Correction

Article title: Relative contributions of transmission routes for COVID-19 among healthcare personnel providing patient care

Author: Jones, Rachael M.

Journal: Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene

Bibliometrics: Volume 17, Number 9, pages 408–415

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15459624.2020.1784427

Regretfully, there was an error in the dose-response function implemented in the original manuscript. Instead of P(infection) = 1 – exp(-410d), where d is the dose, the function should have been P(infection) = 1 – exp(-d/410). This error does not impact the estimated doses or virus concentrations in the environment, but impacts the estimated infection risk and the percent contribution from the transmission routes to that infection risk.

Table 3 shows the revised results. With the correct dose-response function, the relative contribution of droplet transmission to infection risk is increased relative to the prior analysis (Figure 2), but inhalation continues to remain a substantial contributor to infection risk. Corrected versions of Table 3 and Figures 2–4 are below. Overall, this correction does not change the inference from the prior work.

Figure 2. Contribution of contact, droplet and inhalation transmission to SARS-CoV-2 infection risk among healthcare personnel during a patient care activity without use of personal protective equipment.

Figure 3. Probability of infection among healthcare personnel wearing barrier precautions and face coverings with varied protection against respirable droplets. N95 filtering facepiece respirators would allow 5–10% penetration, surgical masks 25–50% penetration, and no covering 100% penetration.

Figure 4. Impact of virus emission in respirable droplets (e.g., exhaled breath) on the mean relative contributions of inhalation and droplet transmission.

Table 3. Overall infection risk and percent contribution by the inhalation, droplet and contact transmission routes with no precautions, barrier precautions and face coverings (FC) with varied levels of effectiveness.

Precautions	Mean (25^th, 75^th Percentile)
	Overall Infection Risk	Percent Contribution by Route
		Inhalation	Droplet	Contact
Uniform Virus Concentration in All Particle Sizes
None (baseline)	2.6 × 10^−2 (2.1 × 10^−6, 2.3 × 10^−3)	30 (0.04, 71)	60 (24, 100)	1.4 (0.00, 0.00)
Barrier	6.0 × 10^−3 (1.1 × 10^−6, 1.1 × 10^−4)	58 (8.9, 98)	52 (1.6, 99)	0.60 (0.00, 0.01)
Barrier + FC with 50% Penetration	3.9 × 10^−3 (6.0 × 10^−7, 5.5 × 10^−5)	47 (0.88, 98)	52 (1.6, 99)	0.86 (0.00, 0.01)
Barrier + FC with 25% Penetration	2.4 × 10^−3 (3.0 × 10^−7, 2.8 × 10^−5)	47 (0.87, 98)	51 (1.5, 99)	1.4 (0.00, 0.01)
Barrier + FC with 10% Penetration	1.2 × 10^−3 (1.0 × 10^−7, 1.1 × 10^−5)	47 (0.85, 97)	51 (1.5, 99)	2.5 (0.00, 0.03)
Barrier + FC with 5% Penetration	6.5 × 10^−4 (1.0 × 10^−7, 5.8 × 10^−6)	46 (0.82, 97)	50 (1.4, 98)	3.7 (0.00, 0.06)
Virus Concentration Lower in Non-Respirable Particles
None (baseline)	1.5 × 10^−2 (1.6 × 10^−6, 6.2 × 10^−4)	38 (1.6, 90)	61 (7.8, 100)	1.5 (0.00, 0.01)
Barrier	6.0 × 10^−3 (1.1 × 10^−6, 1.1 × 10^−4)	48 (0.89, 98)	52 (1.6, 99)	0.50 (0.00, 0.00)
Barrier + FC with 10% Penetration	3.5 × 10^−4 (1.0 × 10^−7, 3.1 × 10^−6)	54 (3.1, 99)	43 (0.40, 95)	2.5 (0.00, 0.03)