The Bad Side of Birthday Parties: What You Should Know
During the worst of the pandemic, they helped drive infections sky high.
Birthday parties are a cause for great joy. They present a chance for families and friends to get together, to see one another, and to celebrate another year in a person’s life. But during the coronavirus pandemic, birthdays represented challenges and difficulties. Unable to get together, celebrations at the height of the pandemic were held over Zoom. And sometimes, they weren’t held at all. Kids celebrated with just their siblings and parents. Friends sang together and ate cake over video calls. It was what we all had to do to stay safe.
But not everybody cared about stopping the spread. For some people the rules and recommendations weren’t a deterrent. They met and celebrated anyway. Of course, for many, this may have been done without recourse. But a study conducted by researchers from Harvard Medical School has discovered that, in the end, these celebrations weren’t all just fun and games.
Birthdays in Hotspots Led to Infections
Consider this. In parts of the US with high rates of COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic, people who attended birthday parties had a much higher chance of falling sick than those who didn’t. In fact, if you had attended a recent celebration in a hot-spot area, your risk of infection with the virus in the coming days rose up to 30%, researchers say.
For areas with low rates of COVID-19 infection in the US, these jumps weren’t noted.
To be fair, researchers say they didn’t count actual birthday parties in their analysis. They did, however, look at birth dates of household members. They then looked at rises in rates of COVID-19 infections in these households around these dates. It was concluded that people in hotspot areas in general had a 30% greater chance of falling sick with the virus soon after their birthday.
Related: All About Heart Inflammation Following COVID-19
Almost 3 million US households were examined through insurance records. So, it seems people were gathering to celebrate, or else an evil infected birthday fairy was climbing in through the windows at night and no one has yet caught her in the act.
While it all involves a bit of guesswork, enough evidence was present for the study authors to conclude that informal social gatherings could have played a significant role in spreading the coronavirus at the height of the pandemic in the US.
Why Does It Matter Now?
So, who cares? Cases of the novel coronavirus are still popping up in the US and Canada. Numbers, however, are now much lower than they were in the winter and spring. So why does it matter that people were meeting for contagious birthday parties in coronavirus hotspots last January? Let bygones be bygones.
Yes, we can, but we can also focus on data, at least for a moment. And, unfortunately, an uncertain future. It’s all about the lessons we can learn.
The Delta Variant and What Could Happen
According to experts, the Delta variant, which was first detected in India, is predicted to become the most common variant of the coronavirus in the US in the coming months. This has already happened in the UK. Cases of the virus are now escalating rapidly at the very moment the state is ready to continue opening.
The Delta variant is known to be much more contagious than the original strain of the novel coronavirus and can cause more serious infection in people of all ages. With a large portion of the population yet unvaccinated against COVID-19 in the US, it could be that yet another wave of the virus will hit the nation this fall.
What to do? Get vaccinated. Enjoy the confidence we can all have going out and socializing for the moment. We don’t know what the fall will bring. Hopefully, we will all be meeting in person for Thanksgiving.
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