Topic: Your home is a hotspot for Covid-19
With Covid-19 surging in the United States, transmission of the novel coronavirus is at an all-time high.
A new analysis that looked at 54 studies in over 20 countries found homes where someone was sick with Covid-19 continued to be hotspots for virus transmission, even if overall community spread was down.
“This is yet another study that reminds us of how contagious the virus that causes Covid-19 is, and how hard it is to keep from infecting others if one lives in crowded, multigenerational housing,” said CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and visiting professor at George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study.
Spouses were at higher risk than other family members, likely due to sleeping in the same room, intimacy and prolonged contact, according to the study published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open.
Risk was higher if the family member showed symptoms of Covid-19 — such as cough, sneezing, body aches, chills and fever — than if the person showed few or no signs of the virus, the study found. Risk was also higher between adults than between adults and children.
A recent study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found infection among household members occurred quickly. Over half of the people (53%) who lived with someone battling Covid-19 became infected within a week, researchers found. Some 75% of these secondary infections occurred within five days of the first symptoms in the initial patient.
Topic Discussed: Your home is a hotspot for Covid-19
