scholarly journals SARS-CoV-2 attack rate and population immunity in southern New England, March 2020 - May 2021

Author(s):  
Thu Nguyen-Anh Tran ◽  
Nathan B Wikle ◽  
Fuhan Yang ◽  
Haider Inam ◽  
Scott Leighow ◽  
...  

AbstractEstimating an infectious disease attack rate requires inference on the number of reported symptomatic cases of a disease, the number of unreported symptomatic cases, and the number of asymptomatic infections. Population-level immunity can then be estimated as the attack rate plus the number of vaccine recipients who had not been previously infected; this requires an estimate of the fraction of vaccines that were distributed to seropositive individuals. To estimate attack rates and population immunity in southern New England, we fit a validated dynamic epidemiological model to case, clinical, and death data streams reported by Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut for the first 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, from March 1 2020 to May 31 2021. This period includes the initial spring 2020 wave, the major winter wave of 2020-2021, and the lagging wave of lineage B.1.1.7(Alpha) infections during March-April 2021. In autumn 2020, SARS-CoV-2 population immunity (equal to the attack rate at that point) in southern New England was still below 15%, setting the stage for a large winter wave. After the roll-out of vaccines in early 2021, population immunity in many states was expected to approach 70% by spring 2021, with more than half of this immune population coming from vaccinations. Our population immunity estimates for May 31 2021 are 73.4% (95% CrI: 72.9% - 74.1%) for Rhode Island, 64.1% (95% CrI: 64.0% - 64.4%) for Connecticut, and 66.3% (95% CrI: 65.9% - 66.9%) for Massachusetts, indicating that >33% of southern Englanders were still susceptible to infection when the Delta variant began spreading in July 2021. Despite high vaccine coverage in these states, population immunity in summer 2021 was lower than planned due to 34% (Rhode Island), 25% (Connecticut), and 28% (Massachusetts) of vaccine distribution going to seropositive individuals. Future emergency-setting vaccination planning will likely have to consider over-vaccination as a strategy to ensure that high levels of population immunity are reached during the course of an ongoing epidemic.

2015 ◽  
Vol 72 (suppl_1) ◽  
pp. i69-i78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Wahle ◽  
Lanny Dellinger ◽  
Scott Olszewski ◽  
Phoebe Jekielek

Abstract Historically, southern New England has supported one of the most productive American lobster (Homarus americanus) fisheries of the northeast United States. Recently, the region has seen dramatic declines in lobster populations coincident with a trend of increasingly stressful summer warmth and shell disease. We report significant declines in the abundance, distribution, and size composition of juvenile lobsters that have accompanied the warming trend in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, since the first comprehensive survey of lobster nurseries conducted there in 1990. We used diver-based visual surveys and suction sampling in 1990, 2011, and 2012, supplemented by post-larval collectors in 2011 and 2012. In 1990, lobster nurseries extended from the outer coast into the mid-sections of the bay, but by 2011 and 2012 they were largely restricted to the outer coast and deeper water at the mouth of the bay. Among five new study sites selected by the lobster fishing industry for the 2011 and 2012 surveys, the deepest site on the outer coast (15–17 m depth) harboured some of the highest lobster densities in the survey. Separate fixed site hydrographic monitoring at 13 locations in the bay by the Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife recorded an approximately 2.0°C increase in summer surface temperatures over the period, with 2012 being the warmest on record. Additional monitoring of bottom temperatures, dissolved oxygen and pH at our sampling sites in 2011 and 2012 indicated conditions falling below physiological optima for lobsters during summer. The invasion of the Asian shore crab, Hemigrapsus sanguineus, since the 1990s may also be contributing to declines of juvenile lobster shallow zones (<5 m) in this region. Because lobster populations appear increasingly restricted to deeper and outer coastal waters of southern New England, further monitoring of settlement and nursery habitat in deep water is warranted.


