Attending this beloved event could put you at higher risk for COVID

You may have thought you were in the clear for all activities this summer, but COVID-19 is still out there which means there are still risks. According to new research presented jointly by Harvard University, the RAND Corporation, and Castlight Health, attending birthday parties can significantly increase your chances of contracting COVID-19.

The connection between birthdays and COVID risk

Although global COVID-19 cases are declining, experts are still identifying virus risk factors. The authors of this study reviewed health insurance claims filed two weeks after a household held a birthday celebration and found that these events increased COVID risk by nearly a third in regions where the virus was widespread.

“This study suggests that events that lead to small and informal social gatherings, such as birthdays, and in particular, children’s birthdays, are a potentially important source in SARS-CoV-2 transmission,” the authors wrote in the report.

In the analysis, which included 2.9 million different households, the authors observed an increase in COVID-19 diagnoses of 15.8 per 10 000 persons after a child’s birthday, compared to an increase in COVID-19 diagnoses of 5.8 per 10, 000 among households with an adult birthday.

But why are children’s birthday parties, in particular, riskier than adult birthday parties? For a start, children under the age of 12 have yet to be authorized for vaccination.

Moreover, children’s birthday parties are more likely to feature activities that can make people more vulnerable to the virus such as blowing out candles and close proximity games. Additionally, children are generally less aware of potentially risky behavior.

Although this data was collected last year-when coronaviruses cases were much higher, its implications offer important insights into the kinds of events that require more monitoring than others. This is especially true in light of the new more contagious delta variant—which is currently the most dominant strain in the US.

Many policies designed to stop the spread of COVID-19 address formal gatherings, such as workplaces and dining locations.

The new paper was published in the Jama Internal Medicine journal.

The danger of small gatherings

The authors of the new paper suggest that small gatherings are a vector for COVID transmission—in part—because they’re so hard to trace.

Households with birthdays had 8.6 more diagnoses per 10,000 individuals compared with households without a birthday, which represents a region-level-prevalence increase of 31%.

This percentage suggests that private household events are a major driving force of new coronavirus cases in a given county.

Not only are public exposure events like weddings or work parties easier to track the formal nature of them in combination with the volume of attendees that are not intimately familiar with each other, makes guests more aware of their behavior and the behavior of others with respect to COVID risk

“Our findings suggest that policy interventions designed to limit disease transmission should also focus on informal gatherings as well,” the authors added.

The paper went on to warn unvaccinated populations against hosting gatherings in regions disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

There have been some reports indicating a decrease in US vaccination rates recently. SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is an RNA virus which means it mutates relatively quickly. The only way to counteract the virus’s pace is by keeping the majority of the population inoculated against it.