scholarly journals Modelling suggests limited change in the reproduction number from reopening Norwegian kindergartens and schools during the COVID-19 pandemic

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. e0238268
Author(s):  
Martin Rypdal ◽  
Veronika Rypdal ◽  
Per Kristen Jakobsen ◽  
Elinor Ytterstad ◽  
Ola Løvsletten ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reproduction Number ◽  
After School ◽  
School Closures ◽  
Considerable Uncertainty ◽  
Transmission Rates ◽  
Influenza Pandemics ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Secondary Objective ◽  
Nonpharmaceutical Interventions

Background To suppress the COVID-19 outbreak, the Norwegian government closed all schools on March 13, 2020. The kindergartens reopened on April 20, and the schools on April 27 and May 11 of 2020. The effect of these measures is largely unknown since the role of children in the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is still unclear. There are only a few studies of school closures as a separate intervention to other social distancing measures, and little research exists on the effect of school opening during a pandemic. Objective This study aimed to model the effect of opening kindergartens and the schools in Norway in terms of a change in the reproduction number (R). A secondary objective was to assess if we can use the estimated R after school openings to infer the rates of transmission between children in schools. Methods We used an individual-based model (IBM) to assess the reopening of kindergartens and schools in two Norwegian cities, Oslo, the Norwegian capital, with a population of approximately 680 000, and Tromsø, which is the largest city in Northern Norway, with a population of approximately 75 000. The model uses demographic information and detailed data about the schools in both cities. We carried out an ensemble study to obtain robust results in spite of the considerable uncertainty that remains about the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Results We found that reopening of Norwegian kindergartens and schools are associated with a change in R of 0.10 (95%CI 0.04–0.16) and 0.14 (95%CI 0.01–0.25) in the two cities under investigation if the in-school transmission rates for the SARS-CoV-2 virus are equal to what has previously been estimated for influenza pandemics. Conclusion We found only a limited effect of reopening schools on the reproduction number, and we expect the same to hold true in other countries where nonpharmaceutical interventions have suppressed the pandemic. Consequently, current R-estimates are insufficiently accurate for determining the transmission rates in schools. For countries that have closed schools, planned interventions, such as the opening of selected schools, can be useful to infer general knowledge about children-to-children transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

scholarly journals Modelling Suggests Limited Change in the Reproduction Number from Reopening Norwegian Kindergartens and Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Rypdal ◽  
Veronika Gjertsen Rypdal ◽  
Per Kirsten Jakobsen ◽  
Elinor Ytterstad ◽  
Ola Lovsletten ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reproduction Number ◽  
After School ◽  
School Closures ◽  
Considerable Uncertainty ◽  
Transmission Rates ◽  
Influenza Pandemics ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Secondary Objective ◽  
Nonpharmaceutical Interventions

Background: To suppress the COVID-19 outbreak, the Norwegian government closed all schools on March 13, 2020. The kindergartens reopened on April 20, and the schools on April 27 and May 11 of 2020. The effect of these measures is largely unknown since the role of children in the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is still unclear. There are only a few studies of school closures as a separate intervention to other social distancing measures, and little research exists on the effect of school opening during a pandemic. Objective: This study aimed to model the effect of opening kindergartens and the schools in Norway in terms of a change in the reproduction number (R). A secondary objective was to assess if we can use the estimated R after school openings to infer the rates of transmission between children in schools. Methods: We used an individual-based model (IBM) to assess the reopening of kindergartens and schools in two Norwegian cities, Oslo, the Norwegian capital, with a population of approximately 680 000, and Tromsoe, which is the largest city in Northern Norway, with a population of approximately 75 000. The model uses demographic information and detailed data about the schools in both cities. We carried out an ensemble study to obtain robust results in spite of the considerable uncertainty that remains about the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Results: We found that reopening of Norwegian kindergartens and schools are associated with a change in R of 0.10 (95%CI 0.04-0.16) and 0.14 (95%CI 0.01-0.25) in the two cities under investigation if the in-school transmission rates for the SARS-CoV-2 virus are equal to what Ferguson et al. have previously estimated for influenza pandemics [1]. Conclusion: We found only a limited effect of reopening schools on the reproduction number, and we expect the same to hold true in other countries where nonpharmaceutical interventions have suppressed the pandemic. Consequently, current R-estimates are insufficiently accurate for determining the transmission rates in schools. For countries that have not opened schools yet, planned interventions, such as the opening of selected schools, can be useful to infer general knowledge about children-to-children transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

scholarly journals Predicting the SARS-CoV-2 effective reproduction number using bulk contact data from mobile phones

