ArticleJournal of epidemiology and community health2020
Efficacy of contact tracing for the containment of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
Article in Journal of epidemiology and community health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 176 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
176 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- COVID-19 Contact Tracing Strategies During the First Wave of the Pandemic: Systematic Review of Published Studies.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Automated and partly automated contact tracing: a systematic review to inform the control of COVID-19.The Lancet. Digital health · 2020Pooled it
- SARS-CoV-2 recurrent RNA positivity after recovering from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): a meta-analysis.Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis · 2020Pooled it
- Digital contact tracing technologies in epidemics: a rapid review.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Facilitators and barriers to engagement with contact tracing during infectious disease outbreaks: A rapid review of the evidence.PloS one · 2020Pooled it
- Behavioural determinants of testing behaviour during a hypothetical human-to-human avian influenza outbreak: an interview study.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Why People Share (Or Don't): Race/Ethnicity and Contextual Correlates of Willingness to Disclose Contact Information During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Rural North Carolina.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Source Robust Non-Parametric Reconstruction of Epidemic-like Event-Based Network Diffusion Processes Under Online Data.Big data and cognitive computing · 2025Article
- BARRIERS AND FACILITATORS TO PROVIDING COVID-19 CONTACT TRACING INFORMATION AMONG ADULT NIGERIANS.African journal of infectious diseases · 2025Article
- The optimal spatially-dependent control measures to effectively and economically eliminate emerging infectious diseases.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Effectiveness of probabilistic contact tracing in epidemic containment: The role of superspreaders and transmission path reconstruction.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- Evaluation of the New York City COVID-19 case investigation and contact tracing program: a cascade of care analysis.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Estimating the contribution of setting-specific contacts to SARS-CoV-2 transmission using digital contact tracing data.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Phylogenetic inference of inter-population transmission rates for infectious diseases.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2024Article
- Impact of Shifting University Policies During the COVID-19 Pandemic on Self-Reported Employee Social Networks.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
- An Examination of Responses to COVID-19 Contact-Tracing Efforts in Black/African American and Hispanic/Latinx Communities of Los Angeles.Health equity · 2024Article
- Uncovering COVID-19 transmission tree: identifying traced and untraced infections in an infection network.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Model-informed health and socio-economic benefits of enhancing global equity and access to Covid-19 vaccines.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Real-time estimation of the effective reproduction number of COVID-19 from behavioral data.Scientific reports · 2023Article
116 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveContact tracing is a central public health response to infectious disease outbreaks, especially in the early stages of an outbreak when specific treatments are limited. Importation of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) from China and elsewhere into the UK highlights the need to understand the impact of contact tracing as a control measure.
designDetailed survey information on social encounters from over 5800 respondents is coupled to predictive models of contact tracing and control. This is used to investigate the likely efficacy of contact tracing and the distribution of secondary cases that may go untraced.
resultsTaking recent estimates for COVID-19 transmission we predict that under effective contact tracing less than 1 in 6 cases will generate any subsequent untraced infections, although this comes at a high logistical burden with an average of 36 individuals traced per case. Changes to the definition of a close contact can reduce this burden, but with increased risk of untraced cases; we find that tracing using a contact definition requiring more than 4 hours of contact is unlikely to control spread.
conclusionsThe current contact tracing strategy within the UK is likely to identify a sufficient proportion of infected individuals such that subsequent spread could be prevented, although the ultimate success will depend on the rapid detection of cases and isolation of contacts. Given the burden of tracing a large number of contacts to find new cases, there is the potential the system could be overwhelmed if imports of infection occur at a rapid rate.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.