WASHINGTON – A new study shows that children’s birthday celebrations could be partly to blame for the deadly rise of COVID-19 cases in early 2020.
Researchers looked at anonymous health insurance data of 2.9 million households from the first 45 weeks of the year to see if such gatherings were linked with higher rates of COVID-19 transmission.
In counties with higher rates of coronavirus overall, households that had a birthday during that time saw a 31% relative increase in COVID diagnoses than households without a birthday, according to the study, which was published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
In counties with low COVID-19 spread, however, the data did not show a jump in cases during the two weeks after birthdays, whether child or adult.
If you would like to read the full study, visit jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2781306
Leave a Reply