[Mandatory Testing in Schools can Significantly Reduce Underreporting of COVID-19 Infections Among Students with in-Class Teaching Compared to Home Schooling]. / Reihentestungen an Schulen können die Dunkelziffer von COVID-19 Infektionen unter Schülern signifikant senken.

Aim of the study The aim of this was to study investigate the effectiveness of mandatory Covid-19 tests for in-classroom teaching in reopened schools as a containment measure in the pandemic. In Bavaria, mandatory testing at schools was implemented directly after the Easter vacations in 2021. For the first week after the vacations, this resulted in a natural experiment that allowed us to quantify the impact of the new testing strategy on reported Covid-19 cases.Methods We compared changes in the reported 7-day incidence of new infections between districts with in-classroom teaching at school and districts with closed schools. During the calendar week 15, districts with reported incidences below 100 were allowed to reopen schools and have in-classroom teaching if mandatory COVID-19 testing was performed at school with rapid antigen tests. We do not have data on the rapid test results; however, positive test results in the rapid antigen test were verified by a PCR test, and cases of positive PCR test results were reported at the district level by age groups. In the calendar weeks 13 and 14, all schools in Bavaria were closed due to Easter vacations. Taking into account a latency period of about 3-4 days and a reporting period of 1-2 days, this means that any additional increase in reported incidences for districts with in-class teaching and mandatory testing in the week after the vacation cannot be attributed to transmissions at schools, but reflects the reduction of underreporting due to the newly implemented testing strategy.Results Reported incidence increased by a factor of 6.6 for 5-11 year old and by 1.7 for 12-20 year old pupils in districts with in-classroom teaching and mandatory testing at schools. This increase was accompanied by a reduction in underreporting and was significant compared to districts with school closure. Given the situation of a natural experiment, this increase in the reported incidence among school children can be attributed to the testing strategy. For the same time period, no differences in reported incidences were found for the other age groups.Conclusion In-class teaching with mandatory testing in reopened schools changes the role of schools in the pandemic. Our analyses show that reopening schools with a mandatory testing approach is beneficial from an epidemiologic perspective as it can strongly reduce the dark figure of COVID-19 cases among children.

Combining graph neural networks and spatio-temporal disease models to improve the prediction of weekly COVID-19 cases in Germany.

During 2020, the infection rate of COVID-19 has been investigated by many scholars from different research fields. In this context, reliable and interpretable forecasts of disease incidents are a vital tool for policymakers to manage healthcare resources. In this context, several experts have called for the necessity to account for human mobility to explain the spread of COVID-19. Existing approaches often apply standard models of the respective research field, frequently restricting modeling possibilities. For instance, most statistical or epidemiological models cannot directly incorporate unstructured data sources, including relational data that may encode human mobility. In contrast, machine learning approaches may yield better predictions by exploiting these data structures yet lack intuitive interpretability as they are often categorized as black-box models. We propose a combination of both research directions and present a multimodal learning framework that amalgamates statistical regression and machine learning models for predicting local COVID-19 cases in Germany. Results and implications: the novel approach introduced enables the use of a richer collection of data types, including mobility flows and colocation probabilities, and yields the lowest mean squared error scores throughout the observational period in the reported benchmark study. The results corroborate that during most of the observational period more dispersed meeting patterns and a lower percentage of people staying put are associated with higher infection rates. Moreover, the analysis underpins the necessity of including mobility data and showcases the flexibility and interpretability of the proposed approach.

On the interplay of regional mobility, social connectedness and the spread of COVID-19 in Germany.

Since the primary mode of respiratory virus transmission is person-to-person interaction, we are required to reconsider physical interaction patterns to mitigate the number of people infected with COVID-19. While research has shown that non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) had an evident impact on national mobility patterns, we investigate the relative regional mobility behaviour to assess the effect of human movement on the spread of COVID-19. In particular, we explore the impact of human mobility and social connectivity derived from Facebook activities on the weekly rate of new infections in Germany between 3 March and 22 June 2020. Our results confirm that reduced social activity lowers the infection rate, accounting for regional and temporal patterns. The extent of social distancing, quantified by the percentage of people staying put within a federal administrative district, has an overall negative effect on the incidence of infections. Additionally, our results show spatial infection patterns based on geographical as well as social distances.

Food antigen-specific IgE in dogs with suspected food hypersensitivity.

OBJECTIVE: Knowledge of cross-reactions in food-sensitive dogs will influence the choice of elimination diets and the long-term management of those patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate food allergen-specific IgE tests of suspected allergic dogs for concurrent positive reactions as possible evidence for cross reactions between allergens. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Results of serum IgE tests from 760 suspected allergic dogs submitted to 2 laboratories were evaluated statistically. After the tested allergens were grouped by their phylogenetic relationship, odds ratios as well as a sensitivity analysis of the odds ratios were performed to evaluate if concurrent positive IgE results to 2 allergens occurred more often than expected. RESULTS: Within related allergen pairs 27% (laboratory 1) and 72% (laboratory 2) of the pairs could be considered as associated. For the unrelated allergen pairs only 6.8% and 10.6% of the analyzed pairs were considered associated respectively. Strong correlations were shown in the group of ruminant allergens, especially beef and lamb, and grain allergens. High rates of concurrent reactions were also detected in the poultry group, especially between chicken and duck, as well as between pork and ruminant allergens, and soy and grain allergens. CONCLUSION: As our results showed not only correlations within related but also between non-related allergens, the possible relevance of carbohydrate moieties as well as panallergens for canine hypersensitivities warrants further study. Further investigations are necessary to distinguish co-sensitization from cross-reactions and determine the clinical relevance of food-specific IgE reactivity. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Due to possible cross reactivity related allergens, especially beef and lamb as well as grain allergens, should not be used for an elimination diet to avoid false results.