A study conducted by South Korean epidemiologists suggests that people are more likely to contract coronavirus from members of their family, other than from someone outside the home.
On 16th July, a study published in the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) verified details of 5,706 “index patients” who had tested positive for Covid-19. They also looked into details of more than 59,000 people who came in contact with the “index patients.”
The results showed that only 2 out of 100 contracted the virus from someone they came in contact outside their household, while 1 in 10 contracted the disease from their own family members.
Young teenagers or people in their 60s and 70s were more likely to get infected by their own family. Jeong Eun-kyeong, Director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and one of the authors of the study said:
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.
Data for this study was collected between January 20 and March 27, when the virus was spreading exponentially in South Korea.