Department of Respiratory Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK.
Department of Infection and HIV Medicine, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Leicester LE1 5WW, UK.
J Public Health (Oxf). 2022 Jun 27;44(2):255-258. doi: 10.1093/pubmed/fdaa237.
Leicester was the first city in the UK to have 'local lockdown' measures imposed in response to high community rates of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission. As part of this response, a directive was issued by NHS England to offer testing of asymptomatic healthcare workers (HCWs) at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL) for SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Between 20 July and 14 August 2020, we invited all HCWs at UHL to attend for SARS-CoV-2 testing by nucleic acid amplification (NAAT). We combined the result of this assay with demographic information from the electronic staff record.
A total of 1150 staff (~8% of the workforce) volunteered. The median age was 46 years (IQR 34-55), 972 (84.5%) were female; 234 (20.4%) were of South Asian and 58 (5.0%) of Black ethnicity; 564 (49.0%) were nurses/healthcare assistants. We found no cases of asymptomatic infection. In comparison, average community test positivity rate in Leicester city was 2.6%.
Within the context of local lockdowns due to high community transmission rates, voluntary testing of asymptomatic staff has low uptake and low yield and thus its premise and cost-effectiveness should be re-considered.
莱斯特是英国第一个因严重急性呼吸系统综合症冠状病毒 2（SARS-CoV-2）社区传播率高而实施“局部封锁”措施的城市。作为应对措施的一部分，NHS 英格兰发布指令，要求莱斯特大学医院 NHS 信托基金会（UHL）对无症状医护人员（HCWs）进行 SARS-CoV-2 感染检测。
在 2020 年 7 月 20 日至 8 月 14 日期间，我们邀请 UHL 的所有 HCWs 接受 SARS-CoV-2 核酸扩增（NAAT）检测。我们将该检测的结果与电子员工记录中的人口统计学信息相结合。
共有 1150 名员工（约占劳动力的 8%）自愿参加。中位数年龄为 46 岁（IQR 34-55），972 名（84.5%）为女性；234 名（20.4%）为南亚裔，58 名（5.0%）为黑人；564 名（49.0%）为护士/医护助理。我们没有发现无症状感染的病例。相比之下，莱斯特市的社区平均检测阳性率为 2.6%。
在社区传播率高导致的局部封锁背景下，对无症状员工进行自愿检测的参与率和检出率都较低，因此应重新考虑其前提和成本效益。
