National Institutes of Health Studies How COVID-19 Spreads
In an effort to understand how the virus spreads so efficiently, researchers with the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center in Bethesda, Maryland, studied the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in China’s Hunan Province.
In an effort to understand how the virus spreads so efficiently, researchers with the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center in Bethesda, Maryland, studied the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in China’s Hunan Province, one of the first regions to experience a COVID-19 outbreak. Published in Science, findings from the study, “Transmission Heterogeneities, Kinetics, and Controllability of SARS-CoV-2,” offer insight into better controlling viral transmission.
Researchers examined case records from 1178 COVID-19 patients and looked at data on more than 15,000 of the patients’ close contacts. They found that a minority of people infected with the virus were responsible for transmitting the majority of cases, as the team reports that approximately 80% of cases were spread by 15% of infected individuals. Of the measures that Hunan officials implemented to slow the spread, isolating COVID-19 cases and quarantining contacts were found to reduce transmission rates. Hunan authorities used several measures to get the outbreak under control, including strict lockdown measures, mask-wearing and physical distancing. Those infected were treated in dedicated hospitals. The province also used contact tracing to identify individuals who may have been exposed. Those contacts were subsequently quarantined in medical observational facilities.
From Decisions in Dentistry. April 2021;7(4):7.
