Nose-pickers may be more likely to catch COVID-19

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-08-03 04:00

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Picking your nose may increase your risk of catching COVID-19, according to Dutch researchers who investigated how seemingly innocuous behaviour or physical features like having a beard or wearing glasses impacted COVID-19 risk. The team surveyed just over 200 healthcare workers at the beginning of the pandemic, asking them about their nose-picking behaviours, whether they had a beard, wore glasses or bit their nails. They say over six months, 17% of nose-pickers caught COVID-19 compared to 5.9% who didn't pick their noses, however, there were no clear differences for any of the other traits.

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conference: PLOS ONE

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Organisation/s: Amsterdam UMC location Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands

Funder: This work was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development ZonMw (S3 study, grant agreement no. 10430022010023 to M.K.B.) and the Corona Research Fund Amsterdam UMC. The funders were not involved in designing the study, data collection, analysis or interpreting the data, writing the manuscript or the decision to submit the article for publication.

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