scholarly journals Variability in Coronavirus Disease-2019 Case, Death, and Testing Rates in the United States and Worldwide

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernst J. Schaefer ◽  
Andrew S. Geller ◽  
Latha Dulipsingh ◽  
Margaret R. Diffenderfer ◽  
Jeffrey Wisotzkey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽  
The United States ◽  
Genetic Differences ◽  
National Data ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Marked Variability ◽  
Positive Rate

ABSTRACTSevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has been associated with a worldwide pandemic. We assessed data as of November 25, 2020 from our combined laboratories and as reported for states in the United States (US) and countries for case, death, and testing rates per million to determine causes of rate differences. SARS-CoV-2 naso-pharyngeal (NP) RNA testing in 1,179,912 subjects in 47 states (39 of which with >100 cases) are reported, with a mean 9.3% positive rate, comparable to the 7.0% rate reported nationwide. In 91 previously positive (2-4 weeks) subjects, NP swab testing was twice as likely to be positive (58.6%) as saliva samples (21.5%). We also documented that NP swabs could remain positive for 6 weeks or longer. Our positive rates per state agreed reasonably well with reported national data (r=0.609, P<0.0001). The highest US case rates per million were in the mid-west; the highest death and testing rates were in the northeast. Of 47 countries, the highest case, death, and testing rates per million were mainly in Europe and the Americas, with the lowest rates in Asia. Correlations between case and death rates and case and testing rates were very different between states (0.076 and -0.093, respectively) and countries (0.763 and 0.600, respectively). In conclusion, outpatient saliva testing was not as sensitive as NP testing for detection, and the marked variability in case and death rates was most likely due to differences in public health measures, viral and human genetic differences and age of cases, rather than due to differences in testing rates.

scholarly journals The Effect of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Mitigation Strategies on Seasonal Respiratory Viruses: A Tale of 2 Large Metropolitan Centers in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy C Sherman ◽  
Ahmed Babiker ◽  
Andrew J Sieben ◽  
Alexander Pyden ◽  
James Steinberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽  
The United States ◽  
Respiratory Viruses ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Reproductive Rates ◽  
The Impact

Abstract To assess the impact of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic on seasonal respiratory viruses, absolute case counts and viral reproductive rates from 2019–2020 were compared against previous seasons. Our findings suggest that the public health measures implemented to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission significantly reduced the transmission of other respiratory viruses.

scholarly journals Policy liberalism and source of news predict pandemic-related health behaviors and trust in the scientific community

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0252670
Author(s):  
Madeleine Reinhardt ◽  
Matthew B. Findley ◽  
Renee A. Countryman
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Health Behaviors ◽  
News Media ◽  
Perceived Risk ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Health ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Health Measures

In March of 2020, the United States was confronted with a major public health crisis caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This study aimed to identify what factors influence adherence to recently implemented public health measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing, trust of scientific organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) on information pertaining to the pandemic, and level of perceived risk. Data were collected from June 30, 2020 to July 22, 2020 on 951 adult residents of the United States using an online survey through Microsoft Forms. Multiple linear regression was used to identify the strongest predictors for compliance to pandemic-related health measures, trust in the scientific community, and perceived risk. Results showed that the strongest predictor of all variables of interest was degree of policy liberalism. Additionally, participants who consumed more conservative news media conformed less to the pandemic health guidelines and had less trust in the scientific community. Degree of policy liberalism was found to have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between gender and conformity to pandemic-related health behaviors. These findings have concerning implications that factors like degree of policy liberalism and source of news are more influential in predicting adherence to life-saving health measures than established risk factors like pre-existing health conditions.

scholarly journals A Social Network Model of the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pei Jun Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Viral Transmission ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Weighted Graphs ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
The U.S

AbstractIn the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, currently vaccines and specific anti-viral treatment are not yet available. Thus, preventing viral transmission by case isolation, quarantine, and social distancing is essential to slowing its spread. Here we model social networks using weighted graphs, where vertices represent individuals and edges represent contact. As public health measures are implemented, connectivity in the graph decreases, resulting in lower effective reproductive numbers, and reduced viral transmission. For COVID-19, model parameters were derived from the coronavirus epidemic in China, validated by epidemic data in Italy, then applied to the United States. We calculate that, in the U.S., the public is able to contain viral transmission by limiting the average number of contacts per person to less than 7 unique individuals over each 5 day period. This increases the average social distance between individuals to 10 degrees of separation.

