Vaccine, mask mandates seemed to limit COVID-19 spread at Orlando medical conference, study suggests
Even during COVID-19 surges, medical conferences may safely continue if attendees are willing to take precautions, new survey results suggest.
The survey, published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open, compares COVID-19 positivity rates in people who attended the Academic Surgical Congress in Orlando from Feb. 1 to 3 this year in person at the Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista versus virtually.
The conference, put on by the National Surgical Society, took place right after the omicron surge’s peak. Despite high transmission levels in Central Florida, there was no meaningful difference in rates of COVID-19 between those who went to the conference and those who stayed home.
Dr. Callisia N. Clarke, one of the study’s authors and an associate professor in the Department of Surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin, thinks this could be because in-person attendees were required to mask, vaccinate, and encouraged to self-test, among other measures, though this type of study cannot determine cause and effect.
“We weren’t able to control everything about the study — for example, we can’t necessarily prove that what we did mitigated COVID transmission — but the evidence is suggestive of that,” Clarke said. “These mitigation strategies can be extrapolated to [other] large gatherings as well.”
The conference had around 1,600 total virtual and in-person attendees. Of 546 in-person attendees and 135 virtual attendees who responded to the researchers’ anonymous survey, 1.8% of in-person attendees and 1.5% of virtual attendees tested positive in the week after the conference.
Elena Cyrus, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Central Florida who was not involved in the study, agreed with the authors’ conclusions but noted that the study was small.
“If the sample was larger, there might have eventually been a statistical difference [in COVID-19 positivity], but in general, I think the article does a fair job of proving that there is increased risk in larger gatherings that can be mitigated using public health guidelines from screening, mask-wearing, and vaccinations,” she wrote.
She cautioned against expanding this study’s findings to the general population, however.
“These were health care professionals,” Cyrus wrote. “This finding may not be generalizable to other groups who may implement some of these measures for a large gathering but in a less strict or comprehensive way than a group of surgeons.”
Clarke noted that the study didn’t necessarily suggest this gathering was safe.
“What we showed was that we didn’t think the meeting was higher risk than basically going to work [for surgeons],” she said.
She added that this group was probably a lot more respectful of COVID-19 precautions than most Americans.
“Everyone was compliant at the meeting,” she said. “We didn’t have to police them, remind people to keep their masks on. ... Maybe from that standpoint, it would be slightly different for other groups. But I think in general ... evidence-based mitigation strategies can control the rate of spread.”
Even if this study were only applicable to medical professionals, COVID-19 is here to stay and Orlando is a popular choice for medical gatherings.
In March, the Global Health Conference & Exhibition hosted around 26,000 visitors at the Orange County Convention Center after canceling the conference in 2020. In August, the Florida Health Care Association hosted about 1,000 attendees for its annual conference at the Hyatt Regency Orlando. The Florida Hospital Association will hold its annual meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando Grande Lakes in October, and in November, about 10,000 kidney professionals will gather downtown for “Kidney Week 2022.”
