The REACT survey 7 from Imperial College London has also shown working from home reduces the chance of catching COVID-19 with those not currently required to work outside the home are 54% to 76% less likely to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 compared to those that did.
Analyses of risk by occupation consistently show a lower risk for those occupations with higher levels of working from home. Working from home currently occurs in the context of a wide range of other measures that also reduce the number of effective contacts that allow for viral transmission. While individually these other measures may not contribute much, together they do add up to a significant impact. There is scope for the epidemic to grow considerably more quickly if all these mitigating factors are relaxed over a short period of time.
