scholarly journals A control framework to optimize public health policies in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor M L Pataro ◽  
Juliane F Oliveira ◽  
Marcelo M Morato ◽  
Alan A S Amad ◽  
Pablo I P Ramos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Predictive Control ◽  
Transmission Rate ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Optimal Control Strategy ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Control Framework ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Adaptive Predictive Control

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic triggered substantial economic and social disruptions. Mitigation policies varied across countries based on resources, political conditions, and human behavior. In the absence of widespread vaccination able to induce herd immunity, strategies to coexist with the virus while minimizing risks of surges are paramount, which should work in parallel with reopening societies. To support these strategies, we present a predictive control system coupled with a nonlinear model able to optimize the level of policies to stop epidemic growth. We applied this system to study the unfolding of COVID-19 in Bahia, Brazil, also assessing the effects of varying population compliance. We show the importance of finely tuning the levels of enforced measures to achieve SARS-CoV-2 containment, with periodic interventions emerging as an optimal control strategy in the long-term.One-sentence summaryWe present an adaptive predictive control algorithm to provide optimal public health measures to slow the COVID-19 transmission rate.

scholarly journals A control framework to optimize public health policies in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor M. L. Pataro ◽  
Juliane F. Oliveira ◽  
Marcelo M. Morato ◽  
Alan A. S. Amad ◽  
Pablo I. P. Ramos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Control ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Optimal Control Strategy ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Control Framework ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Mitigation Policies ◽  
Varying Population

AbstractThe SARS-CoV-2 pandemic triggered substantial economic and social disruptions. Mitigation policies varied across countries based on resources, political conditions, and human behavior. In the absence of widespread vaccination able to induce herd immunity, strategies to coexist with the virus while minimizing risks of surges are paramount, which should work in parallel with reopening societies. To support these strategies, we present a predictive control system coupled with a nonlinear model able to optimize the level of policies to stop epidemic growth. We applied this system to study the unfolding of COVID-19 in Bahia, Brazil, also assessing the effects of varying population compliance. We show the importance of finely tuning the levels of enforced measures to achieve SARS-CoV-2 containment, with periodic interventions emerging as an optimal control strategy in the long-term.

scholarly journals Long-term transmission patterns and public health policies leading to malaria elimination in Panamá

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisbeth Hurtado ◽  
Alberto Cumbrera ◽  
Chystrie Rigg ◽  
Milixa Perea ◽  
Ana María Santamaría ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Malaria Elimination ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Public Health Policies

scholarly journals Assessment of Anti-SARS CoV-2 seroprevalence in habitants of Assam (AASSHA): report of the first serosurvey in Assam

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 2490
Author(s):  
Jyotismita Pathak ◽  
Mridusmita Das ◽  
Khalil Siddique
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Blood Samples ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Background: Today, there is a pressing need to identify the proportion of people immune to the infection by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) so that public health policies can be formulated accordingly for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Keeping this in mind, we designed a serosurvey in Assam with aims to estimate the prevalence of infection as well as the infection to case ratio of the novel coronavirus in Assam.Methods: A total of 9 districts belonging to three different strata of districts were randomly selected for the study. In these selected districts, blood samples were collected from a sample of population and were checked for the antibodies (IgG type). Those testing reactive for the mentioned antibodies were considered to have been infected ever before the onset of the study.Results: A total of 2390 study subjects were tested for the presence of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2. The proportion of people harboring antibodies against the infection was found to be 23.7 percent.Conclusions: The serosurvey revealed that the proportion of people having antibodies was lower than that required for attaining herd immunity levels in a population. The case to infection ratios reveal that there is a large chunk of population who didn’t know about their infection.

scholarly journals Lockdowns and the COVID-19 pandemic: What is the endgame?

