Digital measurement of SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk from 7 million contacts
成果类型：
Article
署名作者：
Ferretti, Luca; Wymant, Chris; Petrie, James; Tsallis, Daphne; Kendall, Michelle; Ledda, Alice; Di Lauro, Francesco; Fowler, Adam; Di Francia, Andrea; Panovska-Griffiths, Jasmina; Abeler-Doerner, Lucie; Charalambides, Marcos; Briers, Mark; Fraser, Christophe
署名单位：
University of Oxford; University of Oxford; University of Warwick; UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA); Alan Turing Institute
刊物名称：
Nature
ISSN/ISSBN：
0028-5401
DOI：
10.1038/s41586-023-06952-2
发表日期：
2024-02-01
关键词：
摘要：
How likely is it to become infected by SARS-CoV-2 after being exposed? Almost everyone wondered about this question during the COVID-19 pandemic. Contact-tracing apps1,2 recorded measurements of proximity3 and duration between nearby smartphones. Contacts-individuals exposed to confirmed cases-were notified according to public health policies such as the 2 m, 15 min guideline4,5, despite limited evidence supporting this threshold. Here we analysed 7 million contacts notified by the National Health Service COVID-19 app6,7 in England and Wales to infer how app measurements translated to actual transmissions. Empirical metrics and statistical modelling showed a strong relation between app-computed risk scores and actual transmission probability. Longer exposures at greater distances had risk similar to that of shorter exposures at closer distances. The probability of transmission confirmed by a reported positive test increased initially linearly with duration of exposure (1.1% per hour) and continued increasing over several days. Whereas most exposures were short (median 0.7 h, interquartile range 0.4-1.6), transmissions typically resulted from exposures lasting between 1 h and several days (median 6 h, interquartile range 1.4-28). Households accounted for about 6% of contacts but 40% of transmissions. With sufficient preparation, privacy-preserving yet precise analyses of risk that would inform public health measures, based on digital contact tracing, could be performed within weeks of the emergence of a new pathogen. Digital measurements of proximity and duration of exposure by the NHS COVID-19 app show a strong relation to actual infections among 7 million contacts notified in England and Wales, with longer durations translating to increased risk of transmission.