Leisure/entertainment activities are not biggest source of Covid infection: study
The two biggest sources of Covid-19 infections are the workplace and public transport, an infectious disease expert revealed on Monday.
Assoc Prof Dr Thira Woratanarat from Chulalongkorn University cited a recent study in England and Wales that showed the two most common reasons for infections were leaving home for work (17%) and public transport (12%).
The study of 11,413 samples found that essential activities (work and public transport) carried the greatest risk and were the dominant contributors to infections, said Thira in a Facebook post.
Non-essential indoor activities (hospitality and leisure) increased risk but contributed less, said the study, which was published in the medical journal “Epidemiology and Infection” on December 7.
Outdoor activities carried no statistical risk and contributed to fewer infections.
As countries aim to “live with Covid”, mitigating transmission in essential and indoor venues becomes increasingly relevant, the study concluded.
Thira, who is chief of Chulalongkorn University’s Information Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases, advised people to continue to protect themselves against Covid-19 if they could not work from home. Wearing face masks in public places and washing hands regularly significantly reduces the risk of infection, he said.
“Also, increasing ventilation in your work environment will help prevent both the virus and PM2.5 fine dust,” he added.
“As Covid-19 is still spreading, the best practice is to protect yourself from infection and reinfection.”
Sunday saw 88,217 new Covid-19 infections reported globally, with 398 deaths.
So far, more than 676 million (676,211,460) people have contracted Covid-19 across the world and about 1 % (6,771,736) have died from the disease.
Countries that reported the highest number of infections on Sunday were Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Russia and Austria, in that order.
In Thailand, 472 Covid-19 patients were admitted to hospital in the week of January 22 to 28, or about 67 people per day, the Public Health Ministry reported. Twenty-nine people died of the virus that week.
Reference: Hoskins S et al. Relative contribution of essential and non-essential activities to SARS-CoV-2 transmission following the lifting of public health restrictions in England and Wales. Epidemiology and Infection. December 7, 2022.
