Social contact patterns in the United Kingdom following the COVID-19 pandemic: The Reconnect cross-sectional survey

by Lucy Goodfellow, Billy J. Quilty, Kevin van Zandvoort, W.

John Edmunds Background Close-contact and respiratory infectious diseases are spread through social interactions. Measuring these interactions has transformed our ability to understand transmission and control these infections.

Social contact patterns were disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic and have been affected by wider demographic, cultural, and workplace changes since then. Methods and findings To estimate post-pandemic social contact patterns in the United Kingdom, we conducted a cross-sectional social contact survey from November 2024 to March 2025 on a nationally representative sample of participants.

Interactions were captured by age, gender, and across socioeconomic status (SES) and ethnic groups. We calculated the mean number of daily contacts and contact matrices, stratified by variables of interest, using a negative binomial regression model weighted by age, gender, ethnic group, and weekday/weekend.

13,238 participants were recruited, 3,019 of whom were aged under 18 years old; survey response rates were 36% and 27% for adults and children, respectively.