{"doi":"10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.16176","title":"Concordance of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Aerosols From a Nurses Station and in Nurses and Patients During a Hospital Ward Outbreak","abstract":"Importance: Aerosol-borne SARS-CoV-2 has not been linked specifically to nosocomial outbreaks. Objective: To explore the genomic concordance of SARS-CoV-2 from aerosol particles of various sizes and infected nurses and patients during a nosocomial outbreak of COVID-19. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cohort study included patients and nursing staff in a US Department of Veterans Affairs inpatient hospital unit and long-term-care facility during a COVID-19 outbreak between December 27, 2020, and January 8, 2021. Outbreak contact tracing was conducted using exposure histories and screening with reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2. Size-selective particle samplers were deployed in diverse clinical areas of a multicampus health care system from November 2020 to March 2021. Viral genomic sequences from infected nurses and patients were sequenced and compared with ward nurses station aerosol samples. Exposure: SARS-CoV-2. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome was positive RT-PCR results and genomic similarity between SARS-CoV-2 RNA in aerosols and human samples. Air samplers were used to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in aerosols on hospital units where health care personnel were or were not under routine surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Results: A total of 510 size-fractionated air particle samples were collected. Samples representing 3 size fractions (>10 μm, 2.5-10 μm, and <2.5 μm) obtained at the nurses station were positive for SARS-CoV-2 during the outbreak (3 of 30 samples [10%]) and negative during 9 other collection periods. SARS-CoV-2 partial genome sequences for the smallest particle fraction were 100% identical with all 3 human samples; the remaining size fractions shared >99.9% sequence identity with the human samples. Fragments of SARS-CoV-2 RNA were detected by RT-PCR in 24 of 300 samples (8.0%) in units where health care personnel were not under surveillance and 7 of 210 samples (3.3%; P = .03) where they were under surveillance. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study, the finding of genetically identical SARS-CoV-2 RNA fragments in aerosols obtained from a nurses station and in human samples during a nosocomial outbreak suggests that aerosols may have contributed to hospital transmission. Surveillance, along with ventilation, masking, and distancing, may reduce the introduction of community-acquired SARS-CoV-2 into aerosols on hospital wards, thereby reducing the risk of hospital transmission.","journal":"JAMA Network Open","year":2022,"id":253514,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":22,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.89,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":336949,"name":"Michael E. Charness","orcid":"0000-0002-3301-8966","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":291042,"name":"Kalpana Gupta","orcid":"0000-0002-6766-3576","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":238327,"name":"Petros Koutrakis","orcid":"0000-0003-4118-6473","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":900104,"name":"Katherine Linsenmeyer","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":900105,"name":"Rebecca Madjarov","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":899446,"name":"Marco A. Martins","orcid":"0000-0002-4708-5705","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":259210,"name":"Bernardo Lemos","orcid":"0000-0001-6996-9483","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":599919,"name":"Scot E. Dowd","orcid":"0000-0002-6296-1427","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":294686,"name":"Eric Garshick","orcid":"0000-0001-5931-5638","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":900103,"name":"Rebecca A. Stern","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":17,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:24:59.596040Z","pmid":"35675074","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}