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A professor of medicine and expert in infectious diseases at the University of East Anglia in England, Paul Hunter, has advised self-isolating couples who do not live together to avoid sex in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Couples should abstain if they live together and one partner shows symptoms of the coronavirus or if they’re in the vulnerable groups, he said.
Couples who have no symptoms and are social distancing can continue with their normal sex life, provided they do not add more partners, he added.
Hunter said the main risk of catching the virus during sex “comes from being close, face-to-face, through droplet spread, through kissing and touching each other’s faces”.
He told the Yorkshire Evening Post: “If you or your partner are self-isolating because one of you have symptoms (cough or fever) then providing you live together then you do not necessarily need to give up sex for the seven-day period recommended for individual cases to self-isolate.
“However, if your partner is in one of the vulnerable groups because of age, pre-existing disease or she is pregnant, then you need to stay away from them as much as possible, and this would mean avoid sex for the first seven days.”
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