Strict Distancing Keeps Your COVID Risk Much Lower

Strict Distancing Keeps Your COVID Risk Much Lower

Practicing strict social distancing is associated with a markedly lower likelihood of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, a new study suggests.


Using public transportation, visiting a place of worship, or otherwise traveling from the home is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of testing positive, the researchers report.


For their analysis, the researchers surveyed a random sample of more than 1,000 people in the state of Maryland in late June, asking about their social distancing practices, use of public transportation, SARS-CoV-2 infection history, and other COVID-19-relevant behaviors.


They found, for example, that those reporting frequent public transport use were more than four times as likely to report a history of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection, while those who reported practicing strict outdoor social distancing were just a tenth as likely to report ever being SARS-CoV-2 positive.


The study is believed to be among the first large-scale evaluations of COVID-19-relevant behaviors that is based on individual-level survey data, as opposed to aggregated data from sources such as cellphone apps.


“Our findings support the idea that if you’re going out, you should practice social distancing to the extent possible because it does seem strongly associated with a lower chance of getting infected,” says study senior author Sunil Solomon, an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s epidemiology department and an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins School Medicine.


“Studies like this are also relatively easy to do, so we think they have the potential to be useful tools for identification of places or population subgroups with higher vulnerability.”


SARS-COV-2 Infection and Social Distancing 


The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has infected nearly 27 million people around the world, of whom some 900,000 have died, ac ..

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