Household transmission behind second wave

Data revealed this afternoon by Public Health director Dr Nicola Brink showed of the last 156 cases, 92 were from another positive case in their household at the time they were found to be positive, or 72% of cases.

Dr Brink said data was analysed frequently by Public Health services.

‘A key feature of the variant virus, which is seen to be highly transmissible, and indeed what we’ve seen in our wave and has been seen in other jurisdictions, is the role of transmission within households,’ she said.

‘It’s really been quite profound for us, when one person gets it in the household, the whole household seems to become infected, either sequentially or at the same time.

‘This has really impacted on households and we want to use this data to inform how we exit out of lockdown.’

When looking at the last 156 cases, 128 of those were contacts of an index case who subsequently became positive.

Dr Brink said it led them to conduct a ‘deep dive’.

‘Of those 128 cases, 92, that’s 72% of cases, had another case in that household that was positive,’ she said.

‘The implication is that they became infected through that household contact.’

Data also showed that 36, or 28%, didn’t have a contact within the household who was positive, with the assumption that they got the infection from elsewhere.

‘What this data shows us is the really important role of household transmission within the second wave, and again this has been a key feature of the variant virus where we’ve seen that transmission in a household setting - this is important to inform our future strategy.’

In a recent publication, the British Medical Journal indicated that at least 60-70% of transmission is within households. That is 10 times more than any other single route.