MADISON, Wis. — Months after two University of Wisconsin-Madison residence halls were forced into quarantine to stop rising COVID-19 cases on campus, a new study shows the university’s efforts to contain the spread were effective at stopping widespread community transmission.
From Sept. 8-through-22, 2021, students in both Witte and Sellery residence halls, the two largest dorms at UW-Madison, were quarantined because of rising COVID-19 cases. Classes shifted to virtual-only instruction, in-person activities were canceled and testing efforts increased.
The study, led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing samples from students who tested positive in the dorms with 875 samples from patients at University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics between Sept. 1, 2020 and Jan. 31, 2021. The samples taken from UW Health represented 3% of Dane County’s total cases during that time period.
According to Dustin Currie, the lead author of the study and a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, researchers would have detected specific similarities in positive tests from UW-Madison students and the greater Madison community if there was significant transmission spreading from the dorms. But that wasn’t the case.
“It’s hard to point to a specific intervention and say what may have reduced the transmission on campus, but the series of interventions put in place as the outbreak was detected, including the quarantine of those two residence halls, additional testing, and suspension of in-person classes and activities, was followed by a pretty substantial decrease in transmission to baseline levels,” Currie said.
Genome sequencing is comparable to a fingerprint for the virus that has infected each individual, according to study co-author and UW-Madison cellular and molecular pathology graduate student Gage Moreno. As the virus spreads, it mutates, meaning researchers can track where a virus originated, where it has spread to, and how long it’s been there.
“We were really concerned that, with this high amount of transmission, are those sequences going to spillover into our community?” Moreno said. “Is that going to make our community outbreak worse?”
Moreno, with the help of interim Medical Director of University Health Services Patrick Kelly, sequenced 262 positive COVID-19 tests from residents taken during the quarantine.
Sequencing of the viruses from students in the dorms revealed the viruses had a unique mutation that hadn’t been seen in Dane County prior to the outbreak. Researchers said most of the viruses circulating in Dane County after the outbreak in the dorms weren’t affiliated with the viruses that spread in Witte and Sellery.
Prior to the outbreak, students were only required to get tested once every two weeks. Those efforts were increased after the outbreak, and, at the start of the spring 2021 semester, there wasn’t a major outbreak.
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