Children’s birthdays can spread COVID infection

The blockade enacted in the early days of the pandemic Saved millions of lives Prevented tens of millions of infections. However, in most places, quarantine measures were not fully implemented. The government has the authority to close businesses and other places where people gather publicly, but US orders did not prevent citizens from meeting friends and family at home.

By the way, informal social gatherings such as holiday gatherings, parties and weddings seem to have played an important role in the spread of the virus. However, there is no easy way to test this hypothesis on a large scale and rigorously.New research published in JAMA Internal Medicine Avoid these difficulties by analyzing the correlation between them Birthday and COVID-19 infection rate.. Households that have recently celebrated their birthday, or are more likely to have a party, in counties with many cases are at increased risk of infection in the next two weeks compared to households that have celebrated their birthday, according to the findings. It’s about 30% higher. There is no birthday. The authors found that people celebrating their children’s birthdays were at the highest risk of all.

Christopher Whaley, lead author and health policy researcher at RAND Corporation, a non-profit research group based in Santa Monica, California, said: This tells where many infections came from last year. “

Several previous studies investigated the role that informal gatherings played in the new coronavirus infection, but they focused primarily on one-off events such as: Single wedding reception in Maine.. Whaley and his colleagues reveal a national COVID-19 infection pattern for a variety of reasons, including the fact that every person has one birthday and the fact that it occurs throughout the year. I realized that it could be a particularly useful tool for.

The author obtained nationally representative data from 2.9 million US households from Castlight Health, a company that helps people navigate the healthcare system. The data for the first 10 months of 2020 included family birthdays and positive COVID-19 tests received through insurance claims. Researchers do not know if the people who participated in the study actually had a birthday party, but hypothesized that birthdays could be a substitute for possible social gatherings. ..

The findings reveal a significant correlation between birthday and increased risk of COVID-19 infection. In the counties with the highest disease epidemics (top decile), households with birthdays average 8.6 more per 10,000 people than other nearby households without birthdays. In areas where the prevalence of the virus was low, birthday-related infections were also low. Needless to say, the findings were unaffected by political trends, as measured by how the county voted in the 2016 elections. And they were unaffected by quarantine orders and weather. In summary, this is not influenced by sensible situations such as rain driving a party indoors or home ideology, but shows a more universal pattern of behavior. “If you’re informally gathering with family and friends, you’re more likely to be less vigilant or not wear a mask,” says Whaley. “Psychologically, you may not think that your family and friends are at the same risk level as the average person.”

Whaley and his colleagues were particularly surprised that their child’s birthday had a strong impact on the risk of COVID-19 infection. In the counties with the highest prevalence of the disease, children’s birthdays are more than twice as likely to be transmitted to adults’ birthdays, with an additional 15.8 per 10,000 people compared to those who did not have a birthday. The number of COVID-19 cases increased. .. Researchers don’t know what explains the additional risks, but perhaps parents are more hesitant to refrain from parties for their children during a pandemic, or children’s birthday party participants are social. You may not be well trained in distance.

However, for both children and adults, the findings reflect only the average birthday impact on COVID-19 risk and are arguably underestimated by those gathered to celebrate the pandemic. Means. Whaley and his colleagues could, for example, distinguish between those who had a party and those who did not, or social distance from those who hosted or did not wear a mask at the rally. If so, the result would probably be: It became even more prominent.

Still, the new study clearly confirms that “it’s okay to be a party pumper during a pandemic,” says Donald Redermeier, a medical professor at the University of Toronto who wasn’t involved in the study. “In retrospect, we greatly support the benefits we have gained among those who skipped all kinds of social gatherings, such as weddings and birthday parties.”