Marine recruit study finds fever, symptom screening misses many coronavirus cases

COVID-19 temperature and symptom checks like those used in schools and doctor’s offices have again proven inadequate for detecting coronavirus infections and preventing outbreaks.

A study of Navy recruits found that despite these measures and strict quarantines before starting to train, recruits transmitted the virus to others, even though virtually none of them showed symptoms. None of the infections were detected by screening for symptoms.

The study, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, has implications for colleges, prisons, meat packing plants and other places that depend on this type of screening to detect infections and prevent epidemics. .

“We’ve spent a lot of time putting measures like this in place and they’re probably not worth the time we hoped for,” said Jodie Guest, a public health researcher at Emory University in Atlanta who isn’t played no role in the research.

“Routine testing seems to be better in this age group” because young adults often have no symptoms, she said.

The study was conducted by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City and the Naval Medical Research Center.

These were 1,848 Navy recruits, about 90% of them men, who were told to self-isolate for two weeks at home, then in a supervised military quarantine on a closed college campus, The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, for two more weeks. This included having only one roommate, wearing masks, keeping at least 6 feet apart and working out outside. They also had daily fever and symptom checks.

×

By giving us your email, you are signing up for the Marine Corps Times Daily News Journal.

The recruits were tested for the coronavirus upon their arrival for military quarantine and 7 and 14 days after. Sixteen, or about 1 percent, tested positive on arrival and only one showed symptoms. Another 35 – an additional 2% – tested positive during the two-week military quarantine and only four showed symptoms.

Only recruits who tested negative at the end of the two quarantine periods were allowed to travel to Parris Island for basic training.

Genetic testing revealed six distinct groups of cases among the recruits.

“A lot of the infection that’s happening, we don’t even realize it’s happening,” said one study leader, the Navy Commander. Andrew Letizia, physician at Naval Medical Research Center.

Quarantine measures and their compliance were much stricter than what would happen on a typical college campus, said another study official, Dr Stuart Sealfon of Mount Sinai.

“It’s a really contagious virus. You really need to use a combination of good public health measures, temperature checks, mask wear, social distancing, hand washing … and comprehensive testing “to prevent the spread, he said. .

Previously, federal officials said a screening project to check temperatures and symptoms at U.S. airports caught fewer than 15 cases out of 675,000 travelers. It is not known how many cases were missed, just that very few were detected.

A separate study published Wednesday in the New England journal reports an outbreak last spring on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. Among the crew of 4,779 people, mostly young, 1,271 were infected; 77% had no symptoms at diagnosis and 45% never developed any.

The case shows that “young and healthy people can help spread infection in the community, often silently,” wrote Dr Nelson Michael of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in a comment.

This story was first published on November 11, 2020. It was updated on November 12, 2020 to correct the percentage of infected Roosevelt crew members who never developed symptoms to 45%, not 55 %.

The Associated Press’s Department of Health and Science receives support from the Department of Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The AP is solely responsible for all content.