Social distancing appears to have more than one health benefit: the number of sexually transmitted disease cases has plummeted in the city since COVID-19 appeared in early March.
The number of confirmed cases of STDs fell 80 percent to 1,037 for the week of April 12, down from 5,073 for the week of March 1, according to stats from the city Health Department.
Dr. Kris Bungay, an internist with Gotham Medical Group in the West Village, said he treated three or four patients for STDs at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak but has not had any patients call to complain of symptoms in a month.
“That’s what socially distancing will do,” he said.
Some patients even elected to stop taking the HIV preventive treatment known as PrEP because they knew they would not be sexually active, he said.
“There’s no point to taking something for preventive if there’s no way for them to get HIV if they’re not having sex,” he said.
Health officials said the drop could also be due to New Yorkers delaying routine STD and HIV testing. The DOH has closed all but one of its eight sexual health clinics and moved to telemedicine visits. Its one open clinic in Chelsea is not doing routine testing.
For those worried about contracting the coronavirus by getting frisky, a recently published study found that COVID-19 does not appear to be sexually transmitted.