Geosciences ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 265 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Ullman ◽  
Isaac Ginis ◽  
Wenrui Huang ◽  
Catherine Nowakowski ◽  
Xuanyu Chen ◽  
...  

The southern New England coast of the United States is particularly vulnerable to land-falling hurricanes because of its east-west orientation. The impact of two major hurricanes on the city of Providence (Rhode Island, USA) during the middle decades of the 20th century spurred the construction of the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier (FPHB) to protect the city from storm surge flooding. Although the Rhode Island/Narragansett Bay area has not experienced a major hurricane for several decades, increased coastal development along with potentially increased hurricane activity associated with climate change motivates an assessment of the impacts of a major hurricane on the region. The ocean/estuary response to an extreme hurricane is simulated using a high-resolution implementation of the ADvanced CIRCulation (ADCIRC) model coupled to the Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS). The storm surge response in ADCIRC is first verified with a simulation of a historical hurricane that made landfall in southern New England. The storm surge and the hydrological models are then forced with winds and rainfall from a hypothetical hurricane dubbed “Rhody”, which has many of the characteristics of historical storms that have impacted the region. Rhody makes landfall just west of Narragansett Bay, and after passing north of the Bay, executes a loop to the east and the south before making a second landfall. Results are presented for three versions of Rhody, varying in the maximum wind speed at landfall. The storm surge resulting from the strongest Rhody version (weak Saffir–Simpson category five) during the first landfall exceeds 7 m in height in Providence at the north end of the Bay. This exceeds the height of the FPHB, resulting in flooding in Providence. A simulation including river inflow computed from the runoff model indicates that if the Barrier remains closed and its pumps fail (for example, because of a power outage or equipment failure), severe flooding occurs north of the FPHB due to impoundment of the river inflow. These results show that northern Narragansett Bay could be particularly vulnerable to both storm surge and rainfall-driven flooding, especially if the FPHB suffers a power outage. They also demonstrate that, for wind-driven storm surge alone under present sea level conditions, the FPHB will protect Providence for hurricanes less intense than category five.


Phytotaxa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 302 (1) ◽  
pp. 77 ◽  
Author(s):  
MAURA K. GRIFFITH ◽  
CRAIG W. SCHNEIDER ◽  
DANIEL I. WOLF ◽  
GARY W. SAUNDERS ◽  
CHRISTOPHER E. LANE

Using mitochondrial COI-5P and plastid rbcL genetic markers, the red algal species historically known in southern New England, USA, as Champia parvula is found to be genetically distinct from the species to which it has historically been aligned. This necessitates the description of a new species, C. farlowii, for plants from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, USA. The new species is morphologically compared with true European C. parvula and congeners, especially those with similar features previously aligned under the same species name. Champia farlowii is a morphologically cryptic species, the sixth in the expanding C. parvula complex, with overlapping characteristic measurements despite differences at the range extremes, when compared to C. parvula.


1976 ◽  
Vol 40 (313) ◽  
pp. 473-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul C. Lyons

SummaryFour new chemical analyses are reported for riebeckites of the hypersolvus granites of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Riebeckites of southern New England are enriched in Li+, which appears to substitute for Fe2+, with additional Na+ coming in to compensate for the charge imbalance.


1920 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 1833-1836
Author(s):  
Norman L. Gauthier ◽  
Patrick A. Logan ◽  
Lisa A. Tewksbury ◽  
Craig F. Hollingsworth ◽  
Donald C. Weber ◽  
...  

Four commercial pheromones attractive to Helicoverpa zea (Boddie) were used as baits in four insect traps to attract moths in fresh market sweet corn. Moth catches were monitored for 10 wk in nine sites in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Zealure attracted twice as many moths as Scentry's corn earworm lure and nine times as many as Pherocon's corn earworm lure. Consep Membrane's Biolure attracted few moths. Hartstack traps caught three times more moths than Heliothis net traps and 15 times more than Multi-pher or International Pheromone Systems traps. Results suggest the need for reference standards in management programs that use pheromones to monitor corn earworm populations.


