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By Amy Norton<\/b>
HealthDay Reporter<\/i><\/p>\n
FRIDAY, July 24, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
People with COVID-19<\/a> are told to keep their distance from family members to protect them from infection. But a new study finds that one-fifth of U.S. homes are too small for that to happen.<\/p>\n Researchers found that more than 20% of households nationwide lacked enough bedrooms and bathrooms to allow a person with COVID-19<\/a> to isolate. That covers roughly one-quarter of the population.<\/p>\n And as with the pandemic in general, minority and low-income Americans are most affected. Among Hispanic adults, close to 40% live in a home with too few bedrooms or bathrooms.<\/p>\n Experts said housing conditions are likely one reason that Black and Hispanic Americans have been especially hard-hit during the COVID-19<\/a> pandemic.<\/p>\n “This is not affecting everyone in the same way,” said Dr. Talia Swartz, an infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.<\/p>\n It’s hard for any family to keep coronavirus from spreading in the household, said Swartz, who is also a spokeswoman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.<\/p>\n “It’s that much harder if you’re living in crowded conditions,” she added.<\/p>\n Health experts’ advice to isolate sick family members makes sense, Swartz noted. But it can be frustrating for people without the space to do so.<\/p>\n “The guidance is catered to people who are able to do those things,” she said. “I think we need to be more thoughtful in our recommendations.”<\/p>\n Dr. Ashwini Sehgal, a professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, led the study.<\/p>\n “The issue of quarantining at home hasn’t gotten the same attention as mask wearing and social distancing,” he said. “And I think we need to do more.”<\/p>\n One option, Sehgal said, could be to offer hotel rooms to people who need to quarantine — under medical supervision, and with free meal delivery. The tactic has been used in several Asian countries, he noted.<\/p>\n New York City, which was the epicenter of the U.S. pandemic in the spring, did launch a hotel program, as did some other big cities. But Sehgal said he’s not aware of any coordinated effort to make that option widely available.<\/p>\n And cramped housing is not limited to big cities, said Paulette Cha, a research associate with the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco.<\/p>\n In California, where high housing costs are a longstanding issue, overcrowding is widespread, she said.<\/p>\n Compounding the problem, many people in cramped housing are also essential workers who don’t have the option of staying at home. Looking at California’s numbers, Cha’s team found that 29% of food service workers lived in crowded conditions, for example. The same was true for 31% of farm workers.<\/p>\n “If you’re out in the world and at risk of being exposed to the virus, and then unable to manage your risk [of transmission] at home, everything is amplified,” Cha said.<\/p>\n Swartz agreed that all those factors coming together puts families in a tough spot. And that includes the anxiety<\/a> essential workers can feel about potentially bringing the virus home, she noted.<\/p>\n When a family member has COVID-19<\/a> and cannot isolate within the home, Swartz said other measures — though challenging — can still be taken. They include maintaining 6-feet<\/a> of physical distance, hand-washing and regularly cleaning household surfaces.<\/p>\n There’s also the bigger picture, Cha said. The pandemic has thrown a light on inequities that have existed in the United States for many years — and housing is among them.<\/p>\n “These issues are all tied together,” she said. “And during the pandemic, all the chickens have been coming home to roost. The question is: Are we going to acknowledge this and invest in these communities?”<\/p>\n The findings, recently published online in the Annals of Internal Medicine<\/i>, are based on responses to a 2017 federal housing survey. Of white respondents, 16% lived in housing without enough bedrooms or bathrooms to quarantine. That rose to 24% among both Black and Asian respondents; 34% among Native Americans; and 38.5% of Hispanic respondents.<\/p>\n![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
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