University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications

UMMS Affiliation

Department of Pathology

Publication Date

2020-08-06

Document Type

Article Preprint

Disciplines

Amino Acids, Peptides, and Proteins | Epidemiology | Immunology of Infectious Disease | Immunopathology | Infectious Disease | Virus Diseases

Abstract

Importance: A seroprevalence study can estimate the percentage of people with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the general population. Most existing reports have used a convenience sample, which may bias their estimates.

Objective: To estimate the seroprevalence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 based on a random sample of adults living in Connecticut between March 1 and June 1, 2020.

Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: We sought a representative sample of Connecticut residents who completed a survey between June 4 and June 23, 2020 and underwent serology testing for SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG antibodies between June 10 and July 6, 2020.

Participants: 505 respondents, aged ≥18 years, residing in non-congregate settings who completed both the survey and the serology test. Main outcomes and measures: We estimated the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG antibodies among the overall population and across pre-specified subgroups. We also assessed the prevalence of symptomatic illness, risk factors for virus exposure, and self-reported adherence to risk mitigation behaviors among this population.

Results: Of the 505 respondents (mean age 50 [±17] years; 54% women; 76% non-Hispanic White individuals) included, 32% reported having at least 1 symptom suggestive of COVID-19 since March 1, 2020. Overall, 18 respondents had SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies, resulting in the state-level weighted seroprevalence of 3.1 (90% CI 1.4-4.8). Individuals who were asymptomatic had significantly lower seroprevalence (0.6% [90% CI 0.0-1.5]) compared with the overall state estimate, while those who reported having had ≥1 and ≥2 symptoms had a seroprevalence of 8.0% (90% CI 3.1-12.9) and 13.0% (90% CI 3.5-22.5), respectively. All 9 of the respondents who reported previously having a positive coronavirus test were positive for SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG antibodies. Nearly two-third of respondents reported having avoided public places (74%) and small gatherings of family or friends (75%), and 97% reported wearing a mask outside their home, at least part of the time.

Conclusions and relevance: These estimates indicate that most people in Connecticut do not have detectable levels of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. There is a need for continued adherence to risk mitigation behaviors among Connecticut residents, to prevent resurgence of COVID-19 in this region.

Keywords

COVID-19, epidemiology, SARS-CoV-2, antibodies, testing, seroprevalence, Connecticut

Rights and Permissions

The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.

DOI of Published Version

10.1101/2020.08.04.20168203

Source

medRxiv 2020.08.04.20168203; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.04.20168203. Link to preprint on medRxiv

Comments

This article is a preprint. Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been certified by peer review.

The PDF available for download is Version 1 of this preprint. The complete version history of this preprint is available at medRxiv. Version 2 is also available in eScholarship@UMMS.

Full author list omitted for brevity. For the full list of authors, see preprint.

Related Resources

Now published in The American Journal of Medicine doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2020.09.024

Journal/Book/Conference Title

medRxiv

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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