Estimating the asymptomatic proportion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship, Yokohama, Japan, 2020
Eurosurveillance·
- DOI
- 10.2807/1560-7917.es.2020.25.10.2000180
- PMID
- 32183930
- PMCID
- PMC7078829
- OpenAlex
- W3010781325
- Study type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC)
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Publication version
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Open linked preprint →Why this research matters now
The findings provide early empirical evidence on asymptomatic COVID-19 transmission in a closed setting, relevant to outbreak investigation and transmission dynamics during the early pandemic phase.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
The study aimed to estimate the asymptomatic proportion of COVID-19 infections among passengers and crew aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship during its February 2020 quarantine in Yokohama, Japan.
Study design
Statistical modeling was applied to testing data from the quarantined cruise ship to derive delay-adjusted estimates of asymptomatic infection proportion and the timeline of infections.
Population and setting
The study population consisted of 3,711 people aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship during a 2-week quarantine starting February 5, 2020, in Yokohama, Japan. By February 20, 634 individuals had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
Main findings
The delay-adjusted asymptomatic proportion of infections was estimated at 17.9% (95% credible interval: 15.5-20.2%). The modeling indicated that most infections occurred before the quarantine commenced.
Public-health relevance
The findings provide early empirical evidence on asymptomatic COVID-19 transmission in a closed setting, relevant to outbreak investigation and transmission dynamics during the early pandemic phase.
Important limitations
This summary is limited to the supplied single-article abstract and metadata. Full interpretation of model assumptions, testing coverage, generalizability beyond cruise ship settings, and confidence interval derivation requires access to the original paper.
GIDS interpretation
This peer-reviewed journal article from March 2020 would be discoverable through disease classifiers for COVID-19 and SARS, geographic filters for Japan, and topic tags for outbreak investigation, transmission dynamics, and travel medicine. It represents early pandemic research on asymptomatic transmission.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 13 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.