Self-reported symptoms, self-reported viral testing result and seroprevalence of SARS CoV-2 among a community sample in Essex County New Jersey: A brief report.

BackgroundSARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has rapidly spread globally beginning in late 2019. Early areas impacted by this pandemic in the US include Essex County, New Jersey. Beyond understanding the prevalence of active infections and deaths, it is important to understand the true burden of infection in the community, as indicated by seroprevalence of antibodies directed to the virus. Understanding the spectrum of disease is key to the effectiveness of primary prevention and control measures and the design of interventions against transmission of infection. MethodsWe utilized venue-based-sampling (VBS), implemented by a community partner, to sample members of the community in Essex County. In VBS the venues are randomized as a proxy for randomizing the attendees of the venues. We asked standard demographic questions, questions about symptoms and PCR testing and previous antibody testing. Participants provide a blood sample collected by finger stick with the Neoteryx Mitra Collection device. Samples were tested using a novel ELISA based approached developed by our team. ResultsFrom September 15, 2020 to December 22, 2020, we conducted 92 randomly selected sampling events where we approached 1349 individuals for screening. Of these, 924 consented and had complete data for analysis. Only 6.5% of the sample reported any COVID-19 like symptoms while 45.9% had sought out a COVID-19 test. In total 13 (1.4%) participants received a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR test result. While 33 participants (2.6%) sought a SARS-CoV-2 antibody test, only 0.5% of the sample reported a positive antibody result. Testing in this study identified 83 (9.0%) participants positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. ConclusionWe recruited a large sample of the population of Essex County, New Jersey using VBS, electronic surveys, novel sample collection and lab methods. Our findings suggest that the burden of SARS-Cov-2 is slightly more than six times than that suggested by PCR testing. This burden is higher than most estimates obtained through studies of remnant blood samples from hospitals (4.2%), samples from staff at a public-school system (2.9%), and residents of a California county recruited with targeted Facebook ads (1.5%). (9-11) Moreover, with only 6.5% of the sample reporting any COVID-19-like symptoms, our finding suggests that the number of asymptomatic persons may be close to 1.5 times greater than anyone reporting symptoms.