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Many people today work in offices with others.
Office landscapes have become commonplace across the globe and this is the working environment that this Korean studio has studied.
Both Norway and other countries are opening up parts of society. Several go to work. So the chance of spreading the infection may increase.
South Korea as an example
South Korea is one of the countries that has best managed to overcome the Corona crisis and is now emerging as a pattern for others. The strategy that Koreans have used is to thoroughly test people and act quickly and vigorously if the spread of infection is detected.
The Korea Center for Disease Control (KCDC) reports the results of a study in which researchers investigated an incident in early March.
Then 97 employees were infected in an office building in the center of the capital Seoul. These people made up 8.5 percent of everyone who had stayed in the building.
With the exception of four people, all symptoms of covid-19 disease developed. This is less symptom-free than that found in some other studies.
This study has investigated why it was these 97 people who became infected and not the more than a thousand people who stayed in the same office building.
Also read: Researchers Say Kids Get Healthier By Going To Daycare
Quarantine and evidence
On March 9, the infection was discovered in the large office building.
The entire building was immediately closed, in accordance with Korea’s strict contagion measures. All those who were diagnosed with infection were immediately isolated.
In addition, all people with whom some of the 97 infected had been quarantined were quarantined for 14 days and tested twice.
Tracking the mobile data, authorities found everyone who had been near the large office building for more than five minutes. More than 16,000 people received a text message telling them to get tested immediately and stay away from others.
Also read: Why are fewer Norwegians working than before?
They sat close to each other for a long time
As many as 94 of the 97 people who tested positive for covid-19 turned out to have been working at a call center on the 11th floor of the building.
On this floor, up to 43.5 percent of 216 workers had been infected.
The large office building allows many employees to come into physical contact with areas affected by infected people, for example in the entrance area and when they press the lift buttons. However, little contagion seems to have spread in this way.
Instead, the infection spread mainly among employees who sat close to each other for a long time inside the call center.
In the blue seats, the infected staff sat in the open office landscape. Most had been around for a long time in the same part of the room. (Image: KCDC / CDC)
The researchers behind the study believe their study shows how exceptionally infectious the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be in a confined office space.
They also write that “the duration of interaction (contact) was probably an important factor behind the increased spread of SARS-CoV-2.”
Also read: Aavitsland believes in vaccine not before fall 2021
Time seems to be important.
When Norway and other communities now open after keeping the crown closed, many are concerned about further spread of the infection.
This study from Seoul in South Korea shows that the infection can spread quickly in offices where employees are very close. It also says that few people, other than those who were around infected people for a long period of time, contracted the infection.
Therefore, how long you stay close to an infected person seems to be a deciding factor.
References and sources:
Shin Young Park and others: «Coronavirus disease outbreak in Call Center, South Korea» , EID Journal. Article.
Sean Flemming: «COVID-19: How an Office Outbreak in South Korea Shows that Protecting Workers is Vital to Relax the Lockdown», article online at the World Economic Forum, May 4.
The case was first published on Forskning.no
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