ArticlePublic health2022
Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant (B.1.1.7) on prisons, England.
Article in Public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Near-source wastewater surveillance as a non-invasive tool for disease detection in prisons.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Surveillance of Viral Respiratory Infections within Maximum-Security Prison, Australia.Emerging infectious diseases · 2025Review
- Insights into SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance among Prison Populations in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, in 2022.Viruses · 2024Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesPrisons are high-risk settings for infectious disease outbreaks because of their highly dynamic and crowded nature. During late 2020, prisons in England observed a surge in COVID-19 infection. This study describes the emergence of the Alpha variant in prisons during this period.
methodsAlpha and non-Alpha variant COVID-19 cases were identified in prisoners in England using address-matched laboratory notifications and genomic information from COG-UK.
resultsOf 14,094 COVID-19-positive prisoner cases between 1 October 2020 and 28 March 2021, 11.5% (n = 1621) had sequencing results. Of these, 1082 (66.7%) were identified as the Alpha variant. Twenty-nine (2.7%) Alpha cases required hospitalisation compared with only five (1.0%; P = 0.02) non-Alpha cases. A total of 14 outbreaks were identified with the median attack rate higher for Alpha (17.9%, interquartile range [IQR] 3.2%-32.2%; P = 0.11) than non-Alpha outbreaks (3.5%, IQR 2.0%-10.2%).
conclusionHigher attack rates and increased likelihood of hospitalisations were observed for Alpha cases compared with non-Alpha. This suggests a key contribution to the rise in cases, hospitalisations and outbreaks in prisons in the second wave. With prisons prone to COVID-19 outbreaks and the potential to act as reservoirs for variants of concern, sequencing of prison-associated cases alongside whole-institution vaccination should be prioritised.
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