Birthdays linked to spread of Covid in areas with high transmission - The Guardian
Households with recent birthdays were more likely to test positive with Covid in areas with high infection rates, according to an analysis of nearly 3m homes in the US.But, in areas where the virus was circulating in the community, households with recent birthdays were roughly 30% more likely to have a Covid diagnosis, compared with households with no birthdays.In other words, in counties with high Covid transmission, households with recent birthdays averaged 8.6 more cases for every 10,000 individuals than households in the same counties without a birthday.But the effect was even sharper when it was a child with a birthday – with an increase in Covid cases of 15.8 for every 10,000 persons in the two weeks following a child’s birthday, compared with cases in families without a birthday.