ArticlePloS one2022
Where is the greatest risk of COVID-19 infection? Findings from Germany's largest public health department, Cologne.
Article in PloS one, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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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.
- Why population heterogeneity matters for modelling infectious diseases.Interface focus · 2025Article
- Correction: Where is the greatest risk of COVID-19 infection? Findings from Germany's largest public health department, Cologne.PloS one · 2024Article
- Immune response analysis of solid organ transplantation recipients inoculated with inactivated COVID-19 vaccine: A retrospective analysis.Open medicine (Warsaw, Poland) · 2024Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSARS-CoV-2 has been spreading worldwide since late 2019. Before vaccines became available, exclusively non-pharmaceutical measures were used to prevent transmission of infection. Despite the fact that vaccinations are now available, it is still important to identify relevant transmission routes in order to contain the COVID-19- or further pandemics. Therefore, this study aims to systematically analyse data from the largest public health department in Germany to determine the significance of the various known and unknown transmission situations in terms of the proportion of infections.
methodsAll infections in Cologne were systematically recorded by the local health department. In addition to clinical data, the transmission situations were recorded and categorised as pertaining to social contact, work contact, travellers, health care workers, users of educational institutions, visitors of community institutions, infection in the context of medical treatment, and unknown infection.
findingsThe analysis included 25,966 persons. A transmission situation could be identified in 82.7% of the cases (n = 21,477). Most persons (42.1%) were infected due to social contact, primarily within their own household. Another 22.3% were infected at their place of work; this was particularly common among staff members of medical facilities, nursing homes and educational institutions. In 17.3% of the cases, the transmission situation remained unknown; the cases with unknown transmission situation were slightly more often symptomatic (75.2%) than the cases with known transmission situation (69.4%).
interpretationConsidering that during the study period the leading strains were the wild-type and alpha-variant transmission rather occurred during scenarios involving close contacts than in anonymous situations. Presumably, however, the findings can be transferred to the new variants. Therefore, in order to prevent transmission, besides vaccination regular antigen tests and/or appropriate protective measures remain relevant until this pandemic has subsided.
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