A Princeton-led study of more than a half-million people in India who were exposed to the novel coronavirus suggests that the virus’ continued spread is driven by only a small percentage of those who become infected, known as superspreaders. The paper is the largest COVID-19 contact tracing study to date. (Image by Shutterstock)
A study of more than a half-million people in India who were exposed to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 suggests that the virus’ continued spread is driven by only a small percentage of those who become infected.
Furthermore, children and young adults were found to be potentially much more important to transmitting the virus — especially within households — than previous studies have identified, according to a paper by researchers from the United States and India published in the journal Science.
Researchers from Princeton University’s High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI), Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley, worked with public health officials in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh to track the infection pathways and mortality rate of 575,071 individuals who were exposed to SARS-CoV-2. It is the largest contact tracing study conducted in the world for any disease.
Lead researcher Ramanan Laxminarayan, a senior research scholar in HMEI, said that the paper is the first large study to capture the extent to which SARS-CoV-2 hinges on “superspreading,” in which a small percentage of the infected population passes the virus on to more people.
The research also provides the first large-scale evidence that the implementation of a countrywide shutdown in India led to substantial reductions in coronavirus transmission.
