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People More Likely To Contract COVID-19 At Home: Study
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India, 22 July 2020 1:14 PM GMT | Updated 22 July 2020 2:07 PM GMT
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Further, in terms of age groups, the rate of infection within the household was found higher higher when the first confirmed cases were teenagers or people falling under the age bracket of 60-70.
A study on coronavirus published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on July 16 stated that people were more likely to contract the infection from the members of their family than the contacts from outside.
The research has been conducted by two South Korean epidemiologists. They monitored over 5,706 'index patients', who had tested positive for the COVID-19 and around 59,000 people who came into contact with them in South Korea during January 20–March 27, 2020.
Of the 10,592 household contacts, 11.8% had COVID-19, in other words, one in 10 had contracted the fatal disease from their own families, the findings revealed. Rates were higher for contacts of children than adults.
Of the 48,481 non-household contacts, 1.9% had COVID-19, that accounts for approximately two out of 100 infected people infected with the virus.
"Contacts in high-risk groups (household contacts of COVID-19 patients, healthcare personnel) were routinely tested; in non–high-risk groups, only symptomatic persons were tested. Non–high-risk asymptomatic contacts had to self-quarantine for 14 days and were placed under twice-daily active surveillance by public health workers," the report read.
Further, on the basis of age groups, it was found that the rate of infection within the household was higher when the first confirmed cases were teenagers or people falling under the age bracket of 60-70.
Of the total household contacts, 32.3% fell into the 20–29 years of age bracket, followed by those 50–59 with 19.3% and 40–49 accounting for 16.5%.
"This is probably because these age groups are more likely to be in close contact with family members as the group is in more need of protection or support," Reuters quoted Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and one of the authors of the study.
Children aged nine and under were least likely to be the index patient, said Dr Choe Young-june, one of the authors who co-led the work, adding that children with COVID-19 were also more likely to be asymptomatic than adults, which made it harder to identify index cases within that group.
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