scholarly journals The impact of travel and timing in eliminating COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander F. Siegenfeld ◽  
Yaneer Bar-Yam

Abstract While the spread of communicable diseases such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is often analyzed assuming a well-mixed population, more realistic models distinguish between transmission within and between geographic regions. A disease can be eliminated if the region-to-region reproductive number—i.e., the average number of other regions to which a single infected region will transmit the disease—is reduced to less than one. Here we show that this region-to-region reproductive number is proportional to the travel rate between regions and exponential in the length of the time-delay before region-level control measures are imposed. If, on average, infected regions (including those that become re-infected in the future) impose social distancing measures shortly after experiencing community transmission, the number of infected regions, and thus the number of regions in which such measures are required, will exponentially decrease over time. Elimination will in this case be a stable fixed point even after the social distancing measures have been lifted from most of the regions.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sourav Kumar Bhoi ◽  
Kalyan Kumar Jena ◽  
Debasis Mohapatra ◽  
Munesh Singh ◽  
Raghvendra Kumar ◽  
...  

Abstract Communicable disease pandemic is a severe disease outbreak all over the countires and continents. Swine Flu, HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 (COrona VIrus Disease-19), etc. are some of the global pandemics in the world. The major cause of becoming pandemic is community transmission and lack of social distancing. Recently COVID-19 is such an largest outbreak all over the world. This disease is a communicable disease which is spreading fastly due to Community Transmission, where the affetced people in the community aftects the heathy people in the community. Government is taking precautions by imposing Social Distancing in the countries or state to control the impact of COVID-19. Social Distancing can reduce the community transmission of COVID-19 by reducing the number of infected persons in an area. This is performed by staying at home and maintaining social distance with people. It reduces the density of people in an area by which it is difficult for the virus to spread from one person to other. In this work, the community transmission is presented using simulations. It shows how an infected person affects the healthy persons in an area. Simulations also show how social distancing can control the spread of COVID-19. The simulation is performed in GNU Octave programming platform by considering number of infected persons and number of healthy persons as parameters. Results show that using the social distancing the number of infected persons can be reduced and heathy persons can be increased. Therefore, from the analysis it is concluded that social distancing will be a better solution of prevention from community transmission.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thu-Anh Nguyen ◽  
Quoc Nguyen Cuong ◽  
Anh Le Thi Kim ◽  
Huyen Nguyen Nguyen ◽  
Thao Nguyen Thi Huong

AbstractObjectivesHealth care system of many countries are facing a surging burden of COVID-19. Although Vietnam has successfully controlled the COVID-19 pandemic to date, there is a sign of initial community transmission. An estimate of possible scenarios to prepare health resources in the future is needed. We used modelling methods to estimate impacts of mitigation measures on the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam.MethodsSEIR model built in the COVIDSIM1.1 tool was adopted using available data for estimation. The herd immunization scenario was with no intervention implemented. Other scenarios consisted of isolation and social distancing at different levels (25%, 50%, 75% and 10%, 20%, 30%, respectively). Outcomes include epidemic apex, daily new and cumulative cases, deaths, hospitalized patients and ICU beds needed.ResultsBy April 8, 2020, there would be 465 infected cases with COVID-19 in Viet Nam, of those 50% were detected. Cumulatively, there would be 1,400 cases and 30 deaths by end of 2020, if 75% of cases was detected and isolated, and 30% of social distancing could be maintained.The most effective intervention scenario is the detection and isolation of 75% infected cases and reduction of 10% social contacts. This will require an expansion of testing capacity at health facilities and in the community, posing a challenge to identify high-risk groups to prioritized testing.ConclusionsIn a localized epidemic setting, the expansion of testing should be the key measure to control the epidemic. Social distancing plays a significant role to prevent further transmission to the community.


Author(s):  
Mr. Kiran Mudaraddi

The paper presents a deep learning-based methodology for detecting social distancing in order to assess the distance between people in order to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The input was a video frame from the camera, and the open-source object detection was pre-trained. The outcome demonstrates that the suggested method is capable of determining the social distancing measures between many participants in a video.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Bonander ◽  
Debora Stranges ◽  
Johanna Gustavsson ◽  
Matilda Almgren ◽  
Malin Inghammar ◽  
...  

