(1/10) Follow-up study of household contacts of people with #COVID19, showing it’s possible to prevent transmission at home.
Daily testing showed some people may not test positive for long. One child was positive for only 2 days. Cases are easily missed. wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27…
(2/10) This was a study of 5 households in Utah, conducted by the CDC. Each household had one index case. CDC staff visited each household within 2-4 days of the index cases’ positive test (day 0), for the next 4 days (day 1-4), and 14 days later. Contacts were tested each visit.
(3/10) In 3 of the 5 households, there was no transmission to other household members (0%).
In the other 2 households, all family members were infected (100%).
Overall, 7 of the total 15 contacts were infected (47%).
(2/5) The children with mild illness included hospital patients in which #SARSCoV2 had been identified in routine testing before admission (unrelated to #COVID19).
As such, it is possible they may not be representative of mild cases generally.
(3/5) It is unclear what the long-term implications of this study are. It is possible these findings are fully reversible.
1. Updated thread on children & #COVID19, summarising recent research.
Summary: further evidence children and adults are equally susceptible, and similarly likely to transmit. Schools have been a driver of the second wave in Europe, Canada, and elsewhere. #edutwitter#auspol
2. First, a recap. Given similar exposure, children and adults appear equally susceptible to infection, and also appear to transmit at a similar rate. School transmission has been increasing in many countries.
(1/9) #LongCovid is common. In this study of 180 Faroe Islanders (of whom only 8 were hospitalised), 53% had at least 1 symptom after an average of 4 months (minimum follow-up 45 days).
(2/9) All 187 people who tested positive for #COVID19 between 3 March and 22 April were invited to participate in this study, and 180 took part. Participants were followed up (by telephone) for 45-215 days (average: 125 days).
The average age was 39 years, and 54% were female.
(3/9) In the initial phase of illness, 8 people (4.4%) were asymptomatic.
At the last assessment, just under half (47%) were symptom-free. One-third (33.3%; n=60) had 1 or 2 symptoms, and 19.4% (n=35) had >=3 symptoms.
Two asymptomatic people subsequently reported symptoms.
(1/8) Important study demonstrating “opportunistic airborne” transmission of #SARSCoV2 in just five minutes at a restaurant in South Korea, confirmed by CCTV.
Air conditioning may have enabled infection over a distance of more than 4 metres to occur. jkms.org/DOIx.php?id=10…
(2/8) In this study, #COVID19 was detected in a person (case A) on 17 June.
The investigators discovered case A had visited the same restaurant as a previous confirmed case (case B) on 12 June.
It was determined case B had probably infected case A.
(3/8) All the people who came into contact with case B at the restaurant were then tested.
One more case (case C) was detected among these people.
In total, 2 of the 13 people (15%) who had been in the restaurant at the same time as case B were infected.
There are likely many reasons, but one intriguing possibility is some people might be biologically predisposed to release more aerosols when they speak.
(2/6) First, in this study researchers showed that for everyone, the amount of particles that are released increase with the loudness of speech.
This is why activities such as singing pose a particularly high risk for transmission of #SARSCoV2.
(3/6) Researchers then measured the amount of particles released per second when participants pronounced the vowel “A”, and when they read aloud in English.
Participants released between 1 and 14 particles per second. The average number was 4.