2000 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph N. Waller

Archaeological investigations at Woodland sites in the Narragansett Bay drainage have aided in a refinement of Late Woodland settlement and subsistence models. Popular theory holds that intensive maize horticulture and the formation of tribal villages occurred relatively late in the prehistoric period or possibly were the result of European Contact. Archaeological investigations in coastal sections of Rhode Island indicate that village settlements and likely intensive maize horticulture were elements of Late Woodland settlement and subsistence behavior in and around Narragansett Bay and not Contact period phenomena.


1992 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 5-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary H. Blewett

During a decade of constant turmoil in the 1870s, immigrant textile workers from Lancashire, England seized control of labor politics in the southern New England region of the United States. They were men and women who had immigrated in successive waves before and after the American Civil War to the United States, specifically to the textile cities of Fall River and New Bedford, Massachusetts and to the mill villages north of Providence, Rhode Island.


Zootaxa ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 340 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEREK S. SIKES

A summary and discussion of new state records from a recently assembled checklist of Coleoptera species known from the state of Rhode Island (270,660 hectares), USA, is presented. The checklist includes 2,208 species, is available on the World Wide Web, and will be published as a book by the Rhode Island Natural History Survey in 2003. The current status of the taxonomic and faunistic knowledge of southern New England Coleoptera is discussed. Six hundred and fifty six apparent new state species records for Rhode Island are presented, which constitute 30% of the total state beetle fauna. Three hundred and ninety of these records were collected during 1890–1930, and 266 additional new state records were added by collections made during 1995–2000. Two hundred and forty four of these new state records are not listed from any New England state in Downie and Arnett‘s Beetles of Northeastern North America (1996). The following 13 new state family records are herein reported from Rhode Island: Clambidae, Dryopidae, Heteroceridae, Artematopodidae, Phengodidae, Derodontidae, Nosodendridae, Endecatomidae, Colydiidae, Synchroidae, Stenotrachelidae, Salpingidae, and Nemonychidae. The beetle fauna of Rhode Island is far less well known than would be generally expected, particularly in comparison to our knowledge of the subequally speciose flora, and the faunal composition may have changed markedly during the last century. No strong evidence is found for changes in the beetle fauna due to climate change. It is concluded that if our prior knowledge of the beetle fauna of Rhode Island is at all typical, then our inventory of North American biodiversity is far from complete.


2009 ◽  
Vol 75 (18) ◽  
pp. 6005-6007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank J. Stewart ◽  
Alan Hyun Y. Baik ◽  
Colleen M. Cavanaugh

ABSTRACT Population-level genetic diversity in the obligate symbiosis between the bivalve Solemya velum and its thioautotrophic bacterial endosymbiont was examined. Distinct populations along the New England coast shared a single mitochondrial genotype but were fixed for unique symbiont genotypes, indicating high levels of symbiont genetic structuring and potential symbiont-host decoupling.


2000 ◽  
Vol 38 (12) ◽  
pp. 4655-4656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob W. Ijdo ◽  
Caiyun Wu ◽  
Louis A. Magnarelli ◽  
Kirby C. Stafford ◽  
John F. Anderson ◽  
...  

Ehrlichia chaffeensis, the causative agent of human monocytic ehrlichiosis, is transmitted by Amblyomma americanum ticks, which are most abundant in the southern United States. Because serologic evidence suggests that residents of Connecticut are exposed to E. chaffeensis, A. americanum ticks were collected in Connecticut and Rhode Island for PCR analysis to detect E. chaffeensis DNA. Eight of 106 (7.6%) A. americanum ticks from Connecticut and 6 of 52 (11.5%) from Rhode Island contained E. chaffeensis DNA. Thus, E. chaffeensis is present in ticks in southern New England and transmission of E. chaffeensis may occur there.


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