Carl-Etienne Juneau , Anne-Sara Briand , Pablo Collazzo , Uwe Siebert , Tomas Pueyo
{"title":"Effective contact tracing for COVID-19: A systematic review","authors":"Carl-Etienne Juneau , Anne-Sara Briand , Pablo Collazzo , Uwe Siebert , Tomas Pueyo","doi":"10.1016/j.gloepi.2023.100103","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Contact tracing is commonly recommended to control outbreaks of COVID-19, but its effectiveness is unclear. Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched four databases using a range of terms related to contact tracing effectiveness for COVID-19. We found 343 papers; 32 were included. All were observational or modelling studies. Observational studies (<em>n</em> = 14) provided consistent, very-low certainty evidence that contact tracing (alone or in combination with other interventions) was associated with better control of COVID-19 (e.g. in Hong Kong, only 1084 cases and four deaths were recorded in the first 4.5 months of the pandemic). Modelling studies (<em>n</em> = 18) provided consistent, high-certainty evidence that under assumptions of prompt and thorough tracing with effective quarantines, contact tracing could stop the spread of COVID-19 (e.g. by reducing the reproduction number from 2.2 to 0.57). A cautious interpretation indicates that to stop the spread of COVID-19, public health practitioners have 2–3 days from the time a new case develops symptoms to isolate the case and quarantine at least 80% of its contacts.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":36311,"journal":{"name":"Global Epidemiology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9997056/pdf/","citationCount":"30","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Global Epidemiology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590113323000068","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 30
Abstract
Contact tracing is commonly recommended to control outbreaks of COVID-19, but its effectiveness is unclear. Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched four databases using a range of terms related to contact tracing effectiveness for COVID-19. We found 343 papers; 32 were included. All were observational or modelling studies. Observational studies (n = 14) provided consistent, very-low certainty evidence that contact tracing (alone or in combination with other interventions) was associated with better control of COVID-19 (e.g. in Hong Kong, only 1084 cases and four deaths were recorded in the first 4.5 months of the pandemic). Modelling studies (n = 18) provided consistent, high-certainty evidence that under assumptions of prompt and thorough tracing with effective quarantines, contact tracing could stop the spread of COVID-19 (e.g. by reducing the reproduction number from 2.2 to 0.57). A cautious interpretation indicates that to stop the spread of COVID-19, public health practitioners have 2–3 days from the time a new case develops symptoms to isolate the case and quarantine at least 80% of its contacts.