New Delhi, July 22: To contain the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), which has claimed more than 6 lakh lives across the world, most countries and even experts are advising people to stay indoors and avoid crowded places so that they don't come in contact of an infected person. However, a study conducted by South Korean epidemiologists has found that people are more prone to COVID-19 infection at home. Increased Risks for COVID-19 Patients Who Smoke, Vape: Study.

As part of the research, which was published in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on July 16, epidemiologists studied 5,706 "index patients" who had tested positive for the coronavirus and more than 59,000 people who came into contact with them. The study found that just two out of 100 infected people had contracted COVID-19 from non-household contacts, while one in 10 had caught the virus from their own families. Immunotherapy Safe for Patients With COVID-19, Cancer: Study.

The epidemiologists also found that the infection rate within a family was higher when the confirmed cases were teenagers or someone in his/her 60s and 70s. "This is probably because these age groups are more likely to be in close contact with family members as the group is in more need of protection or support," Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and one of the authors of the study, was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters.

Children infected with COVID-19 in a household were also more likely to be asymptomatic than adults, which made it more difficult to identify index cases within that group. "The difference in age group has no huge significance when it comes to contracting Covid-19. Children could be less likely to transmit the virus, but our data is not enough to confirm this hypothesis," Dr Choe Young-june, a Hallym University College of Medicine assistant professor who co-led the work, said.

For the study, details of COVID-19 infected persons were collected between January 20 and March 27, when the coronavirus was spreading exponentially in South Korea.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 22, 2020 04:10 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).