Massive contact-tracing effort in India reveals striking trends
The patterns of infections and deaths caused by the new coronavirus differ starkly between resource-poor settings and wealthier places, according to the largest contact-tracing study conducted so far, carried out using data from India.
Joseph Lewnard at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues analysed data from almost 85,000 people with COVID-19, as well as their close contacts who numbered nearly 600,000 in the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
The incidence of COVID-19 in the two states declines steadily with age for people aged 40 and older in contrast to the United States, where incidence climbs with age from age 65. Mortality rates for those aged 75 and above were markedly lower in India than in the United States perhaps, the researchers say, because people in India who live to old age tend to be relatively wealthy compared with those who die younger.
The study also found that people were most likely to infect others within their own age group. This is especially true of children, suggesting that socializing among kids could contribute to viral spread.
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