community spread

noun

variants or community transmission

: the spread of a contagious disease within a community

specifically : the spread of a contagious disease to individuals in a particular geographic location who have no known contact with other infected individuals or who have not recently traveled to an area where the disease has any documented cases

Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, who is the top coronavirus expert in the country, said community spread made it almost impossible to predict how many cases there will be.

—Megan Sheets and Emily Crane

… a 50-year-old New Rochelle man became the first known person in New York to contract the virus through community spread.

—Jon Campbell

In areas where community transmission is high, schools may be closed and businesses may ask employees to work from home.

—Melissa Healy

Examples of community spread in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Further Reading Drug-resistant ringworm reported in US for first time; community spread likely Last year, a dermatologist in New York reported the country's first cases of a newly emerging skin fungus that is highly contagious and resistant to common antifungal treatments. —Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 16 Jan. 2024

Silent community spread appeared to be behind the unconnected cases. —Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 16 Jan. 2024

The coming respiratory-virus season will be the country’s first after the end of the public-health emergency—its first, since the arrival of COVID, without crisis-caliber funding set aside, routine tracking of community spread, and health-care precautions already in place. —Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 6 Sep. 2023

Area health systems reported more than 700 COVID-19 hospitalizations just over a year ago, causing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to designate Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties as areas with high community spread of the virus. —Marin Wolf, Dallas News, 25 Aug. 2023

Cases had already become a less reliable way to track community spread as people switched to home testing and infections went unreported to health authorities. —Brenda Goodman, CNN, 28 Apr. 2023

Without records of community spread, officials are using hospitalizations and wastewater to track the virus. —Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Aug. 2023

With the end of the public health emergency, the CDC also stopped tracking community spread of the disease. —Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Aug. 2023

Just over a year ago, North Texas health systems saw more than 700 COVID-19 hospitalizations, causing the CDC to designate Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties as areas with high community spread of the virus. —Marin Wolf, Dallas News, 4 Aug. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1903, in the meaning defined above