Symptomatic and Asymptomatic Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in K-12 Schools, British Columbia, Canada April to June 2021
Alex Choi, Louise C. Mâsse, Samantha Bardwell, Iryna Kayda, Yanjie Zhao, Yang Xin Zi Xu, Ani Markarian, Daniel Coombs, Adrienne Macdonald, Allison W. Watts, Nalin Dhillon, Michael A. Irvine, Collette O’Reilly, Pascal M. Lavoie, David A. Goldfarb
Abstract
There is concern that schools may be a setting where asymptomatic infections might result in significant "silent" transmission of SARS-CoV-2, particularly after the emergence of more transmissible variants of concern. After the programmatic implementation of a strategy of asymptomatic testing of close COVID-19 contacts as part of contact tracing in the school setting, the majority of the secondary cases were still found to have occurred in home or social contacts. However, for the 6.2% of secondary cases that occurred in close school contacts, the majority were detected through asymptomatic testing. The potential added yield of this approach needs to be considered within the overall setting, including consideration of the local epidemiology, ongoing goals of case and contact management, additional costs, logistical challenges for families, and possible health impacts of asymptomatic transmission.