085) for supporting the fund.

History

Publication Date

2020-11-20

Journal

Nature Communications

Volume

11

Issue

1

Article Number

5917

Pagination

7p. (p. 1-7)

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

ISSN

2041-1723

Rights Statement

The Author reserves all moral rights over the deposited text and must be credited if any re-use occurs. Documents deposited in OPAL are the Open Access versions of outputs published elsewhere. Changes resulting from the publishing process may therefore not be reflected in this document. The final published version may be obtained via the publisher’s DOI. Please note that additional copyright and access restrictions may apply to the published version.

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    Keywords

    Science & TechnologyMultidisciplinary SciencesScience & Technology - Other TopicsHumansPneumonia, ViralCoronavirus InfectionsNucleic AcidsAntibodies, ViralMass ScreeningPrevalenceGeographyAdolescentAdultAgedAged, 80 and overMiddle AgedChildEmploymentChinaFemaleMaleYoung AdultAsymptomatic InfectionsPandemicsBetacoronavirusCOVID-19SARS-CoV-2

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    CC BY 4.0

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