- A new study claims that the place where you are most likely to catch the coronavirus is at home.
- The Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China tracked 3,410 contacts of 391 COVID-19 patients and found 127 who became infected. Of the 127 secondary infections, 105 occurred at home, while just 1 occurred on public transportation.
- Patients with fewer symptoms were found to spread the virus more easily as well.
Five months into the new coronavirus pandemic, most of us have not had the luxury of staying home all day in the hope that the federal government will function long enough to pass on another relief package other than that researchers wonderfully provide a safe and effective vaccine approved before the end of the year. We have to take calculated risks when we go to work, shop, or just go out to get some fresh air, but it turns out that the place where you are most likely infected with COVID-19 is the one place where you will never be able to occur.
A study published in the medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine of the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China looked at 3,410 contacts from 391 patients who tested positive. 127 of those contacts were also infected, and a large majority of the secondary infections occurred at home.
The study looked at a variety of potential institutions for transmission and found that an overwhelming percentage of people caught the virus from the index boxes doing so in their homes. Of the 127 secondary cases, 105 came from domestic contact. 11 occurred at exit locations as workplaces, 7 occurred in a health care facility, and just 1 was recovered to public transportation. Using these data, the researchers determine that the risk of contracting the coronavirus in your home if someone else is infected is highest at 10.3%. The risk drops to 1% in a healthcare setting and even further down to 0.1% on public transport.
These results are consistent with almost everything we have heard about the virus from the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to local news stories and anecdotal reports. Prolonged exposure in an enclosed space puts you at greater risk of contracting the virus.
“In China, the quarantine of domestic contacts began immediately at designated locations by local CDCs after index cases were diagnosed, which may have resulted in a relatively lower secondary attack rate among domestic contacts compared to published studies in other countries,” the study explains. “However, the risk of secondary infection through domestic contact was still the highest compared to other contact settings, as people spend more time at home, leading to more frequent and longer unprotected exposure than the other contact settings.”
Furthermore, the study also notes that “patients with more clinically serious illness were more likely to infect their close contacts than less severe index cases.” Asymptomatic carriers were found to be the least likely to infect others, and the secondary cases were “generally clinically milder and less likely to manifest such common symptoms as fever, cough, expectoration, fatigue, myalgia and diarrhea.”
Jacob started covering video games and technology in college as a hobby, but it soon became clear to him that this was what he wanted to do for a living. He currently resides in New York and writes for BGR. His previously published work can be found on TechHive, VentureBeat and Game Rant.
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