The burden and dynamics of hospital-acquired SARS-CoV-2 in England

Ben S. Cooper (), Stephanie Evans, Yalda Jafari, Thi Mui Pham, Yin Mo, Cherry Lim, Mark G. Pritchard, Diane Pople, Victoria Hall, James Stimson, David W. Eyre, Jonathan M. Read, Christl A. Donnelly, Peter Horby, Conall Watson, Sebastian Funk, Julie V. Robotham and Gwenan M. Knight
Additional contact information
Ben S. Cooper: University of Oxford
Stephanie Evans: UK Health Security Agency
Yalda Jafari: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Thi Mui Pham: Utrecht University
Yin Mo: University of Oxford
Cherry Lim: University of Oxford
Mark G. Pritchard: University of Oxford
Diane Pople: UK Health Security Agency
Victoria Hall: UK Health Security Agency
James Stimson: UK Health Security Agency
David W. Eyre: University of Oxford
Jonathan M. Read: Lancaster University
Christl A. Donnelly: University of Oxford
Peter Horby: University of Oxford
Conall Watson: University of Oxford
Sebastian Funk: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Julie V. Robotham: UK Health Security Agency
Gwenan M. Knight: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Nature, 2023, vol. 623, issue 7985, 132-138

Abstract: Abstract Hospital-based transmission had a dominant role in Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) epidemics1,2, but large-scale studies of its role in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic are lacking. Such transmission risks spreading the virus to the most vulnerable individuals and can have wider-scale impacts through hospital–community interactions. Using data from acute hospitals in England, we quantify within-hospital transmission, evaluate likely pathways of spread and factors associated with heightened transmission risk, and explore the wider dynamical consequences. We estimate that between June 2020 and March 2021 between 95,000 and 167,000 inpatients acquired SARS-CoV-2 in hospitals (1% to 2% of all hospital admissions in this period). Analysis of time series data provided evidence that patients who themselves acquired SARS-CoV-2 infection in hospital were the main sources of transmission to other patients. Increased transmission to inpatients was associated with hospitals having fewer single rooms and lower heated volume per bed. Moreover, we show that reducing hospital transmission could substantially enhance the efficiency of punctuated lockdown measures in suppressing community transmission. These findings reveal the previously unrecognized scale of hospital transmission, have direct implications for targeting of hospital control measures and highlight the need to design hospitals better equipped to limit the transmission of future high-consequence pathogens.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06634-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:623:y:2023:i:7985:d:10.1038_s41586-023-06634-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06634-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().