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Adults who tested positive for Covid-19 were approximately twice as likely to have reported dining at a restaurant in the 14 days before becoming ill than those who tested negative, according to a new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”In addition to dining at a restaurant, case-patients were more likely to report going to a bar/coffee shop, but only when the analysis was restricted to participants without close contact with persons with known COVID-19 before illness onset,” the researchers wrote.
The study, published on Thursday, included data on 314 adults who were tested for Covid-19 in July because they were experiencing symptoms; 154 tested positive and 160 tested negative. The tests were administered at 11 different health care facilities across 10 US states: California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah and Washington.The researchers — from the CDC and other institutions — took a close look at how those patients responded to questions about wearing masks and various activities in the community, including whether they recently dined at a restaurant, hung out a bar or went to a gym, for instance.Forty-two percent of the adults who tested positive, the data showed, reported having close contact with at least one person known to have Covid-19, compared with 14% of those who tested negative — and most of the close contacts, 51%, were family members.
The researchers also found that 71% of the adults with Covid-19 and 74% of those who tested negative reported always using a face covering while in public.