Skip to main content
. 2023 Feb 16;38(3):243–266. doi: 10.1007/s10654-023-00963-z

Table 5.

Specific contact tracing interventions which can achieve epidemic control / extinction (R ≤ 1) from additional studies included in the review

Studies not modelling contact tracing in reopening scenarios after 2020 lockdown Studies modelling contact tracing in reopening scenarios after 2020 lockdown
Manual forward tracing of primary contacts (including educational institutions)

- Contact tracing (90%, time to trace 0.5 days) and 90% effective quarantine [80] *** Without other interventions, R < 1

- Isolation and contact tracing with 20% of undetected cases and strong social distancing [89] *** R < 1

- Contact tracing and isolation (90%) with low transmission (R = 1.5) but 40% of transmission asymptomatic [77] *** less than 20% probability of R < 1

- Contact tracing with high [medium-low] transmission efficiency + contact tracing (80-100%) [60-100%] + high [medium] contact testing capacity [40] *** R < 1

- Case isolation + contact tracing (90%) + mask wearing + physical distancing [79] *** R < 1 as long as with physical distancing R = 1.2

- Mass random testing (10%) + contact tracing (50%/100%) with/without social distancing [67] *** R < 1

- With pre-symptomatic transmission and low (R = 1.5)/ high (R = 2.5) infectivity and time to trace delay of 3.5 days, contact tracing (80%) [74] *** R < 1

- Testing of symptomatic individuals and asymptomatic contacts (90%) + contact tracing (90%) + social distancing [58] *** R < 1

- Full-time [part-time] school reopening with symptomatic testing 75% [65%] and contact tracing with 68% [40%] coverage + some social distancing [52] *** R < 1

- Case isolation and contact tracing after lifting of lockdown (R = 2.7) [75] *** R < 1 with early isolation and 100% of contacts traced

Digital or hybrid (manual + digital) contact tracing

- Isolation of cases with two-day delay + digital contact tracing (20% app adoption) + 50% quarantine efficacy + physical distancing (R = 1.2) [84] *** R < 1

- With high pre-symptomatic infectiousness, case isolation and contact tracing (60%) + high efficiency mask wearing (50%) + social distancing (R = 1.5) [72] *** R < 1

- Combination of lockdown and digital contact tracing (60% of population owns smartphones) [57] *** R < 1

- Digital contact tracing (40-60%) + time to trace 0 days + low (30%) probability of transmission [90] *** R = 1

- Digital contact tracing (90%) [80%] with time to trace = 0 days and 80% of symptomatic detected without/ with reduction in transmission [54] *** R < 1

- Digital contact tracing with 26% app adoption + physical distancing (20%) [7] *** R = 1
Delays to contact tracing

- Isolation of symptomatic + contact tracing with no social distancing [85] *** R < 1 if time to trace < 3 days + high success in quarantining contacts and isolating cases. R < 1 with time to trace = 0 and 70% success of quarantining contacts/ cases

- Test symptomatic (80%) with a testing and tracing delay of 0 days and 80% contact tracing coverage [8] *** R < 1

- Contact tracing with 100% coverage of household contacts and no social distancing [78] *** time to trace must be at most one day for R < 1

- Delay to isolation of symptomatic (1 day) + highly successful contact tracing (3 asymptomatic detected per symptomatic) + physical distancing (R = 2) [82] *** R < 1

- Increasing contact tracing coverage (50-80%) compared to reducing time to trace from four to one days [68] *** Increasing contact tracing coverage is more effective than reducing time to trace

- With a test capacity of 2.7 thousand per day, contact tracing (70%) + time to trace = 2 days + mask wearing and school closures [45] *** R < 1
Backward or bidirectional contact tracing - Contact tracing of symptomatic considering household structure and physical distancing (50%) / Backward digital contact tracing of individuals (50%) [73] *** R < 1 / Reduces growth rate if recall does not decay