Lindsey TheisWhen it comes to getting sick with COVID-19, you might be thinking about this, and we have too. Skyler Fortgang asks:
"What's the risk of visiting my significant other who lives in another household with her family during this pandemic?"
We asked the experts: Dr. Frank Esper, a Pediatric Infectious Disease Specialist, The Cleveland Clinic; Katie Cary, vice president of infection prevention for HCA Continental Division; and Dr. Nipunie Rajapakse, a Pediatric Infectious Diseases Physician, the Mayo Clinic.
Their take: Contracting COVID-19 from visiting someone you don’t live with is medium-risk.
"Everybody who you allow into your house or whose house you go to, you should understand that every time you do that, it's a risk," Esper said.
"There would be more risk if there was a plane flight involved or, you know, travel where there is exposure to additional people. But as long as it was, you know, you're getting in your car and you're going across town to visit your significant other, then the risk would remain really low," Cary said.
"Either of the people could be an asymptomatic spreader of the virus. And so even though they're feeling well, it doesn't mean that they could not transmit that to someone else," Rajapakse said. "Even though you may have been physically distancing, if you've set foot outside of your home or come in contact with other people, there is some risk that you could get infected and then transmitted infection to someone else."
If you have a question about your risk, send us a video to whatstherisk@newsy.com. You can see answers to other questions here.