ANNUAL SUMMARY OF VITAL STATISTICS—1961

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1962 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1000-1004
Author(s):  
Myron E. Wegman
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Health Service ◽  
Public Health Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vital Statistics ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
The Public

THIS year's summary of provisional vital statistics for the United States in 1961 indicates that over-all birth and death rates are essentially unchanged from 1960. Each year the National Vital Statistics Division, a unit of the Public Health Service, publishes estimated rates that, except when specifically noted, are provisional and based on a 10% sample of reported births and deaths. Experience has shown, however that final national figures agree closely with these estimates, which are derived from monthly reports on certificates filed in registration offices around the country. The rates for 1961 are published in Volume 10, No. 13, April 30, 1962 (Part 1) and July 31, 1962 (Part 2), of the Monthly Vital Statistics Report.

scholarly journals COVID-19 Deaths in the United States: Shifts in Hot Spots over the Three Phases of the Pandemic and the Spatiotemporally Varying Impact of Pandemic Vulnerability

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (17) ◽  
pp. 8987
Author(s):  
Yoo Min Park ◽  
Gregory D. Kearney ◽  
Bennett Wall ◽  
Katherine Jones ◽  
Robert J. Howard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Hot Spots ◽  
Hot Spot ◽  
Health Planning ◽  
The United States ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Spatiotemporal Trends ◽  
Three Phases

The geographic areas most impacted by COVID-19 may not remain static because public health measures/behaviors change dynamically, and the impacts of pandemic vulnerability also may vary geographically and temporally. The nature of the pandemic makes spatiotemporal methods essential to understanding the distribution of COVID-19 deaths and developing interventions. This study examines the spatiotemporal trends in COVID-19 death rates in the United States from March 2020 to May 2021 by performing an emerging hot spot analysis (EHSA). It then investigates the effects of the COVID-19 time-dependent and basic social vulnerability factors on COVID-19 death rates using geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR). The EHSA results demonstrate that over the three phases of the pandemic (first wave, second wave, and post-vaccine deployment), hot spots have shifted from densely populated cities and the states with a high percentage of socially vulnerable individuals to the states with relatively relaxed social distancing requirements, and then to the states with low vaccination rates. The GTWR results suggest that local infection and testing rates, social distancing interventions, and other social, environmental, and health risk factors show significant associations with COVID-19 death rates, but these associations vary over time and space. These findings can inform public health planning.

scholarly journals Comprehensive genome analysis of 6,000 USA SARS-CoV-2 isolates reveals haplotype signatures and localized transmission patterns by state and by country

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lishuang Shen ◽  
Jennifer Dien Bard ◽  
Jaclyn A. Biegel ◽  
Alexander R. Judkins ◽  
Xiaowu Gai
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Genome Analysis ◽  
Haplotype Analysis ◽  
Genomic Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
Travel Restriction

Genomic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 sequences is crucial in determining the effectiveness of prudent safer at home measures in the United States (US). By haplotype analysis of 6,356 US isolates, we identified a pattern of strongly localized outbreaks at the city-, state-, and country-levels, and temporal transmissions. This points to the effectiveness of existing travel restriction policies and public health measures in controlling the transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

Politics, Pushback, and Pandemics: Challenges to Public Health Orders in the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 416-422
Author(s):  
J. Alexander Navarro ◽  
Howard Markel
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Public Health Emergency ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
Local Politicians ◽  
1918 Influenza

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, many state governors faced an increasing number of acts of defiance as well as political and legal challenges to their public health emergency orders. Less well studied are the similar acts of protest that occurred during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic, when residents, business owners, clergy, and even local politicians grew increasingly restless by the ongoing public health measures, defied public health edicts, and agitated to have them rescinded. We explore several of the themes that emerged during the late fall of 1918 and conclude that, although the nation seems to be following the same path as it did in 1918, the motivations for pushback to the 2020 pandemic are decidedly more political than they were a century ago.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guenter B. Risse
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽  
National Security ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Unrest

This concluding chapter turns to more recent threats to public health—new epidemics such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), as well as a contemporary resurgence of bioterror. With national security at risk, governments like the United States had begun to consider measures to counter such potential dangers in an era of rapid globalization and political unrest. Prominent among them were medical and public health provisions designed to counter the spread of lethal microorganisms. Under such circumstances, the traditional subject of quarantine and isolation acquired new importance. Given the near impossibility of initially distinguishing persons at risk from those already exposed, balancing the rights of the uninfected with the rights of the infected reemerged as a critical issue.

scholarly journals The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in Europe and North America

Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 370 (6516) ◽  
pp. 564-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Worobey ◽  
Jonathan Pekar ◽  
Brendan B. Larsen ◽  
Martha I. Nelson ◽  
Verity Hill ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Washington State ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Emerging Viruses ◽  
Transmission Networks ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Global Spread

Accurate understanding of the global spread of emerging viruses is critical for public health responses and for anticipating and preventing future outbreaks. Here we elucidate when, where, and how the earliest sustained severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission networks became established in Europe and North America. Our results suggest that rapid early interventions successfully prevented early introductions of the virus from taking hold in Germany and the United States. Other, later introductions of the virus from China to both Italy and Washington state, United States, founded the earliest sustained European and North America transmission networks. Our analyses demonstrate the effectiveness of public health measures in preventing onward transmission and show that intensive testing and contact tracing could have prevented SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks from becoming established in these regions.

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