A descriptive study on the potential transmission of COVID-19 to hospitalized patients from a nursery school affiliated with it.

During the epidemic of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, nosocomial transmissions from healthcare workers (HCWs) to patients occur frequently. The influence of COVID-19 on hospitalized patients from nursing schools affiliated with the hospitals is a concern but it had not been well studied. We here describe COVID-19 outbreaks at the nursery school affiliated with an acute-care hospital, during the surges of the Omicron variants on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 children as well as for the patients who were judged to be the close contacts of patients of COVID-19 by contact investigation by PCR testing. A total of 36 children and five caregivers were diagnosed with COVID-19 during the study period. Of the 206 preschoolers who had close contact with the infected persons, only 16 became positive (7.6%). Secondary transmission from the 36 preschool children to the parents as HCWs occurred in 19 (61%) out of 31 parents. Three hospitalized patients were judged to have unsafe contact with the infected HCWs but this did not result in their infections, making a total of zero transmission from the nursery school to the hospital. Children at the nursery school are potential reservoirs for nosocomial transmissions at the affiliated hospital, but multiple practical measures might have prevented them to occur.

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Copyright © 2023 Japanese Society of Chemotherapy, Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases, and Japanese Society for Infection Prevention and Control. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest None.