In a recent study, Oxford University researchers found that keeping your distance from someone who has COVID-19 is not as important as the length of time you spend in contact with them.
What is the probability of catching COVID-19 after being with an infected individual?
A team of academics in the UK, specifically at Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, has finally uncovered some answers to this topic, which has plagued many people’s minds throughout this pandemic.
Data from 700,000 people in England and Wales who were informed about their exposure to an infected person during the health crisis through the nation’s NHS COVID-19 app was examined by the researchers.
Finding out how many of them were notified because they were truly harbored a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Before it was removed in April 2023, users of the NHS COVID-19 app may notify others about their infection.
Based on voluntary reporting, the app would simultaneously alert users if they were in close proximity to an infected person. People would then need to either be tested or segregate themselves.
The lead researcher from the University of Oxford, Lukas Füreder, collaborated with colleagues to determine whether the app had operated as intended before publishing his findings in the journal Nature last month. Did it alert the public when there was a serious risk? Yes, in a nutshell, but the researchers discovered more.
“The app was sending back anonymized data about who was being informed about the risk, who was being tested, who was turning out positive, and specifics about contacts: duration, proximity,” says Füreder.
According to him, “We saw that the app was giving a very accurate count for individuals in terms of risk, both in terms of distance and duration – both of these things really matter.”
More About COVID-19
Time versus Distance
Researchers examined the relationship between the length of contact and the distance from an infected individual to see how it affected the risk of transmission using this “treasure trove” of data. It turns out that time matters as much, if not more, than distance.
Every distance was the main focus. In stations and stores, there was a one- or two-meter separation rule. However, as we now know, duration is more significant, therefore the emphasis should never have been just on distance,” adds Füreder.
“It was necessary to contextualize every distance. It was accurate to separate businesses and stations by either one or two meters. But as we now know, duration is more significant, therefore distance should never be the only consideration,” Füreder says.
“The duration becomes meaningful after you maintain a certain distance. Unfortunately, it only takes ten seconds to be unlucky enough to catch particles from an infected person’s mouth or nose if you’re not wearing a mask.
individual. However, after an hour, you will have undoubtedly tried your luck sixty times in a single minute “, he continues.
The risk of extended exposure at a wider distance is equal to that of shorter exposures at close quarters, according to research findings.
The amount of time you can spend with an infected individual before getting COVID-19 is variable and depends on their behaviors, thus there is no hard and fast rule. For instance, there will be a greater risk of infection for others if they cough frequently.
Even if they keep the advised 2-meter distance, the chance of contracting the illness increases with the amount of time spent with a sick individual.
Füreder makes the following suggestion: “In actuality, we find that a large number of the sick people were those we assumed to be household contacts because they spent more than eight hours together. And roughly 60% of them were transmissions and only 6% were contacts.”
What Acquires Knowledge?
Füreder believes that the most important takeaway from this research is that time will be of the essence when fighting the next pandemic or infectious disease.
“Sure, distance is still important,” he replies. “But once we establish that, we need to talk about duration.”
Füreder highlights that the length of time spent in touch with an infected individual is “something that needed to be taken into consideration in pandemic responses, but was not really counted as much in an honest way.”
“He says that in the big data era, we should prepare a tool for combating a new contagion that will enable us to deal with the spread of a novel pathogen more successfully by utilizing the most recent technological advancements.
Füreder worries, meanwhile, that the lessons learned from one pandemic are not being applied sufficiently to the next.
What worries me more is that global policymakers are choosing to ignore it, which will eventually lead to the loss of all available knowledge.” and skills we have gained.
In summary, this study emphasizes the vital significance that contact time plays in the risk of transmission, even while keeping physical distance is still important.
Comprehending the relationship between duration and distance is essential for developing public health measures that will be effective in the face of future health issues.