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (31) ◽  
pp. e2026731118
Author(s):  
Sten Rüdiger ◽  
Stefan Konigorski ◽  
Alexander Rakowski ◽  
Jonathan Antonio Edelman ◽  
Detlef Zernick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reproduction Number ◽  
Gps Tracking ◽  
Contact Behavior ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
The Social ◽  
Global Positioning ◽  
Specific Contact ◽  
Contact Data ◽  
Nonpharmaceutical Interventions

Over the last months, cases of SARS-CoV-2 surged repeatedly in many countries but could often be controlled with nonpharmaceutical interventions including social distancing. We analyzed deidentified Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking data from 1.15 to 1.4 million cell phones in Germany per day between March and November 2020 to identify encounters between individuals and statistically evaluate contact behavior. Using graph sampling theory, we estimated the contact index (CX), a metric for number and heterogeneity of contacts. We found that CX, and not the total number of contacts, is an accurate predictor for the effective reproduction number R derived from case numbers. A high correlation between CX and R recorded more than 2 wk later allows assessment of social behavior well before changes in case numbers become detectable. By construction, the CX quantifies the role of superspreading and permits assigning risks to specific contact behavior. We provide a critical CX value beyond which R is expected to rise above 1 and propose to use that value to leverage the social-distancing interventions for the coming months.

scholarly journals Model-based evaluation of school- and non-school-related measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ganna Rozhnova ◽  
Christiaan H. van Dorp ◽  
Patricia Bruijning-Verhagen ◽  
Martin C. J. Bootsma ◽  
Janneke H. H. M. van de Wijgert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reproduction Number ◽  
Additional Benefit ◽  
Transmission Model ◽  
Time Points ◽  
School Based ◽  
Admission Data ◽  
Age Structured ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pandemic Wave

AbstractThe role of school-based contacts in the epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 is incompletely understood. We use an age-structured transmission model fitted to age-specific seroprevalence and hospital admission data to assess the effects of school-based measures at different time points during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands. Our analyses suggest that the impact of measures reducing school-based contacts depends on the remaining opportunities to reduce non-school-based contacts. If opportunities to reduce the effective reproduction number (Re) with non-school-based measures are exhausted or undesired and Re is still close to 1, the additional benefit of school-based measures may be considerable, particularly among older school children. As two examples, we demonstrate that keeping schools closed after the summer holidays in 2020, in the absence of other measures, would not have prevented the second pandemic wave in autumn 2020 but closing schools in November 2020 could have reduced Re below 1, with unchanged non-school-based contacts.

scholarly journals A tale of two cities: The role of neighborhood socioeconomic status in spatial clustering of bystander CPR in Austin and Houston

Resuscitation ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 84 (6) ◽  
pp. 752-759 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Dowling Root ◽  
Louis Gonzales ◽  
David E. Persse ◽  
Paul R. Hinchey ◽  
Bryan McNally ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Spatial Clustering ◽  
Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Bystander Cpr

The Pre-Eminent Role of Babilonia in Petrarch's Theme of the Two Cities

Italica ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann H. Hallock
Keyword(s):  
Two Cities

scholarly journals The context of leprosy in Brazil-Paraguay border

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Elizabeth Araujo Ajalla ◽  
Sonia Maria Oliveira de Andrade ◽  
Edson Mamoru Tamaki ◽  
William Waissmann ◽  
Sandra Helena Correia Diettrich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Detection Rates ◽  
Transmission Rates ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Information Unit ◽  
The North ◽  
Department Of Health ◽  
Grade Ii ◽  
Epidemiological Profile

