Berlin. Anyone who lives with a person suffering from Covid can also avoid a corona infection. A new study shows what helps.
- The corona incidence is currently over 1000
- In many families there are infections
- Several measures help to avoid infection
If a person infected with the corona virus lives in your own household, protective measures can be taken to protect other family members or partners from it infection preserve. That is result a study the University Medical Center Halle (Saale). The results were published in the specialist journal “Infection”.
In the complex investigation were 262 households with 662 people, including 122 children, were included. Around two thirds of the study participants had been vaccinated at least three times, twelve percent had not yet received any vaccination at the time of infection. The households informed the Halle University Medical Center from mid to late 2022 immediately after an infection with the omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2 occurred. They were then sent test kits for blood samples, symptom diaries and access to an online questionnaire.
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The aim of the study was to examine how the risk of infection in one’s own household changes over time after a vaccination or infection. In this context, researchers Bianca Klee and Sophie Diexer from the Institute for Medical Epidemiology, Biometrics and Informatics also asked about possible measures that households could take Schutz of non-infected people.
Corona: Measures can be implemented especially in two-person households
155 households stated that they had implemented at least one preventative measure; multiple mentions were possible.
- Most held Distance and even lived in different rooms in the days after the infection occurred (124).
- 110 wore mouth and nose protection
- 83 ate at separate times
- 93 disinfected hands or surfaces.
“Due to the small number of cases, we were unable to analyze and identify in detail which measure helped most effectively,” says Bianca Klee in an interview with this editorial team. In general, however, it could be calculated that the risk of infection was reduced 68 percent was higher if no protective measures were taken. “This was particularly true in two-person households. “It is probably easier to implement protective measures in these situations than in a household with several children,” says Klee.
The assumption that people in the case of a Corona infection According to the study, the idea of infection in the household is definitely not the case: “Based on our results, we would say that it makes sense to adhere to certain protective measures in the event of an infection in the household,” explains Bianca Klee.
Risk of infection varies depending on the severity of symptoms
On the core question of the study, how the risk of infection in the household changes over time after infection or vaccination, the scientists came to the following conclusion: This RiskThe overall rate of becoming infected with the Omicron variant within a household was around 58 percent. Shortly after a vaccination or infection, it is said to be around 20 percent and increases continuously to around 80 percent within a year.
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And: The risk of infection was lower in children and adolescents and in those with an infection with only mild symptoms. children and young people no drivers of infection, says Klee. For them, the increase in the risk of infection is lower over time. “Even twelve months after the last infection or vaccination, the probability of becoming infected is only 40 percent,” says Klee. “And that is different from the flu, where children definitely drive the infection process forward.”
“However, we were only able to include a few children in the study, so these results are subject to greater uncertainty,” the scientist continued. But they agreed previous investigationswhich would have dealt with variants other than Omicron.