2020 ◽  
pp. 140349482096129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore Lytras ◽  
Sotirios Tsiodras
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infection Rate ◽  
Natural Infection ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Social Costs ◽  
Surveillance Data ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Social Distancing

An overall long-term strategy for managing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is presented. This strategy will need to be maintained until herd immunity is achieved, hopefully through vaccination rather than natural infection. We suggest that a pure test-trace-isolate strategy is likely not practicable in most countries, and a degree of social distancing, ranging up to full lockdown, is the main public-health tool to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Guided by reliable surveillance data, distancing should be continuously optimised down to the lowest sustainable level that guarantees a low and stable infection rate in order to balance its wide-ranging negative effects on public health. The qualitative mixture of social-distancing measures also needs to be carefully optimised in order to minimise social costs.

scholarly journals Fighting Covid-19 Pandemic: Analysis of the Swedish Model vs. Lockdown Model

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Turkistani Fatema ◽  
Sawad Aseel Bin
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Shed Light

Many countries resorted to the lockdown model that includes shutting down all non-essential activities to avoid the spread of COVID-19. Comparatively, Sweden applied the herd immunity model. The aim of this study is to analyze the Swedish model compared to the lockdown model based in other countries to understand the impact of these models on public health, health economics and overall economy of the respective countries. Based on the findings, the paper aims to shed light on which model proves to be more effective to cope with the pandemic and provide recommendations for other countries to follow accordingly. Our methodology was a narrative review that synthesizes current literature obtained from searches on various databases, authoritative texts, and hand searches. While it is too early to determine the long term effects of both models, it seems that Sweden’s herd immunity model is more effective considering aspects of overall public health, health economic factors, and the overall economy. The major cons of the Swedish model was a failure in controlling infection spread in elderly nursing homes, as half the death toll comprises individuals belonging to this community. While Sweden was able to soften the effect of COVID-19 impact on its economy without a lockdown, the manufacturing industry was impacted due to lack of availability of required parts to be supplied by other countries. Thus from our review , we found that Herd-immunity model is more effective, but it depends on other factors of the country such as population density, as it is not plausible for countries such as Spain, the US or Germany, which need to expose high numbers of people to COVID-19 to attain herd immunity.

scholarly journals COVID-19 reinfection - An enigmatic public health threat

2020 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karthikeyan P. Iyengar ◽  
Vijay Kumar Jain ◽  
Pranav Ish
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Lung Fibrosis ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Neurological Deficits ◽  
Question Mark ◽  
Viral Mutation ◽  
Public Health Threat ◽  
Area Of Concern

To the Editor The COVID-19 pandemic has been consistently on the rise across the globe. The recovered patients getting long-term sequelae, especially lung fibrosis and residual neurological deficits, is an area of concern. Another extremely important conundrum is the risk of re-infection. It has been recently documented from Hong Kong  and puts an unpleasant question mark on long term immunity, sampling technique standardization, viral mutation and efficacy of herd immunity. There are definitions for COVID -19 infection and its severity, but unfortunately none for re-infection.

scholarly journals 9.I. Workshop: Healthy ageing and public health: a bound fate

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Healthy Ageing ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Model Of Care ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Public Health Policies

Abstract The promotion of healthy ageing at all ages of life is a key point of public health strategy in almost all health systems throughout the world with a special focus on the systems of the advanced economies. The World Health Organization promotes a lifespan approach in order to put the basis of healthy ageing in the early life, supported by a growing set of data that show the relevance of life habits and socio-economic condition since the childhood for the older adults' health. However, we already witness the impact of large cohort of older adults who fuel the demand for health and social services, with worrying projection for the next 20-30 years in terms of economic stressors on the public finances coming from the request for Long Term Care as well as for Acute care services. Prevention at all age, namely at older age, is crucial to manage the demand for care. What interventions can lead this approach? What model of care could be put on the field in order to offer a mix of integrate health and social care able to meet the individual needs and to promote the best possible quality of life for each individual? what is the role of bio-psycho-social frailty as synthetic indicator of the needs of care at population level as well as of key information to stratify the risk of negative event at individual level? what professionals should be more involved in the new model of community care? what pathway in terms of training could we promote in the next years to support the shift from acute to long term care? what contribution should be asked to civil society to allow the spread of community care? Answers to these questions should fit with different geographical, political, social and economic settings as well as with different health systems. At the same time the development of a multidimensional assessment of the demand of care, both at individual and population level, is a crucial step to plan effective interventions. The main obstacles to this process seem to stem from the organization of community care still in silos with rare collaboration among different professionals. To overcome the obstacles a mindset change should be achieved mainly by training of personnel to set up a new model of care based on the systematic interaction among the prevention and care actors. Moreover, a pro-active component of prevention and care programs at community level, could strengthen many interventions that address a population which is not always aware of the risk associated to the progression of frailty. Finally, ICT devices could provide a valuable contribution to the reshuffling of community care, if they are embedded in a comprehensive model including a robust investment in human resources. The aim of the workshop is to report on the challenges that healthy ageing process has to face in different world areas and to discuss future developments likely to affect public health policies. Key messages Multidimensional approach to public health policies aimed at increasing health promotion programs impact on older adults is the key to promote healthy ageing. Pro-active services could increase the involvement of older adults’ population into healthy ageing program.

