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What's My Risk of Getting COVID-19 If I Live Near A Hospital?

In our series "What's the Risk?" experts weigh in on what risks different scenarios pose for transmitting COVID-19.

What's My Risk of Getting COVID-19 If I Live Near A Hospital?
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When it comes to getting sick with COVID-19, you might be thinking about this, and we have too. David Duvall asks: 

"If someone lives near a hospital, are they more at risk of getting the coronavirus?"

We asked the experts: Dr. Irfan N. Hafiz, an infectious disease physician and northwest region chief medical officer at Northwestern Medicine; Katie Cary, vice president of infection prevention for HCA Continental Division; and Dr. Jasmine Marcelin, an infectious disease specialist at Nebraska Medicine.

 Their take: Contracting COVID-19 by living near a hospital is low-risk.

"You really need to have direct contact and exposure to those people. So just because you're near a hospital doesn't increase your risk at all," Cary said. 

"So more people, longer periods of time. And with, poor air circulation, those are the areas where, you know, the risks really start to go up. But if one of those starts going away or if you have none of those three, your risk really starts to drop off," Hafiz says. 

If you have a question about your risk, send us a video at whatstherisk@newsy.com. You can see answers to other questions here