A big anime fan conference held in New York City final November was not an omicron superspreading occasion regardless of circumstances of the extremely contagious variant linked to the gathering, researchers report in two research within the Feb. 18 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Vaccination and masking necessities, social distancing and improved air flow on the occasion venue most likely decreased transmission, the researchers say. The occasion additionally benefitted from timing, because it occurred on the very starting of town’s omicron wave when neighborhood transmission was low.
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In early December, the Minnesota public well being division sounded the alarm about Anime NYC, a conference celebrating Japanese comics and cartoons that drew attendees from throughout the United States and 30 different international locations. The state company had recognized that Peter McGinn, a Minnesota resident, had attended the occasion whereas contaminated with omicron.
This was solely the second omicron case recognized within the United States — and media reviews labeled the 53,000-person conference as a possible superspreader occasion when a number of of McGinn’s mates, who had additionally attended the conference, examined constructive.
But two parallel investigations into the conference failed to seek out any omicron transmission outdoors of this group. Contact tracers interviewed McGinn in addition to 22 of the 29 mates in his conference group and their family contacts. Meanwhile, a second group of researchers used knowledge from conference organizers to go looking state and native well being databases for constructive COVID-19 coronavirus exams amongst occasion attendees. The search turned up 4,560 outcomes, 119 (or 2.6 %) of which have been constructive.
Among these 119 attendees, solely 16 circumstances have been tied to McGinn and his mates. Five of the 16 circumstances have been sequenced, and all have been recognized as omicron. Outside of that cluster, 15 different sequenced circumstances have been recognized as delta.
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Because fewer than 1 in 5 constructive take a look at specimens tied to the conference have been sequenced, extra constructive outcomes may have been omicron, moreover the 5 recognized ones. But the occasion didn’t spur widespread omicron transmission, the researchers discovered; the take a look at positivity charge amongst attendees was much like the speed in New York City as a complete within the week after the conference, about 3 %.
“It’s nice to confirm that the event wasn’t a spreader event,” McGinn stated in an e-mail. “It makes me more comfortable in the future going to these types of events as long as mask and vax requirements are in place.”
The researchers additionally discovered that attendees who examined constructive for any model of the COVID-19 coronavirus have been extra prone to have socialized outdoors the conference itself. For occasion, 18.8 % of constructive attendees had attended karaoke venues within the metropolis, in contrast with 2.4 % of attendees who examined detrimental.
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Omicron has unfold readily at vacation events, weddings and even between rooms in a lodge used for COVID-19 coronavirus quarantines. The researchers attribute the dearth of unfold on the anime conference to layers of security measures, together with a vaccination requirement (no less than one dose) for attendees, required masks and improved air flow. The Javits Center, the place the occasion came about, has put in HEPA air filters throughout the constructing, amongst different security measures; at earlier factors within the pandemic, it was used as a COVID-19 hospital and mass vaccination website.
But the brand new reviews embody restricted element concerning the influence that these filters had on precise air high quality on the venue, says Krystal Pollitt, an epidemiologist and environmental well being knowledgeable at Yale University. Without particular airflow measurements, she says, “it’s hard to know how much difference” the filters made.
Additionally, Anime NYC had “a fortunate coincidence” in its timing, says Ayman El-Mohandes, an epidemiologist and dean of the general public well being faculty on the City University of New York. Omicron was first recognized in New York City wastewater samples on November 21, the ultimate day of the conference — putting this occasion on the very starting of town’s outbreak, when neighborhood transmission was low.
“Had this same event happened two weeks later, it would’ve been disastrous,” El-Mohandes says. Future giant occasions ought to add extra layers of security measures, he says, resembling requiring that attendees be absolutely vaccinated — not only one dose — and take a look at detrimental previous to the occasion.