Abstract In Brazil, leprosy is endemic in three regions: the North, Northeast, and Mid-West. Counties with contiguous binational urban areas are characterized by a constant fow of people, goods, and services, which facilitates the transmission of diseases and influences the epidemiological profile of leprosy. The purpose of this study was to examine territorial differences in relation to the incidence of leprosy, focusing on border counties with contiguous binational urban areas or otherwise. Each county was taken as an information unit for leprosy cases reported during 2001-2011, based on data from original notification records of the state's Department of Health. In counties with contiguous binational urban areas detection rates showed tendency to increase, Virchowian (lepromatous) disease and disability grade II predominated when compared with Groups II and III: 0.64 and 0.54/100,000 inhabitants for Virchowian desease and 0.14 and 0.27/100,000 inhabitants for disability grade II respectively, and were associated with higher transmission rates. The findings demonstrate the role of border areas in maintaining the endemicity of leprosy.

scholarly journals Thermodynamic Control on the Poleward Shift of the Extratropical Jet in Climate Change Simulations: The Role of Rising High Clouds and Their Radiative Effects

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 917-934 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Li ◽  
David W. J. Thompson ◽  
Sandrine Bony ◽  
Timothy M. Merlis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Radiative Effects ◽  
Considerable Uncertainty ◽  
Surface Warming ◽  
Thermodynamic Constraint ◽  
Poleward Shift ◽  
Cloud Radiative Effects ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
High Clouds

Extratropical eddy-driven jets are predicted to shift poleward in a warmer climate. Recent studies have suggested that cloud radiative effects (CRE) may enhance the amplitude of such shifts. But there is still considerable uncertainty about the underlying mechanisms, whereby CRE govern the jet response to climate change. This study provides new insights into the role of CRE in the jet response to climate change by exploiting the output from six global warming simulations run with and without atmospheric CRE (ACRE). Consistent with previous studies, it is found that the magnitude of the jet shift under climate change is substantially increased in simulations run with ACRE. It is hypothesized that ACRE enhance the jet response to climate change by increasing the upper-tropospheric baroclinicity due to the radiative effects of rising high clouds. The lifting of the tropopause and high clouds in response to surface warming arises from the thermodynamic constraints placed on water vapor concentrations. Hence, the influence of ACRE on the jet shift in climate change simulations may be viewed as an additional “robust” thermodynamic constraint placed on climate change by the Clausius–Clapeyron relation. The hypothesis is tested in simulations run with an idealized dry GCM, in which the model is perturbed with a thermal forcing that resembles the ACRE response to surface warming. It is demonstrated that 1) the enhanced jet shifts found in climate change simulations run with ACRE are consistent with the atmospheric response to the radiative warming associated with rising high clouds, and 2) the amplitude of the jet shift scales linearly with the amplitude of the ACRE forcing.

scholarly journals Model-based evaluation of school- and non-school-related measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ganna Rozhnova ◽  
Christiaan van Dorp ◽  
Patricia Bruijning-Verhagen ◽  
Martin Bootsma ◽  
Janneke van de Wijgert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reproduction Number ◽  
Additional Benefit ◽  
Transmission Model ◽  
Time Points ◽  
School Based ◽  
Admission Data ◽  
Age Structured ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pandemic Wave

Abstract The role of school-based contacts in the epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 is incompletely understood. We used an age-structured transmission model fitted to age-specific seroprevalence and hospital admission data to assess the effects of school-based measures at different time points during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands. Our analyses suggest that the impact of measures reducing school-based contacts depends on the remaining opportunities to reduce non-school-based contacts. If opportunities to reduce the effective reproduction number (Re) with non-school-based measures are exhausted or undesired and Re is still close to 1, the additional benefit of school-based measures may be considerable, particularly among older school children. As two examples, we demonstrate that keeping schools closed after the summer holidays in 2020, in the absence of other measures, would not have prevented the second pandemic wave in autumn 2020 but closing schools in November 2020 could have reduced Re below 1, with unchanged non-school-based contacts.

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