COVID-19 Isolation and Contact Tracing with Country Samples: A Systematic Review
Abstract
Background: COVID-19 was first declared as an international public health emergency and then a pandemic by the WHO. In this systematic review, the importance of isolation and contact tracing has been explained, and what kinds of practices exist in different countries are mentioned.
Methods: A systematic review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA and Cochrane guidelines by searching articles from major medical databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed/MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, CINAHL between Jan 1, 2020 and Apr 1, 2021. Observational and modeling studies written on contact tracing, screening, quarantine and isolation were included.
Results: 27 observational and modeling studies were included. It was seen that rapid contact tracing to reduce the basic reproduction number (R0) from 3.11 to 0.21. Additionally, each new case requires an average of 36 people to be monitored. Since screening programs missed 75% of cases, high-level contact tracing should also be done simultaneously. Wide quarantine would prevent 79.27% deaths and 87.08% infections.
Conclusion: Effective, rapid contact tracing is the cornerstone of an effective public health response in outbreaks. Its success depends on quickly identifying cases, gathering information from them about their last contacts, and tracing and isolating those contacts.
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22. Shen M, Peng Z, Guo Y, et al (2020). As-sessing the effects of metropolitan-wide quarantine on the spread of COVID-19 in public space and households. Interna-tional Journal of Infectious Diseases, 96: 503-505. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.05.019
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24. Keeling MJ, Hollingsworth TD, Read JM (2020). The efficacy of contact tracing for the containment of the 2019 novel coro-navirus (COVID-19). J Epidemiol Communi-ty Health, 74(10): 861-866.
25. Spencer KD, Chung CL, Stargel A, et al (2021). COVID-19 case investigation and contact tracing efforts from health de-partments - United States. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 70(3): 83-87. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7003a3.htm?s_cid=mm7003a3_w
26. Davidson H (2020). China’s coronavirus health code apps raise concerns over pri-vacy. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/chinas-coronavirus-health-code-apps-raise-concerns-over-privacy
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28. Chrysaidos N (2020). Iranian coronavirus app collecting sensitive information. Available from: https://blog.avast.com/iranian-coronavirus-app-collecting-sensitive-information-avast ,
29. A Singapore Government Agency Website (2020). TraceTogether - behind the scenes look at its development process. Available from: https://www.tech.gov.sg/media/technews/tracetogether-behind-the-scenes-look-at-its-development-process
30. Winer S (2021). Health Ministry launches phone app to help prevent spread of coronavirus. Available from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/health-ministry-launches-phone-app-to-help-prevent-spread-of-coronavirus/
31. Agrawal A. Madianama.com (2020). Indian Government releases COVID-19 contact tracing app. Available from: https://www.medianama.com/2020/04/223-aarogya-setu-coronavirus-contact-tracing-app-launched/
32. Berke A, Bakker M, Vepakomma P, Raskar R, Larson K, Pentland A (2020). As-sessing disease exposure risk with loca-tion histories and protecting privacy: a cryptographic approach in response to a global pandemic. arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.14412.
33. Anadolu Agency (2020). In the fight against COVID-19, the mobile application “Hayat Eve Sığar” was launched. Availa-ble from: https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/koronavirus/kovid-19-ile-mucadelede-hayat-eve-sigar-mobil-uygulamasi-hayata-gecirildi/1809714
34. Anadolu Agency (2020). Details of the HES code period in travels. Available from: https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/saglik/seyahatlerde-hes-kodu-doneminin-ayrintilari/1848773
2. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (2020). Rapid risk assess-ment: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the EU/EEA and the UK- eighth update 2020. Available from: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19-rapid-risk-assessment-coronavirus-disease-2019-eighth-update-8-april-2020.pdf
3. Adhikari SP, Meng S, Wu YJ, et al (2020). Epidemiology, causes, clinical manifesta-tion and diagnosis, prevention and con-trol of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during the early outbreak period: a scop-ing review. Infect Dis Poverty, 9:29.
4. Shamseer L, Moher D, Clarke M, et al (2015). Preferred reporting items for sys-tematic review and meta-analysis proto-cols (PRISMA-P) 2015: elaboration and explanation. BMJ, 349: g7647 doi: 10.1136/bmj.g7647
5. Higgins JPT, Thomas J, Chandler J, Cump-ston M, Li T, Page MJ, et al (2019). Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of in-terventions. 2nd ed. The Cochrane Collabo-ration and John Wiley & Sons Ltd, the United Kingdom.
6. COVID-19 National Emergency Response Center, Epidemiology and Case Man-agement Team, Korea Centers for Dis-ease Control and Prevention (2020). Contact transmission of COVID-19 in South Korea: Novel investigation tech-niques for tracing contacts. Osong Public Health Res Perspect, 11(1): 60-63.
7. Africa Centres for Disease Control and Pre-vention (2020). Guidance on contact trac-ing for COVID-19 pandemic. Available from: https://africacdc.org/download/guidance-on-contact-tracing-for-covid-19-pandemic/
8. Fox M (2020). ‘We need an army’: Hiring of coronavirus trackers seen as key to curb-ing disease spread. Available from: https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/13/coronavirus-health-agencies-need-army-of-contact-tracers/
9. Government of Canada (2020). COVID-19: How you can help. Available from: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/make-a-difference.html
10. COVID-19 National Emergency Response Center, Epidemiology and Case Man-agement Team, Korea Centers for Dis-ease Control and Prevention (2020). Coronavirus Disease-19: summary of 2,370 contact investigations of the first 30 cases in the Republic of Korea. Osong Pub-lic Health Res Perspect, 11(2): 81-84. doi: 10.24171/j.phrp.2020.11.2.04.
