scholarly journals Mitigation strategies and compliance in the COVID-19 fight; how much compliance is enough?

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0239352
Author(s):  
Swati Mukerjee ◽  
Clifton M. Chow ◽  
Mingfei Li
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Transmission Factor ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Time Dynamic ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Tool ◽  
Daily Data ◽  
Mitigation Policies

The U.S. with only 4% of the world’s population, bears a disproportionate share of infections in the COVID-19 pandemic. To understand this puzzle, we investigate how mitigation strategies and compliance can work together (or in opposition) to reduce (or increase) the spread of COVID-19 infection. Building on the Oxford index, we create state-specific stringency indices tailored to U.S. conditions, to measure the degree of strictness of public mitigation measures. A modified time-varying SEIRD model, incorporating this Stringency Index as well as a Compliance Indicator is then estimated with daily data for a sample of 6 U.S. states: New York, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Arizona. We provide a simple visual policy tool to evaluate the various combinations of mitigation policies and compliance that can reduce the basic reproduction number to less than one, the acknowledged threshold in the epidemiological literature to control the pandemic. Understanding of this relationship by both the public and policy makers is key to controlling the pandemic. This tool has the potential to be used in a real-time, dynamic fashion for flexible policy options. Our methodology can be applied to other countries and has the potential to be extended to other epidemiological models as well. With this first step in attempting to quantify the factors that go into the “black box” of the transmission factor β, we hope that our work will stimulate further research in the dual role of mitigation policies and compliance.

scholarly journals Mitigation Strategies and Compliance in the Covid-19 Fight; How Much Compliance is Enough?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Swati Mukerjee ◽  
Clifton Chow ◽  
Mingfei Li
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
State Level ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Time Dynamic ◽  
Policy Tool ◽  
Daily Data ◽  
Suitable Combination ◽  
The U.S

Today, with only 4% of the world's population, the U.S. is bearing a disproportionate share of COVID-19 infections. Seeking to understand this puzzle, we investigate how mitigation strategies and compliance can work together (or in opposition) to reduce (or increase) the spread of COVID-19 infection. Drilling down to the state level, we create specific state indices suitable for the U.S. to measure the degree of strictness of public mitigation measures. In this, we build on the Oxford Stringency Index. A modified time-varying SEIRD model, incorporating this Stringency Index as well as a Compliance Indicator to reduce the transmission, is then estimated with daily data for a sample of 6 U.S. states. These are New York, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Arizona. We provide a simple visual policy tool to evaluate the various combinations of mitigation policies and compliance that can reduce the basic reproduction number to less than one; this is the acknowledged threshold in the epidemiological literature to control the pandemic. States successful in combating the pandemic were able to achieve a suitable combination. Understanding of this relationship by the public and policy makers is key to controlling the pandemic. This tool has the potential to be used in a real-time, dynamic fashion for flexible policy options.

Shooting the Moon: Should states require the H1N1 vaccine for healthcare workers?

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Paris Nourmohammadi, JD ◽  
Brigid Ryan, JD
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Healthcare Workers ◽  
New York State ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
World Health ◽  
Health Departments ◽  
State Health ◽  
H1n1 Vaccine ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
York State

On June 11, 2009, the director of the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the phase of alert in the Global Influenza Plan from level five to level six. The cause for this was the H1N1 virus which had already affected several countries. A level five alert is declared when more than one country in a single WHO geographic region is affected by the same virus. A level six declaration means that community outbreaks are occurring in at least two WHO geographic regions. Once such a declaration is made, little time remains before mitigation efforts must be planned and communicated to the public. In the wake of the WHO declaration, policy makers are clamoring for adequate disease mitigation strategies. Some health departments intend to require employees to wear personal protective equipment while on the job. Other state health departments are encouraging employees to stay home sick if they think they might have the flu. The New York State Health Department has issued an order requiring all healthcare workers to be vaccinated for H1N1 or risk being terminated. This article will explore the New York State policy and make recommendations to policy makers about how to prevent the spread of H1N1.

scholarly journals Crisis leadership during COVID-19: the role of governors in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul-Akeem Sadiq ◽  
Naim Kapucu ◽  
Qian Hu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
New York ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Crisis Leadership ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Content Type

PurposeThe purpose of this viewpoint article is to understand crisis leadership during COVID-19 by examining the decision-making with respect to implementing COVID-19 mitigation measures, collaboration with stakeholders, and communication strategies of the governors of the States of California, Texas, Florida, and New York in the United States.Design/methodology/approachThis viewpoint article employs information from the extant literature on crisis leadership and secondary sources to understand the four governor's crisis leadership strategies during COVID-19.FindingsGovernors Gavin Newsom of California and Andrew Cuomo of New York made quicker decisions regarding implementing COVID-19 mitigation measures (e.g. shutting down the economy, mandating physical distancing, issuing stay-at-home orders, mandating wearing face covering in public and issuing a state of emergency) compared to Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida. In addition, all four governors collaborated with state and local governments, private entities, and nonprofits to address COVID-19. Finally, all four governors held some form of briefing on COVID-19 on a regular basis and used different media to get their information out to the public.Originality/valueThis viewpoint article uses decision-making regarding implementation of mitigation strategies, collaboration with stakeholders, and crisis communication strategy to understand governors' crisis leadership during COVID-19.

