Now in August, there is some good news for women seeking prenatal care. Researchers in Boston have shown no difference in the average number of in-person visits between 90 pregnant women who tested positive for COVID-19 and 370 pregnant controls who did not contract the virus. The researchers say the findings “suggest in-person health care visits were not likely to be an important risk factor for infection and that necessary, in-person care can be safely performed.” Their paper is published in JAMA Network Open.

This findings fits as well with what we are discovering about COVID-19 transmission patterns. Unsurprisingly, household exposure to COVID-19 confers the greatest risk for transmission, while being outdoors is least risky. A recent publication in Annals of Internal Medicine studied 3400 close contacts of nearly 400 COVID-19 patients in Guangzhou, China. Overall, nearly 4% of all contacts became infected. Of these, 10% of household contacts were infected versus 1% of those exposed in healthcare settings and 0.1% of those exposed on public transportation. Interestingly, the risk for transmission increased with the severity of symptoms in the original (index) case increased. I found this to be somewhat counter intuitive given the recent emphasis on asymptomatic and presympatic spread of the virus.