Objectives: To study the impact of non-mandatory, age-specific social distancing recommendations for older adults (70+ years) in Sweden on isolation behaviors and disease outcomes during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Our study relies on self-reported isolation data from COVID Symptom Study Sweden (n = 96,053) and national register data on COVID-19 hospitalizations, deaths, and confirmed cases. We use a regression discontinuity design to account for confounding factors, exploiting the fact that exposure to the recommendation was a discontinuous function of age. Results: By comparing individuals just above to those just below the age limit for the policy, our analyses revealed a sharp drop in the weekly number of visits to crowded places at the 70-year-threshold (-13%). Severe COVID-19 cases (hospitalizations or deaths) also dropped abruptly by 16% at the 70-year-threshold. Our data suggest that the age-specific recommendations prevented approximately 1,800 to 2,700 severe COVID-19 cases, depending on model specification. Conclusion: The non-mandatory, age-specific recommendations helped control the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden.


2013 ◽  
Vol 141 (8) ◽  
pp. 1572-1584 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. O. MILBRATH ◽  
I. H. SPICKNALL ◽  
J. L. ZELNER ◽  
C. L. MOE ◽  
J. N. S. EISENBERG

SUMMARYNorovirus is a common cause of gastroenteritis in all ages. Typical infections cause viral shedding periods of days to weeks, but some individuals can shed for months or years. Most norovirus risk models do not include these long-shedding individuals, and may therefore underestimate risk. We reviewed the literature for norovirus-shedding duration data and stratified these data into two distributions: regular shedding (mean 14–16 days) and long shedding (mean 105–136 days). These distributions were used to inform a norovirus transmission model that predicts the impact of long shedders. Our transmission model predicts that this subpopulation increases the outbreak potential (measured by the reproductive number) by 50–80%, the probability of an outbreak by 33%, the severity of transmission (measured by the attack rate) by 20%, and transmission duration by 100%. Characterizing and understanding shedding duration heterogeneity can provide insights into community transmission that can be useful in mitigating norovirus risk.


Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 369 (6500) ◽  
pp. 208-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik Salje ◽  
Cécile Tran Kiem ◽  
Noémie Lefrancq ◽  
Noémie Courtejoie ◽  
Paolo Bosetti ◽  
...  

France has been heavily affected by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic and went into lockdown on 17 March 2020. Using models applied to hospital and death data, we estimate the impact of the lockdown and current population immunity. We find that 2.9% of infected individuals are hospitalized and 0.5% of those infected die (95% credible interval: 0.3 to 0.9%), ranging from 0.001% in those under 20 years of age to 8.3% in those 80 years of age or older. Across all ages, men are more likely to be hospitalized, enter intensive care, and die than women. The lockdown reduced the reproductive number from 2.90 to 0.67 (77% reduction). By 11 May 2020, when interventions are scheduled to be eased, we project that 3.5 million people (range: 2.1 million to 6.0 million), or 5.3% of the population (range: 3.3 to 9.3%), will have been infected. Population immunity appears to be insufficient to avoid a second wave if all control measures are released at the end of the lockdown.


Author(s):  
Geraldine Ann Akerman ◽  
Emily Jones ◽  
Harry Talbot ◽  
Gemma Grahame-Wright

Purpose This paper aims to describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a prison-based therapeutic community (TC). Design/methodology/approach The paper takes the form of a case study where the authors reflect on their current practice, using the findings of research on social isolation and the overarching TC principles to explore the effect of the pandemic on the TC at HMP Grendon. The authors consider how the residents and staff adjusted to the change as the parameters changed when the social distancing rules were imposed and how they adapted to the prolonged break to therapy. Sections in the paper were written by a resident and an operational member of staff. The authors conclude with their thoughts on how to manage the consequences the lockdown has brought and start to think about what returning to “normality” might mean. Findings The paper describes the adjustments made by the residents and staff as the UK Government imposed the lockdown. The authors, including a resident and an operational member of staff comment on the psychological and practical impact these adjustments had. The thought is given to the idea of “recovery”, returning to “normality” and how this study can be best managed once restrictions are lifted. Research limitations/implications At the time of writing, there are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 at HMP Grendon. The measures and commitment from all staff and residents in the prison to keep the prison environment safe may in part account for this. This paper explores the effects of lockdown on the emotional environment in a TC and highlights the consequences that social isolation can have on any individual. To the authors’ knowledge, there is currently no research undertaken on the impact of lockdown/social isolation on a TC. This research would be useful, as the authors postulate from reflections on current practice that the effects of the lockdown will be greater in a social therapy environment. Originality/value HMP Grendon started in 1962, as this time there have been no significant events that have meant the suspension of therapy for such a sustained period. It is, therefore, important that the impact of such is considered and reflected upon.


