Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Apr;43(2):157-166.
doi: 10.1007/s10935-021-00665-w. Epub 2022 Jan 6.

Large Gathering Attendance is Associated with Increased Odds of Contracting COVID-19: A Survey Based Study

Mary E Schroeder  1 , Michelle Tb Manderski  2 , Chris Amro  3 , Sneha Swaminathan  4 , Akshat Parekh  4 , Sho Yoshitake  4 , Jason Yang  4 , Paul Romeo  4 , Daniel Reyes  4 , Rachel Choron  3 , Michael Rodricks  3
Affiliations

Large Gathering Attendance is Associated with Increased Odds of Contracting COVID-19: A Survey Based Study

Mary E Schroeder et al. J Prev (2022). 2022 Apr.

Abstract

We used a telephone survey to determine risk factors associated with a positive polymerase chain reaction test of a nasopharyngeal swab for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2) at a community hospital in Central New Jersey during the early stages of the pandemic. We compared survey responses of 176 patients in March 2020. Respondents were asked about their living situation, work environment, use of public transportation and attendance at one or more large gatherings (more than 10 people) in the 3 weeks prior to undergoing COVID testing. We found that those who attended a large gathering in the 3 weeks prior to their COVID test had a 2.50 odds ratio (95% CI 1.19, 5.22) of testing positive after controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity, occupation, living situation and recent visit to a nursing home. The total number of gatherings attended or the number of people in attendance was not associated with a positive test. An association was also seen for specific job types such as factory workers, construction workers, and facilities managers. Attendance at a gathering of more than ten people was associated with testing positive for COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; Large gathering; Prevention; Survey; Transmission.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest or financial disclosures to report.

References

    1. Centers for Disease Control (2020). Provisional COVID-19 Death Counts by Week Ending Date and State. https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Week-Endi.... Published May 2020. Accessed June 20, 2020
    1. Cobb J, Seale M. Examining the effect of social distancing on the compound growth rate of COVID-19 at the County level (United States) using statistical analyses and a random forest machine learning model. Public Health. 2020;185:27–29. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2020.04.016. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dominus, S. (2020). How New Jersey’s first coronavirus patient survived. New York Times website. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/magazine/first-coronavirus-patient-ne.... Published April 5, 2020. Accessed June 20, 2020
    1. Lyu W, Wehby GL. Shelter-in-Place orders reduced COVID-19 mortality and reduced the rate of growth in hospitalizations. Health Affairs. 2020;39(9):1615–1623. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00719. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Middleton, J., Reintjes, R., & Lopes, H. (2020). Meat plants—a new front line in the COVID-19 pandemic. BMJ, m2716. 10.1136/bmj.m2716 - PubMed