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  • Drive-through testing for SARS-CoV-2 in symptomatic health and social care workers and household members: an observational cohort study

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Drive-through testing for SARS-CoV-2 in symptomatic health and social care workers and household members: an observational cohort study
  1. Benjamin J Parcell1,
  2. Kathryn Brechin2,
  3. Sarah Allstaff3,
  4. Meg Park4,
  5. Wendy Third5,
  6. Susan Bean4,
  7. Chris Hind1,
  8. Rajiv Farmer6,
  9. Daniel Chandler7,
  10. James D Chalmers8
  1. 1 Department of Medical Microbiology, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee, UK
  2. 2 Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee, UK
  3. 3 Tayside Sexual and Reproductive Health Service, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee, UK
  4. 4 Department of Medicine and Cardiovascular, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee, UK
  5. 5 Dundee Health and Social Care Partnership, Dundee, UK
  6. 6 Virology Department, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee, UK
  7. 7 NHS Tayside, Dundee, UK
  8. 8 Division of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Benjamin J Parcell, Medical Microbiology, Dundee DD1 9SY, UK; BJParcell{at}dundee.ac.uk

Abstract

The requirement for health and social care workers to self-isolate when they or their household contacts develop symptoms consistent with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection can lead to critical staff shortages in the context of a pandemic. In this report, we describe the implementation of a drive-through testing service in a single National Health Service region in Scotland. From 17 March 2020 to 11 April 2020, 1890 SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcription PCR assay (RT-PCR) tests were performed. 22% of tests were positive. Allowing the remaining 78% of staff to return to work within 24 hours was estimated to save over 8000 working days during the peak pandemic period.

  • clinical epidemiology
  • infection control
  • viral infection
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2020-215128

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors Study design: BJP, KB, SA and JDC. Data acquisition: all authors. Data analysis: BJP, SA and JDC. Wrote first draft: JDC. Revision of the paper and approval of the final version: all authors.

    • Funding JDC is supported by the GSK/British Lung Foundation Chair of Respiratory Research and a Senior Fellowship from the Chief Scientist Office, Scotland.

    • Competing interests JDC declares fees for consultancy and research grants from Astrazeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, Glaxosmithkline, Gilead Sciences, Insmed and Zambon outside the submitted work.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.