Couples should wear face masks during sex to reduce the risk
of transmitting COVID-19 to each other, experts at Harvard University have
recommended in a new report.
Guidelines for staying healthy at work, in churches, at home
have saturated the web but very little has been said about intimacy between
couples who are keen on adhering to social distancing.
While the sexual transmissibility of COVID-19 hasn’t been
rigorously researched, it had been established that the contagious disease
spreads through droplets like coughs, sneezes, and spit.
In a report published in Annals of Internal Medicine, the
researchers, who have offered up a guide on sexual health in the era of
COVID-19, examined the likelihood of infection in a number of sexual activities
if couples haven’t been isolating together.
Aside from wearing face masks, they suggested people should
reduce their number of sexual partners and avoid sex with people who show
symptoms like fever, cough, fatigue, and loss of taste or smell.
According to the guide, abstinence, masturbation, and sexual
activity using digital platforms carry the lowest risk for infection with
COVID-19.
“Sexual health implications of these recommendations
received little attention. It appears that all forms of in-person sexual
contact carry a risk for transmission,” said Jack Turban, the lead author.
Among other recommendations also made were showering before
and after sex, avoiding sex acts that involve the oral transmission of bodily
fluids, and cleaning up the sex area afterward with wipes.
“Data are lacking regarding other routes of sexual
transmission. Two small studies of SARS-CoV-2–infected people did not detect
the virus in semen or vaginal secretions,” the researchers added.
“An additional study of semen samples from 38 patients
detected the virus by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction in 6
patients (15.8 percent).
“However, the relevance regarding sexual transmission
remains unknown. Until this is better understood, it would be prudent to
consider semen potentially infectious.”
The study comes at about the same time when the UK
government announced new regulations making it illegal to have sex with a
person who lives outside your home.
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