People more likely to contract coronavirus at home, new study finds
People are more likely to contract coronavirus from members of their own households than from contacts outside the home, a new study has found, as the global race for a vaccine ramps up ahead of a potential second wave in the winter.
In a study of around 65,000 people published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, scientists found that less than two per cent of non-household contacts of people infected with Covid-19 caught the virus from them, compared to nearly 12 per cent of household contacts.
The study looked in detail at 5,706 “index patients” who had tested positive for the coronavirus and more than 59,000 people who came into contact with them between January and March.
By age group, the infection rate within households was shown to be higher when the first confirmed cases were teenagers or people in their 60s and 70s, suggesting people at either end of the generational chart are more likely to be vectors of the disease.
“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,” said Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and one of the authors of the study.
Children infected with coronavirus were more likely to be asymptomatic carriers of the disease than adults, the research found, which made it harder to identify index cases within that group.
It comes as pressure continues to mount in the global race for a vaccine as top scientists voice fears of a second wave of coronavirus in the winter.
Speaking to the Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee on Tuesday, chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said a potential resurgence of the virus during the winter months was a “really serious concern,” as the UK still lacks the testing capacity to effectively enforce local lockdowns at the speed required.
Hopes were lifted earlier this week as a potential coronavirus vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and pharmaceuticals giant Astrazeneca was deemed safe and found to induce a “strong response” from the immune system, in a major global breakthrough.
An initial trial of 1,077 people showed that the injection produced antibodies and white blood cells in patients, a new study published in the Lancet medical journal found.
However, deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said the rollout of a potential coronavirus vaccine will likely be limited to the most at-risk members of the public such as the elderly.
“As we know with this disease, the likelihood of death changes markedly with age. And so the risk benefit for a vaccine is likely to be very different by age.”
He added: “We’ll deal with a very large amount of the population who have the mortality loaded against them at the moment.”
However Whitty threw cold water on hopes that a vaccine might be ready by winter, telling the Commons committee on Tuesday: “No one should be under any illusions — the chances of us getting a vaccine by Christmas that is actually highly effective is in my view very low.”