School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.
National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, London, UK.
Nat Commun. 2021 Feb 10;12(1):905. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21237-w.
England has experienced a large outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, disproportionately affecting people from disadvantaged and ethnic minority communities. It is unclear how much of this excess is due to differences in exposure associated with structural inequalities. Here, we report from the REal-time Assessment of Community Transmission-2 (REACT-2) national study of over 100,000 people. After adjusting for test characteristics and re-weighting to the population, overall antibody prevalence is 6.0% (95% CI: 5.8-6.1). An estimated 3.4 million people had developed antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 by mid-July 2020. Prevalence is two- to three-fold higher among health and care workers compared with non-essential workers, and in people of Black or South Asian than white ethnicity, while age- and sex-specific infection fatality ratios are similar across ethnicities. Our results indicate that higher hospitalisation and mortality from COVID-19 in minority ethnic groups may reflect higher rates of infection rather than differential experience of disease or care.
英国经历了大规模的 SARS-CoV-2 爆发，受影响最大的是弱势群体和少数族裔社区的人。目前尚不清楚这种超额死亡有多少是由于与结构性不平等相关的接触差异造成的。在这里，我们根据超过 100,000 人的实时社区传播评估-2 (REACT-2) 全国研究报告。在调整了检测特征并根据人群进行重新加权后，总体抗体阳性率为 6.0%（95%CI：5.8-6.1）。截至 2020 年 7 月中旬，估计有 340 万人产生了针对 SARS-CoV-2 的抗体。与非必要工作者相比，医护人员的抗体阳性率高出两到三倍，与白种人相比，黑人和南亚裔人的抗体阳性率更高，而不同族裔的年龄和性别特异性感染病死率相似。我们的研究结果表明，少数族裔群体中 COVID-19 的住院率和死亡率较高可能反映了更高的感染率，而不是疾病或护理方面的差异体验。
