{"id":231570,"date":"2021-07-08T15:30:19","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T15:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/?p=1452828"},"modified":"2021-07-08T15:30:19","modified_gmt":"2021-07-08T15:30:19","slug":"the-euros-could-be-why-more-men-are-testing-positive-for-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/07\/08\/the-euros-could-be-why-more-men-are-testing-positive-for-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Euros could be why more men are testing positive for coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"
Men gathering to watch Euro 2020 football matches may be a potential reason why they were nearly a third more likely than women to test positive for coronavirus (Covid-19), experts have suggested.<\/p>\n
Data from Imperial College London and Ipsos Mori shows a notable difference between the number of men and women testing positive for the virus for the first time, researchers said.<\/p>\n
Professor Paul Elliott, director of the React programme from Imperial\u2019s School of Public Health, told Sky News<\/em>:<\/p>\n We saw the same in Scotland around the Euros and visits to Wembley and matches in Glasgow.<\/p>\n Clearly it\u2019s not just going to the match but it\u2019s going to the pub, being in close proximity.<\/span><\/p>\n We know how this virus is transmitted, it\u2019s transmitted through close proximity to other people, some of whom may be infected and we also know from our data and other data that some people don\u2019t know they have the virus and they don\u2019t have symptoms but they carry the virus.<\/p>\n So it does come down again to this social distancing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Prof Elliott added:<\/p>\n We have noticed in the current round that the prevalence is higher in men than women \u2013 around 0.7% in men and 0.5% in women.<\/p>\n And women have therefore something like a 30% reduced odds of testing positive in our study, once we\u2019ve adjusted for other variables.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Asked why this might be the case, Steven Riley, professor of infectious disease dynamics at Imperial College, said fluctuations in transmission are likely to be caused by changes in social mixing.<\/p>\n He added:<\/p>\n And there\u2019s lots of evidence that mixing inside is more likely to result in transmission than mixing outside.<\/p>\n If I had to speculate about the impact of the Euros … I would think about the increased probability that people are mixing inside more frequently than they otherwise would.<\/span><\/p>\n So my first thought wouldn\u2019t immediately be to the stadium and the immediate surrounds, it would be about the more general behaviour of the population, but we don\u2019t have results that speak to that directly in this study.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\nSocial distancing<\/h5>\n