Here’s a list of ‘higher risk’ settings and activities that allow Covid-19 to spread

IRELAND’S HEALTH WATCHDOG has advised NPHET on the “highest risk” environments and activities that allow the spread of the new coronavirus.

The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) said that certain activities and environments that may need more public health measures, as they are “conducive to spread.”

These high-risk settings or activities include: health and social care settings, food and meat processing plants, cruise ships, prisons, shopping malls, religious settings, bars, nightclubs and restaurants, gyms, offices, weddings, and large shared accommodations.

Hiqa said that this is not a definitive list. He also identified the risk in homes and said there is “a clear reason” for the self-isolation patterns within homes.

According to an analysis by Hiqa, the main factors that contribute to the risk of transmission include:

• indoor environments,
• crowds, and
• prolonged and intense contact with others.

Other important factors may include:

• the level of ventilation,
• speaking volume,
• insufficient use of face coverings,
• the viral load of the index case.

Activities that involve eating, drinking, exercising, singing or yelling, prolonged face-to-face conversation, especially in crowded indoor environments, were associated with an increased risk of transmission in several studies, Hiqa said.

Hiqa said that homes they play “an important role” in the transmission of the coronavirus. Based on the international literature, it said the estimated ‘secondary attack rate’ in home settings is 18%, compared to <1% in healthcare settings.

In work environmentsAdditional factors found related to the spread of Covid include: working despite symptoms (‘presenteeism’); lack of access to hand washing facilities; and improper or inappropriate use of personal protective equipment (PPE).

For schoolsHiqa says that because they are “supervised and controlled” environments, they are supposed to have less risk than incidents like house parties, which are “unsupervised and uncontrolled” environments.

The report states:

While schools can be considered high-risk environments (due to high density, proximity for long periods, indoor environment, etc.), this was found not to be reflected in the Irish data with relatively few groups (2% of all reported groups), consistently low test positivity rates, and limited evidence of transmission in the school setting.

“This highlights that transmission risks within school populations can be effectively mitigated with the implementation of adequate protection measures.”

You can read Hiqa’s advice to NPHET, posted on November 12 and posted today, here.