Not much COVID-19 appears to have gone undetected in Melbourne's second wave

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-07-07 04:00

Australia; NSW; VIC

Photo by Testalize.me on Unsplash

Testing and tracing was able to pick up most of the COVID-19 circulating in the Melbourne community during the city's second wave in the winter of 2020, according to researchers who used data from blood donors to estimate how many COVID-19 cases were missed. The team tested blood samples from just under 5000 donors for COVID-19 antibodies between November and December 2020, after the second wave and before vaccines and further outbreaks. They estimate just under one in 100 Melburnians had COVID-19 antibodies at that time, which they say is close to the data from positive tests reported. They say those living in lower socio-economic areas were significantly more likely to have COVID-19 antibodies, which may mean more people unlikely to donate blood could have had the virus.

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Journal/
conference: PLOS ONE

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The Kirby Institute for Infection and Immunity in Society, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS), Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI), The University of Melbourne, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Macquarie University, The University of Technology Sydney, Western Sydney University, University of Sydney, The University of New South Wales

Funder: The study was supported by the Victorian Government Department of Health, and Snow Medical Foundation (CT28701/G207593). The Australian Government funds Australian Red Cross Lifeblood to provide blood, blood products and services to the Australian community. The funders have no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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