Lockdown Birthday Parties for Kids Did Increase Risk of Covid
The hard-to-capture research is in: children’s birthdays were linked to higher infection rates in counties that already had more cases
Epidemiologists regularly warned of the risks of small group gatherings, particularly indoors, during the pandemic before vaccines were available. News stories about superspreader family events popped up now and then, and infectious disease experts warned that these small indoor gatherings were a substantial driver of infections.
But the evidence was limited because this phenomenon is an incredibly difficult one to study. It’s hard to know how many gatherings are happening, and people may not be forthcoming about having hosted or attended a gathering when local policies advised against it or outright forbade it.
Recently, a group of researchers figured out a clever way to investigate how many infections resulted from at least one type of gathering during the pandemic: birthday parties. It turns out SARS-CoV-2 crashed more than a few birthday festivities, particularly those of children.
Instead of conducting a survey, which could include biased answers from respondents, the researchers used an entirely objective data source for their study. They…
