COVID-19: People more likely to contract virus at home, says study

Amid the unprecedented outbreak of deadly coronavirus, South Korean epidemiologists have derived that people are more likely to contract COVID-19 at their homes from their own family members than from out-of-home contacts. A study published in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on July 16 did detailed research of over 5,000 ‘index patients’ who had tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 59,000 people who came in contact with them. 

The findings then revealed that just two out of 100 people infected with coronavirus caught the pathogen from non-household contacts, but one in ten had contracted the fatal disease from their own families. Further breaking it down on the basis of age groups, it was found out that coronavirus infection rate within the home was greater when the first COVID-19 positive persons were teenagers or those belonging to the age group of 60-70.

The researchers wrote, "We detected COVID-19 in 11.8% of household contacts; rates were higher for contacts of children than adults. These risks largely reflected transmission in the middle of mitigation and therefore might characterize transmission dynamics during school closure.

"Higher household than nonhousehold detection might partly reflect transmission during social distancing, when family members largely stayed home except to perform essential tasks, possibly creating spread within the household, they added.

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‘Some are likely to be in close contact’

At the press briefing, Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and one of the authors of the study published in the US CDC reportedly suggested that the reason behind the findings could be because the age groups of teenagers of 60 to 70-year-old’s are ‘more likely’ to be in close contact with family members because they require additional support. However, a difference in attack rates has been calculated in households of various countries. 

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The study said, “Earlier studies on the infection rate for symptomatic household contacts in the United States reported 10.5% (95% CI 2.9%–31.4%), significantly higher than for non-household contacts. Recent reports on COVID-19 transmission have estimated higher secondary attack rates among household than non-household contacts. 

“Compiled reports from China, France, and Hong Kong estimated the secondary attack rates for close contacts to be 35% (95% CI 27%–44%). The difference in attack rates for household contacts in different parts of the world may reflect variation in households and country-specific strategies on COVID-19 containment and mitigation,” it added.

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Image: AP