2021 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Cristiane Ravagnani Fortaleza ◽  
Thomas Nogueira Vilches ◽  
Gabriel Berg de Almeida ◽  
Claudia Pio Ferreira ◽  
Lenice do Rosário de Souza ◽  
...  

Interrupted time series analyses were conducted to measure the impact of social distancing policies (instituted on March 22, 2020) and of subsequent mandatory masking in the community (instituted on May 4, 2020) on the incidence and effective reproductive number of COVID-19 in São Paulo State, Brazil. Overall, the impact of social distancing both on incidence and Rt was greater than the incremental effect of mandatory masking. Those findings may reflect either a small impact of face masking or the loosening of social distancing after mandatory use of masks.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romain Garnier ◽  
Jan R Benetka ◽  
John Kraemer ◽  
Shweta Bansal

BACKGROUND Eliminating disparities in the burden of COVID-19 requires equitable access to control measures across socio-economic groups. Limited research on socio-economic differences in mobility hampers our ability to understand whether inequalities in social distancing are occurring during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. OBJECTIVE We aimed to assess how mobility patterns have varied across the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify associations with socioeconomic factors of populations. METHODS We used anonymized mobility data from tens of millions of devices to measure the speed and depth of social distancing at the county level in the United States between February and May 2020, the period during which social distancing was widespread in this country. Using linear mixed models, we assessed the associations between social distancing and socioeconomic variables, including the proportion of people in the population below the poverty level, the proportion of Black people, the proportion of essential workers, and the population density. RESULTS We found that the speed, depth, and duration of social distancing in the United States are heterogeneous. We particularly show that social distancing is slower and less intense in counties with higher proportions of people below the poverty level and essential workers; in contrast, we show that social distancing is intensely adopted in counties with higher population densities and larger Black populations. CONCLUSIONS Socioeconomic inequalities appear to be associated with the levels of adoption of social distancing, potentially resulting in wide-ranging differences in the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in communities across the United States. These inequalities are likely to amplify existing health disparities and must be addressed to ensure the success of ongoing pandemic mitigation efforts.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamalich Muniz-Rodriguez ◽  
Gerardo Chowell ◽  
Jessica S. Schwind ◽  
Randall Ford ◽  
Sylvia K. Ofori ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTObjectiveSARS-CoV-2 has significantly impacted Georgia, USA including two major hotspots, Metro Atlanta and Dougherty County in southwestern Georgia. With government deliberations about relaxing social distancing measures, it is important to understand the trajectory of the epidemic in the state of Georgia.MethodsWe collected daily cumulative incidence of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Georgia. We estimated the reproductive number (Re) of the COVID-19 epidemic on April 18 and May 2 by characterizing the initial growth phase of the epidemic using the generalized-growth model.ResultsThe data presents a sub-exponential growth pattern in the cumulative incidence curves. On April 18, 2020, Re was estimated as 1.20 (95% CI: 1.10, 1.20) for the state of Georgia, 1.10 (95% CI: 1.00, 1.20) for Dougherty County, and 1.20 (95% CI: 1.10, 1.20) for Metro Atlanta. Extending our analysis to May 2, 2020, Re estimates decreased to 1.10 (95% CI: 1.10, 1.10) for the state of Georgia, 1.00 (95% CI: 1.00, 1.10) for Dougherty County, and 1.10 (95% CI: 1.10, 1.10) for Metro Atlanta.ConclusionsTransmission appeared to be decreasing after the implementation of social distancing measures. However, these results should be interpreted with caution when considering relaxing control measures due to low testing rates.


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