The November Anime Convention was not an Omicron super-spreader event

Researchers said the large anime fan convention in New York City last November was not an Omicron super-popular event, despite the case of highly contagious variants associated with the rally. Reported in two studies on 18th March Weekly morbidity and mortality reports..

Researchers say that vaccination and masking requirements, social distance, and improved ventilation at the event venue probably reduced the infection. The event also benefited from timing as it occurred very early in the city’s Omicron wave, where community communication was low.

In early December, the Minnesota Public Health Service Anime NYC, A convention celebrating Japanese manga and manga with participants from the United States and 30 other countries. State officials have confirmed that Minnesota resident Peter McGinn attended the event while he was infected with Omicron.

This was the second case of Omicron confirmed in the United States — and media reports labeled the 53,000 tournament. As a potential super spreader Some McGinn events A friend who also participated in the tournament was positive on the test..

However, two parallel investigations into the treaty No Omicron infections could be found outside this group.. The contact tracer interviewed McGinn and the contacts of 22 of his 29 friends in the convention group and their families.Meanwhile, a second group of researchers We searched state and local health databases using data from tournament organizers. Event participants were positive for coronavirus. The search results were 4,560, of which 119 (or 2.6%) were positive.

Of those 119 attendees, only 16 cases were associated with McGinn and his friends. Five of the 16 cases were sequenced and all were identified as omicrons. Outside that cluster, 15 other sequenced cases were identified as deltas.

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Since less than one-fifth of the competition-related positive test specimens were sequenced, it is possible that an additional positive result was omicron in addition to the five identified ones. However, researchers found that this event did not spur widespread Omicron infection. Participant test positive rates were about 3%, about the same as New York City’s overall rate for the week following the Games.

“It’s nice to make sure the event wasn’t a spreader event,” McGinn said in an email. “As long as the mask and vax requirements are in place, it will be more comfortable to go to these types of events in the future.”

Researchers also found that participants who tested positive for any version of the coronavirus were more likely to have socialized outside the convention itself. For example, 18.8% of positive participants attended karaoke venues in the city, compared to 2.4% of negative participants.

Omicron spread easily with Holiday party, wedding And even Between hotel rooms used for coronavirus quarantine.. Researchers attribute the lack of dissemination at anime conventions to layers of safety measures such as vaccination requirements for participants (at least one dose), required masks, and improved ventilation. The Javits Center, where the event took place, installed HEPA air filters throughout the building. Among other safety measuresPrior to the pandemic, it was used as a COVID-19 hospital and mass vaccination site.

However, the new report has limited details about the impact of these filters on the actual air quality of the venue, said Crystal Politt, an epidemiologist and environmental health expert at Yale University. increase. Without a particular airflow measurement, she says, it’s hard to tell how much the filter made a difference.

In addition, the anime NYC had a “lucky coincidence” at that time, says Ayman El-Mohandes, an epidemiologist at City University of New York and dean of the School of Public Health.Omicron First identified in New York City wastewater samples On November 21, the final day of the convention, the event took place on the first day of the outbreak of cities with low community penetration.

“If this same event happened two weeks later, it would have been disastrous,” says El-Mohandes. He says that future major events will require additional layers of safety measures, such as requiring participants to be fully vaccinated rather than a single vaccination and test negative before the event. increase.