A Look Under the Hood: Regulatory Policy Making and the Affordable Care Act

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 771-786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon F. Haeder ◽  
Susan Webb Yackee
Keyword(s):  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Regulatory Policy ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Tool ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
The Affordable Care Act ◽  
Regulatory Actions

Abstract The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law a decade ago. Partisanship has limited the number of statutory changes, leaving the law mostly unchanged across the past 10 years. However, the ACA delegated vast powers to the executive branch, which opened the door for significant regulatory policy-making activities (also called “rulemaking”). We collected data on all regulatory actions related to the Affordable Care Act that have been taken since its passage to provide the first exploratory analyses of both the public law itself and the ensuing rulemaking activities. We also provide illustrative examples of two controversial issues: short-term limited-duration insurance plans and contraceptive coverage for women. Despite relative statutory stasis, regulatory actions have continued to shape the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Both the Obama and Trump administrations have taken advantage of a vast delegation of policy-making power. Importantly, regulatory policy making holds the potential to yield significant changes depending on the policy goals of the presidential administration. Scholars, policy makers, and the public are well-advised to pay attention to ACA-related rulemaking activities. Moreover, “quasi-rulemaking” (i.e., the use of agency guidance as a policy tool) remains largely unexplored but could indicate an even greater regulatory enterprise than illustrated here.

scholarly journals The Effect of Shelter-in-Place Orders on Social Distancing and the Spread of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study of Texas

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco A. Castaneda ◽  
Meryem Saygili
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Local Level ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The State ◽  
County Level ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Current State ◽  
Daily Data

Objectives: We study how the state-wide shelter-in-place order affected social distancing and the number of cases and deaths in Texas.Methods: We use daily data at the county level. The COVID-19 cases and fatalities data are from the New York Times. Social distancing measures are from SafeGraph. Both data are retrieved from the Unfolded Studio website. The county-level COVID-related policy responses are from the National Association of Counties. We use an event-study design and regression analysis to estimate the effect of the state-wide shelter-in-place order on social distancing and the number of cases and deaths.Results: We find that the growth rate of cases and deaths is significantly lower during the policy period when the percentage of the population that stays at home is highest. The crucial question is whether the policy has a causal impact on the sheltering percentages. The fact that some counties in Texas adopted local restrictive policies well before the state-wide policy helps us address this question. We do not find evidence that this top-down restrictive policy increased the percentage of the population that exercised social distancing.Discussion: Shelter-in-place policies are more effective at the local level and should go along with efforts to inform and update the public about the potential consequences of the disease and its current state in their localities.

scholarly journals COVID-19 is rapidly changing: Examining public perceptions and behaviors in response to this evolving pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
H Seale ◽  
AE Heywood ◽  
J Leask ◽  
M Sheel ◽  
S Thomas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Multivariate Logistic Regression Analysis ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The Public ◽  
Avoidance Behaviors ◽  
Very High

ABSTRACTBackgroundSince the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in late 2019, communities have been required to rapidly adopt community mitigation strategies rarely used before, or only in limited settings. This study aimed to examine the attitudes and beliefs of Australian adults towards the COVID-19 pandemic, and willingness and capacity to engage with these mitigation measures. In addition, we aimed to explore the psychosocial and demographic factors that are associated with adoption of recommended hygiene-related and avoidance-related behaviors.MethodsA national cross-sectional online survey of 1420 Australian adults (18 years and older) was undertaken between the 18 and 24 March 2020. The statistical analysis of the data included univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis.FindingsThe survey of 1420 respondents found 50% (710) of respondents felt COVID-19 would ‘somewhat’ affect their health if infected and 19% perceived their level of risk as high or very high. 84·9% had performed ≥1 of the three recommended hygiene-related behaviors and 93·4% performed ≥1 of six avoidance-related behaviors over the last one month. Adopting avoidance behaviors was associated with trust in government/authorities (aOR: 5·5, 95% CI 3-9·0), higher perceived rating of effectiveness of behaviors (aOR: 4·3, 95% CI: 2·8-6·9) and higher levels of perceived ability to adopt social distancing strategies (aOR: 1·8, 95% CI 1·1-3·0).InterpretationIn the last two months, members of the public have been inundated with messages about hygiene and social (physical) distancing. However, our results indicate that a continued focus on supporting community understanding of the rationale for these strategies, as well as instilling community confidence in their ability to adopt or sustain the recommendations is needed.FundingNone

scholarly journals COVIDHunter: An Accurate, Flexible, and Environment-Aware Open-Source COVID-19 Outbreak Simulation Model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Alser ◽  
Jeremie S. Kim ◽  
Nour Almadhoun Alserr ◽  
Stefan W. Tell ◽  
Onur Mutlu
Keyword(s):  
Simulation Model ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Potential Effect ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Supplementary Information ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Hospital Capacity