scholarly journals Electronic Cigarettes: Can Dependable Public Health Policies be Developed and Applied without Relevant and Reliable Risk Assessments?

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 245-248
Author(s):  
Michael Balls ◽  
Robert Combes
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Electronic Cigarettes ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Animal Testing ◽  
Acceptable Risk ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Clinical Investigations ◽  
Scant Attention

The use of electronic cigarettes is being encouraged as a way of escaping from the harm resulting from conventional tobacco smoking, while scant attention is being paid to the long-term risks of inhaling electronic cigarette vapour. More information is needed for an acceptable risk assessment, from integrated non-animal testing and sound clinical investigations

Against the Public Goods Conception of Public Health

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-233
Author(s):  
Justin Bernstein ◽  
Pierce Randall
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract Public health ethicists face two difficult questions. First, what makes something a matter of public health? While protecting citizens from outbreaks of communicable diseases is clearly a matter of public health, is the same true of policies that aim to reduce obesity, gun violence or political corruption? Second, what should the scope of the government’s authority be in promoting public health? May government enact public health policies some citizens reasonably object to or policies that are paternalistic? Recently, some theorists have attempted to address these questions by arguing that something is a matter of public health if and only if it involves a health-related public good, such as clean water or herd immunity. Relatedly, they have argued that appeals to the promotion of public health should only be used to justify the provision of health-related public goods. This public goods conception of public health (PGC) is meant to enjoy advantages over its rivals in three respects: it provides a better definition of public health than rival views, it respects moral disagreement, and it avoids licensing objectionably paternalistic public health policies. We argue, however, that the PGC does just as poorly, or worse, than its rivals in all three respects.

scholarly journals Modeling the impact of public response on the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0249456
Author(s):  
Brydon Eastman ◽  
Cameron Meaney ◽  
Michelle Przedborski ◽  
Mohammad Kohandel
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Reproduction Number ◽  
Transmission Rate ◽  
Epidemiological Data ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Machine Learning Techniques ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Variable Transmission ◽  
The Impact

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 is thought to have originated in Wuhan, China in late 2019 and has since spread quickly around the world. To date, the virus has infected tens of millions of people worldwide, compelling governments to implement strict policies to counteract community spread. Federal, provincial, and municipal governments have employed various public health policies, including social distancing, mandatory mask wearing, and the closure of schools and businesses. However, the implementation of these policies can be difficult and costly, making it imperative that both policy makers and the citizenry understand their potential benefits and the risks of non-compliance. In this work, a mathematical model is developed to study the impact of social behaviour on the course of the pandemic in the province of Ontario. The approach is based upon a standard SEIRD model with a variable transmission rate that depends on the behaviour of the population. The model parameters, which characterize the disease dynamics, are estimated from Ontario COVID-19 epidemiological data using machine learning techniques. A key result of the model, following from the variable transmission rate, is the prediction of the occurrence of a second wave using the most current infection data and disease-specific traits. The qualitative behaviour of different future transmission-reduction strategies is examined, and the time-varying reproduction number is analyzed using existing epidemiological data and future projections. Importantly, the effective reproduction number, and thus the course of the pandemic, is found to be sensitive to the adherence to public health policies, illustrating the need for vigilance as the economy continues to reopen.

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