There are mainly three things involved, and they all play an important role.

Coronavirus: the second wave

Half a year after the spring outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the second wave of the pandemic has arrived. The radical increase in the number of infected is forcing more and more countries to re-impose restrictions, despite the fact that the world economy has not even recovered from the effects of the spring outbreak. According to the signs, the second wave also reached Hungary. Follow our news!

American scientists have identified three main drivers of SARS-CoV-2, the pandemic caused by the new corona virus: households, super-spread events, and international travel. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health in Baltimore a Sciences published a review of previous studies in a scientific journal.

Research participant Elizabeth Lee wrote that a good proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infections likely occur in homes. The researchers cite several studies showing that between 46 and 66 percent of infections are family-related.

Both previous contact research studies and a South Korean study based on more than 59,000 cases concluded that people living in a household had six times the risk of infection than other close contacts. Married couples are twice as likely to be infected as other adults in their household. In multigenerational households, the elderly are at additional risk if younger family members have to go to work or school, the study reads. “This is consistent with the fact that living in a common household is also an important site of transmission for other respiratory viruses,” the researchers emphasized.

A similar threat is posed by law enforcement institutions, group accommodation or nursing homes.

For example, 66 percent of the residents of a homeless shelter, 62 percent of the residents of a nursing home, and 80 percent of a prison wing were infected with the virus. And while inmates rarely leave these institutions, those who work there and visitors connect them with outside communities. While many infections occur in homes, the events that connect these communities are essential to sustaining the epidemic, American scientists have written.

The appearance of the infection depends on the complex interaction of several factors. The so-called super-infectious events play an important role, that is, situations in which an infected person, even asymptomatic, transmits the pathogen to many others. Recently, choir rehearsals, worship services, weddings, and meat plants where such a small number of infected people could transmit the virus were identified as such events. The researchers cited studies that found that 80 percent of the infections were caused by 10 percent of the cases.

The third force sustaining the epidemic, the researchers say, is travel between regions and countries. Some long-distance travelers are already enough to spread the virus around the world. “That is why the initial travel restrictions could not stop the new spread of the new coronavirus, although it may have slowed the pandemic,” they wrote. Chinese rules have shown that strict travel restrictions can only stop the virus.

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