Casual life is fueling surge
A record-breaking surge in U.S. coronavirus cases is being driven to a significant degree by casual occasions that may feel deceptively safe, officials and scientists warn — dinner parties, game nights, sleepovers and carpools.
Many earlier coronavirus clusters were linked to nursing homes and crowded nightclubs. But public health officials nationwide say case investigations are increasingly leading them to small, private social gatherings. This behind-doors transmission trend reflects pandemic fatigue and widening social bubbles, experts say — and is particularly insidious because it is so difficult to police and likely to increase as temperatures drop and holidays approach.
The White House coronavirus task force has been urging states that are virus hot spots to curtail maskless get-togethers of family and friends, saying in reports that asymptomatic attendees “cause ongoing transmission, frequently infecting multiple people in a single gathering.”
“Earlier in the outbreak, much of the growth in new daily cases was being driven by focal outbreaks — longtermcare facilities, things of that nature,” said Nirav Shah, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Maine, where cases have soared in the past two weeks. “Now, the kitchen table is a place of risk.”
In Maine, as in other states, case investigators are seeing a new pattern: People who are infected list more close contacts than they did earlier. From March through September, the average number of contacts identified in Maine coronavirus investigations was 3.5. In October, that rose to 5.8.
“We’ve all gotten used to our bubbles, but I don’t think we’ve really asked whether someone who’s in our bubble is also in another person’s bubble,” Shah said. “People’s bubbles are getting big enough to burst.”
Amber Calderon of Conroe, Texas, now knows she let her guard down in October. The 24-year-old was excited to see some relatives for the first time in months at her nephew’s birthday party.
About 25 people attended the party at a house, and Calderon said just one person wore a mask — her 81year-old grandmother. Calderon started to feel ill a few days later, and she tested positive Oct. 20. Ten other people who were there also got sick, she said, including her grandmother.
“When I tested positive, I was mad at the situation I put myself in,” Calderon said. “I should’ve never attended that party that day. None of us should have. I knew better.”
Calderon came out of it feeling lucky. She and all of her relatives recovered. Her grandmother was hospitalized for a week but is on the mend.
Calderon said she also came out of it with renewed resolve to remind others to be vigilant — and tell them “that the party they are about to have is not a good idea.”