11. Habertakvimi (2020). Minister Koca: Except for Istanbul, there is no province whose number of cases has not decreased. Available from: https://habertakvimi.com/haber/5589551/bakan-koca-istanbul-haricinde-vaka-sayisi-azalmayan-il-yok
12. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (2020). Contact tracing for COVID-19: current evidence, options for scale-up and an assessment of resources needed. Available from: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/contact-tracing-covid-19-evidence-scale-up-assessment-resources
13. World Health Organization (2020). Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Available from: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf
14. Pung R, Chiew CJ, Young BE, et al (2020). Investigation of three clusters of COVID-19 in Singapore: Implications for surveillance and response measures. The Lancet, 28;395(10229): 1039-1046.
15. Chen W, Wang Q, Li Y, et al (2020). [Early containment strategies and core measures for prevention and control of novel coronavirus pneumonia in China]. Zhong-hua Yu Fang Yi Xue Za Zhi, 54(3):239-44. [Article in Chinese]
16. Moradi H, Vaezi A (2020). Lessons learned from Korea: Covid-19 Pandemic. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol, 41(7):873-874.
17. Fang Y, Zhang S, Yu Z, Wang H, Deng Q (2020). Shenzhen’ experience on contain-ing 2019 novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia transmission. QJM, 113(6): 389-390. doi: 10.1093/qjmed/hcaa112..
18. Wei WE, Li Z, Chiew CJ, Yong SE, Toh MP, Lee VJ (2020). Presymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 - Singa-pore, January 23-March 16, 2020. CDC, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 69(14); 411-415. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6914e1.htm#suggestedcitation
19. Nguyen THD, Vu DC (2020). Summary of the COVID-19 outbreak in Vietnam - lessons and suggestions. Travel Med Infect Dis, 37:101651.
20. Baker M, Kvalsvig A, Verrall A, Telfar-Barnard L, Wilson N (2020). New Zea-land's elimination strategy for the COVID-19 pandemic and what is re-quired to make it work. N Z Med J, 133(1512):10-14.
21. Hu Z, Cui Q, Han J, Wang X, Sha WEI, Teng Z (2020). Evaluation and prediction of the COVID-19 variations at different input population and quarantine strate-gies, a case study in Guangdong prov-ince, China. Int J Infect Dis, 95: 231-40. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.04.010.
22. Shen M, Peng Z, Guo Y, et al (2020). As-sessing the effects of metropolitan-wide quarantine on the spread of COVID-19 in public space and households. Interna-tional Journal of Infectious Diseases, 96: 503-505. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.05.019
23. Kucharski AJ, Klepac P, Conlan AJK, et al (2020). Effectiveness of isolation, testing, contact tracing and physical distancing on reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in different settings: a mathematical model-ling study. Lancet Infect Dis, 20: 1151-60.
24. Keeling MJ, Hollingsworth TD, Read JM (2020). The efficacy of contact tracing for the containment of the 2019 novel coro-navirus (COVID-19). J Epidemiol Communi-ty Health, 74(10): 861-866.
25. Spencer KD, Chung CL, Stargel A, et al (2021). COVID-19 case investigation and contact tracing efforts from health de-partments - United States. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 70(3): 83-87. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7003a3.htm?s_cid=mm7003a3_w
26. Davidson H (2020). China’s coronavirus health code apps raise concerns over pri-vacy. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/chinas-coronavirus-health-code-apps-raise-concerns-over-privacy
27. Knight W (2020). Phones could track the spread of COVID-19. Is it a good ıdea? Available from: https://www.wired.com/story/phones-track-spread-covid19-good-idea/
28. Chrysaidos N (2020). Iranian coronavirus app collecting sensitive information. Available from: https://blog.avast.com/iranian-coronavirus-app-collecting-sensitive-information-avast ,
29. A Singapore Government Agency Website (2020). TraceTogether - behind the scenes look at its development process. Available from: https://www.tech.gov.sg/media/technews/tracetogether-behind-the-scenes-look-at-its-development-process
30. Winer S (2021). Health Ministry launches phone app to help prevent spread of coronavirus. Available from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/health-ministry-launches-phone-app-to-help-prevent-spread-of-coronavirus/
31. Agrawal A. Madianama.com (2020). Indian Government releases COVID-19 contact tracing app. Available from: https://www.medianama.com/2020/04/223-aarogya-setu-coronavirus-contact-tracing-app-launched/
32. Berke A, Bakker M, Vepakomma P, Raskar R, Larson K, Pentland A (2020). As-sessing disease exposure risk with loca-tion histories and protecting privacy: a cryptographic approach in response to a global pandemic. arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.14412.
33. Anadolu Agency (2020). In the fight against COVID-19, the mobile application “Hayat Eve Sığar” was launched. Availa-ble from: https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/koronavirus/kovid-19-ile-mucadelede-hayat-eve-sigar-mobil-uygulamasi-hayata-gecirildi/1809714
34. Anadolu Agency (2020). Details of the HES code period in travels. Available from: https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/saglik/seyahatlerde-hes-kodu-doneminin-ayrintilari/1848773
| Files | ||
| Issue | Vol 50 No 8 (2021) | |
| Section | Review Article(s) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.18502/ijph.v50i8.6800 | |
| Keywords | ||
| COVID-19 Isolation Quarantine Contact tracing | ||
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How to Cite
1.
Koçak C. COVID-19 Isolation and Contact Tracing with Country Samples: A Systematic Review. Iran J Public Health. 2021;50(8):1547-1554.
