Defining the peak: Point prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 using randomised sampling

• DOI: 10.33321/cdi.2022.46.24
• Publication Date: 2022-04-26T01:26:59Z
• Authors: Andre L Wattiaux; Fiona May; Terresa Allen; Tracy Bladen; Brielle Pery; Lisa McHugh; Vicki Slinko; Alice Sykes; Lashan De Silva; Jay Bajra; Ross Andrews; Gulam Khandaker
• Keywords: Prevalence; Gold standard (test)

Since Queensland eased border restrictions to the rest of Australia on 13 December 2021, notified cases Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) dramatically increased, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant now most widespread concern: 145,881 and deaths were recorded in month following opening border. For an effective public health response a highly transmissible disease, it is important know prevalence community, but exponential increase meant that many symptoms had difficulty getting tested. We implemented surveillance program Gold Coast used modified randomised household cluster survey method estimate point individuals detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The estimated PCR self-collected swabs was 17.2% first visit households (22 January 2022). This subsequently decreased 5.2% (5 February 2022) finally 1.1% (19 Out 1,379 specimens tested over five weeks, 63 35 (55.6%) sequenced. All variant: B.1.1.529 (i.e. Omicron). could be scaled up or reproduced other jurisdictions COVID-19 community.Since community.