Social Behaviors Associated With a Positive COVID-19 Test Result

Abstract

Objective To compare the social behaviors of individuals who were tested positive for COVID-19 relative to non-infected individuals. Methods We sent COVID positive cases and age/gender-matched controls a survey regarding their social behaviors via MyChart (online patient portal). We called cases if they did not complete the electronic survey within two days. Data were collected from May to June 2020. Survey responses for cases without close contact and controls were compared using Pearson chi-square or Fisher’s exact tests as appropriate. Results A total of 339 participants completed the survey (113 cases, 226 controls); 45 (40%) cases had known contact with COVID-19. Cases were more likely to have recently traveled (4% vs. 0%, p = 0.01) or to work outside the home (40% vs. 25%, p = 0.02). There was no difference in the rates of attending private or public gatherings, mask/glove use, hand-washing, cleaning surfaces, and cleaning mail/groceries between cases and controls. Conclusions Sixty percent of cases had no known contact with COVID-19, indicating ongoing community transmission and underlining the importance of contact tracing. The greater percentage of cases who work outside the home provides further evidence for social distancing and remote telework when possible.

Societal activities associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection: a case-control study in Denmark, November 2020

“…As reported elsewhere, the risk of transmission seemed to be higher if the infected close contact showed symptoms of COVID-19 [8]. Outside of the household, having a job involving contact with many different people during the day was associated with an increased risk, a finding that has also been reported by others [13]. Different job types have previously been found to be associated with COVID-19.…”

“…Other studies have also found that contact with a known person infected with SARS-CoV-2 is the main risk factor for infection [10,13,17,26]. Further, we found that cases were more likely to have had close contact within the household, where controls were more likely to have close contact at work.…”

“…Transmission within households and between family members is reported to play an important role in SARS-CoV-2 transmission [8][9][10]. Other risk factors reported from previous studies include travelling by public transport [11,12] and airplane [13], working in frontline service work [14], working or studying away from home [13] as well as socio-economic determinants such as lower educational level [11], maintainance income, unemployment, low household income, ethnicity [14,15] and living in social housing [16]. A case-control study among outpatients in the USA found that SARS-CoV-2-positive cases were more likely to have been dining at restaurants and visiting bars/coffee shops than SARS-CoV-2-negative controls.…”

Societal COVID-19 epidemic counter measures and activities associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in an adult unvaccinated population – a case-control study in Denmark, June 2021

“…Several other case-control studies of community determinants have been published. Early in the pandemic (May to June 2020), a case-control study conducted in Ohio and Florida, found no association between infection with SARS-CoV-2 and attending private or public gatherings or use of public transport [6].…”

“…By use of a case-control design, researchers have aimed to identify determinants, private and societal, for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Risk factors reported from previous studies include household overcrowding [3, 4], work in senior/health care [3, 5], work on-site [3, 4, 6, 7], foreign citizenship [3] and low education [3]. At the societal level, only few studies have been performed.…”