AbstractMotivationEarly detection and isolation of COVID-19 patients are essential for successful implementation of mitigation strategies and eventually curbing the disease spread. With a limited number of daily COVID-19 tests performed in every country, simulating the COVID-19 spread along with the potential effect of each mitigation strategy currently remains one of the most effective ways in managing the healthcare system and guiding policy-makers. We introduce COVIDHunter, a flexible and accurate COVID-19 outbreak simulation model that evaluates the current mitigation measures that are applied to a region and provides suggestions on what strength the upcoming mitigation measure should be. The key idea of COVIDHunter is to quantify the spread of COVID-19 in a geographical region by simulating the average number of new infections caused by an infected person considering the effect of external factors, such as environmental conditions (e.g., climate, temperature, humidity) and mitigation measures.ResultsUsing Switzerland as a case study, COVIDHunter estimates that the policy-makers need to keep the current mitigation measures for at least 30 days to prevent demand from quickly exceeding existing hospital capacity. Relaxing the mitigation measures by 50% for 30 days increases both the daily capacity need for hospital beds and daily number of deaths exponentially by an average of 23.8 ×, who may occupy ICU beds and ventilators for a period of time. Unlike existing models, the COVIDHunter model accurately monitors and predicts the daily number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths due to COVID-19. Our model is flexible to configure and simple to modify for modeling different scenarios under different environmental conditions and mitigation measures.Availabilityhttps://github.com/CMU-SAFARI/[email protected], [email protected] informationSupplementary data is available at Bioinformatics online.

scholarly journals The Cause of Panic at the Outbreak of COVID-19 in South Africa - A Comparative Analysis with Similar Outbreak in China and New York

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
King Costa
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New York ◽  
South African ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
The Public ◽  
Content Analysis Method

Lack of proper messaging at an outbreak of a novel disease causes panic with more serious damaging impacts on livelihoods, social-fabric of communities, economic landscapes, and political stability. There have been notable high levels of panic in South Africa and the globe with regard to the outbreak of COVID-19. The current lack of knowledge and poor communication has been attributed as a precursor to the skyrocketing global panic (Freimuth, Linnan, Potter, 2000). Fuelling this panic is the rate at which the incidence of new infections is increasing in countries outside of China, with Italy and Iran leading on a number of new infections and death cases.A Content Analysis method was used to analyze articles, media clips and social network reactions to the outbreak of COVID-19 in South Africa on the 6th of March 2020. The key to the investigation was to understand how authorities are communicating with the public on matters of national concern – regarding how they are prepared to deal and handle the outbreak. This study further compares the South African response to China at the outbreak of SARS in 2003. Codes were generated in targeted media and scientific sources and themes were generated and presented.Findings indicate that the general public does not have faith in government authorities, due to a lack of communication. It is perceived that lack of communication is indicative of a lack of preparedness. Contrary to evident panic in South Africa, scientific data indicates that there is no need to panic as a result of the outbreak of COVID-19. Further, a study from the French Institute for Health and Medical Research in 2020 on the preparedness of African countries to handle COVID-19 indicates that South Africa is one of the better-equipped countries in Africa to detect and handle any incidence of COVID-19. The study recommends that authorities and policy-makers use communications to educate the public far earlier at the onset of epidemic outbreaks, regardless of where it happens as the air-traffic connects global countries, resulting in the potential for disease importation.

Hospitals: N.Y. Appellate Court Denies Move to Privatize Public Hospital

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-203
Author(s):  
Robert Chatham
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Public Health System ◽  
Municipal Hospital ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Benefit ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Benefit Corporation ◽  
The City

The Court of Appeals of New York held, in Council of the City of New York u. Giuliani, slip op. 02634, 1999 WL 179257 (N.Y. Mar. 30, 1999), that New York City may not privatize a public city hospital without state statutory authorization. The court found invalid a sublease of a municipal hospital operated by a public benefit corporation to a private, for-profit entity. The court reasoned that the controlling statute prescribed the operation of a municipal hospital as a government function that must be fulfilled by the public benefit corporation as long as it exists, and nothing short of legislative action could put an end to the corporation's existence.In 1969, the New York State legislature enacted the Health and Hospitals Corporation Act (HHCA), establishing the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) as an attempt to improve the New York City public health system. Thirty years later, on a renewed perception that the public health system was once again lacking, the city administration approved a sublease of Coney Island Hospital from HHC to PHS New York, Inc. (PHS), a private, for-profit entity.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document