Search Menu
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Search Scholarly Publications

Title: Mitigation of SARS-CoV-2 transmission at a large public university

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [1]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1] more »;  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [4]; ORCiD logo [1];  [5];  [5];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [6]; ORCiD logo [1];  [7]; ORCiD logo [8]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [9];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [10];  [10];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [11];  [12];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [10];  [1];  [1];  [12];  [11];  [1];  [1];  [10];  [13];  [1];  [14];  [1];  [10];  [10];  [14];  [1];  [14];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [12];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [12];  [1];  [12];  [10];  [10];  [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [11];  [1];  [1];  [14];  [10];  [1];  [13];  [12];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [15];  [1];  [1];  [13];  [10];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [9]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [16]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1] « less
  1. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
  2. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States). Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)
  3. Stanford Univ., Palo Alto, CA (United States)
  4. Inabyte, Navato, CA (United States)
  5. OSF Healthcare, Peoria, IL (United States)
  6. Illinois Fire Service Institute, Champaign, IL (United States)
  7. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Tekmill, Champaign, IL (United States)
  8. Tekmill, Champaign, IL (United States)
  9. Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, Champaign, IL (United States)
  10. Univ. of Illinois, Chicago, IL (United States)
  11. Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States)
  12. Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States). School of Medicine
  13. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States)
  14. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
  15. Emory Univ., Atlanta, GA (United States); Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
  16. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

In Fall 2020, universities saw extensive transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among their populations, threatening health of the university and surrounding communities, and viability of in-person instruction. Here we report a case study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where a multimodal “SHIELD: Target, Test, and Tell” program, with other non-pharmaceutical interventions, was employed to keep classrooms and laboratories open. The program included epidemiological modeling and surveillance, fast/frequent testing using a novel low-cost and scalable saliva-based RT-qPCR assay for SARS-CoV-2 that bypasses RNA extraction, called covidSHIELD, and digital tools for communication and compliance. In Fall 2020, we performed >1,000,000 covidSHIELD tests, positivity rates remained low, we had zero COVID-19-related hospitalizations or deaths amongst our university community, and mortality in the surrounding Champaign County was reduced more than 4-fold relative to expected. This case study shows that fast/frequent testing and other interventions mitigated transmission of SARS-CoV-2 at a large public university.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); University of Illinois; National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012704; FG02-97ER25308
OSTI ID:
1902054
Report Number(s):
BNL-223764-2022-JAAM
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 13; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (45)

Comparison of Saliva and Nasopharyngeal Swab Nucleic Acid Amplification Testing for Detection of SARS-CoV-2 journal March 2021
Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Screening Strategies to Permit the Safe Reopening of College Campuses in the United States journal July 2020
SARS-CoV-2 Transmission From People Without COVID-19 Symptoms journal January 2021
Estimates of the severity of coronavirus disease 2019: a model-based analysis journal June 2020
SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV viral load dynamics, duration of viral shedding, and infectiousness: a systematic review and meta-analysis journal January 2021
Saliva sample as a non-invasive specimen for the diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019: a cross-sectional study journal February 2021
Virological and serological kinetics of SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant vaccine breakthrough infections: a multicentre cohort study journal April 2022
Detection and enumeration of airborne biocontaminants journal June 2004
Estimation of airborne viral emission: Quanta emission rate of SARS-CoV-2 for infection risk assessment journal August 2020
Delivery of infection from asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 in a familial cluster journal May 2020
Viral dynamics in asymptomatic patients with COVID-19 journal July 2020
Comparison of SARS-CoV-2 detection in nasopharyngeal swab and saliva journal August 2020
Simulating COVID-19 in a university environment journal October 2020
SalivaDirect: A simplified and flexible platform to enhance SARS-CoV-2 testing capacity journal March 2021
Daily longitudinal sampling of SARS-CoV-2 infection reveals substantial heterogeneity in infectiousness journal April 2022
Virological assessment of hospitalized patients with COVID-2019 journal April 2020
Temporal dynamics in viral shedding and transmissibility of COVID-19 journal April 2020
A modeling study to inform screening and testing interventions for the control of SARS-CoV-2 on university campuses journal March 2021
Awareness-driven behavior changes can shift the shape of epidemics away from peaks and toward plateaus, shoulders, and oscillations journal December 2020
Modeling for COVID-19 college reopening decisions: Cornell, a case study journal January 2022
A New Framework and Software to Estimate Time-Varying Reproduction Numbers During Epidemics journal September 2013
Repeated Coronavirus Disease 2019 Molecular Testing: Correlation of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Culture With Molecular Assays and Cycle Thresholds journal October 2020
Predicting Infectious Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 From Diagnostic Samples journal May 2020
Estimation of the test to test distribution as a proxy for generation interval distribution for the Omicron variant in England preprint January 2022
Rapid detection of SARS‐CoV‐2 in saliva: can an endodontist take the lead in point‐of‐care COVID‐19 testing? journal May 2020
SARS‐CoV‐2: What can saliva tell us? journal May 2020
Efficient high-throughput SARS-CoV-2 testing to detect asymptomatic carriers journal August 2020
Test sensitivity is secondary to frequency and turnaround time for COVID-19 screening journal November 2020
Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) journal March 2020
Quantifying SARS-CoV-2 transmission suggests epidemic control with digital contact tracing journal March 2020
Airborne transmission of respiratory viruses journal August 2021
Daily Viral Kinetics and Innate and Adaptive Immune Response Assessment in COVID-19: a Case Series journal December 2020
Modelling the impact of presemester testing on COVID-19 outbreaks in university campuses journal December 2020
Estimating the time-varying reproduction number of SARS-CoV-2 using national and subnational case counts journal December 2020
Viral dynamics of acute SARS-CoV-2 infection and applications to diagnostic and public health strategies journal July 2021
Practical considerations for measuring the effective reproductive number, Rt journal December 2020
The Small-World Network of College Classes: Implications for Epidemic Spread on a University Campus journal January 2020
Multiple COVID-19 Clusters on a University Campus — North Carolina, August 2020 journal October 2020
Estimating the generation interval for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) based on symptom onset data, March 2020 journal April 2020
An alternative workflow for molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2 – escape from the NA extraction kit-shortage, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 2020 journal April 2020
Evidence Supporting Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 While Presymptomatic or Asymptomatic journal July 2020
Saliva as a Candidate for COVID-19 Diagnostic Testing: A Meta-Analysis journal August 2020
Saliva—Friend and Foe in the COVID-19 Outbreak journal May 2020
Viral load and contact heterogeneity predict SARS-CoV-2 transmission and super-spreading events journal February 2021
Stochastic social behavior coupled to COVID-19 dynamics leads to waves, plateaus, and an endemic state journal November 2021

Similar Records

Related Subjects

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES
SARS-CoV-2
computational models
epidemiology
infectious-disease diagnostics
microbiology techniques