scholarly journals Rapid relaxation of pandemic restrictions after vaccine rollout favors growth of SARS-CoV-2 variants: A model-based analysis

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. e0258997
Author(s):  
Debra Van Egeren ◽  
Madison Stoddard ◽  
Alexander Novokhodko ◽  
Michael S. Rogers ◽  
Diane Joseph-McCarthy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Public Health Intervention ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Health Intervention ◽  
Natural Immunity ◽  
Vaccine Acceptance ◽  
High Burden ◽  
Model Based Analysis

The development and deployment of several SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in a little over a year is an unprecedented achievement of modern medicine. The high levels of efficacy against transmission for some of these vaccines makes it feasible to use them to suppress SARS-CoV-2 altogether in regions with high vaccine acceptance. However, viral variants with reduced susceptibility to vaccinal and natural immunity threaten the utility of vaccines, particularly in scenarios where a return to pre-pandemic conditions occurs before the suppression of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. In this work we model the situation in the United States in May-June 2021, to demonstrate how pre-existing variants of SARS-CoV-2 may cause a rebound wave of COVID-19 in a matter of months under a certain set of conditions. A high burden of morbidity (and likely mortality) remains possible, even if the vaccines are partially effective against new variants and widely accepted. Our modeling suggests that variants that are already present within the population may be capable of quickly defeating the vaccines as a public health intervention, a serious potential limitation for strategies that emphasize rapid reopening before achieving control of SARS-CoV-2.

scholarly journals The specter of Manaus: the risks of a rapid return to pre-pandemic conditions after COVID-19 vaccine rollout

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debra Van Egeren ◽  
Madison Stoddard ◽  
Alexander Novokhodko ◽  
Michael Rogers ◽  
Diane Joseph-McCarthy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Public Health Intervention ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Health Intervention ◽  
Natural Immunity ◽  
Vaccine Acceptance ◽  
High Burden ◽  
Fatal Flaw

The development and deployment of several SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in a little over a year is an unprecedented achievement of modern medicine. The high levels of efficacy against transmission for some of these vaccines makes it feasible to use them to suppress SARS-CoV-2 altogether in regions with high vaccine acceptance. However, viral variants with reduced susceptibility to vaccinal and natural immunity threaten the utility of vaccines, particularly in scenarios where a return to pre-pandemic conditions occurs before the suppression of SARS- CoV-2 transmission. In this work we model the situation in the United States at present, to demonstrate how the P.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2 can cause a rebound wave of COVID-19 in a matter of months, similar to what happened in Manaus at the beginning of this year. A high burden of morbidity (and likely mortality) remains possible, even if the vaccine is partially effective against new variants and widely accepted. Our modeling suggests that variants that are already present within the population may be capable of quickly defeating the vaccines as a public health intervention, a fatal flaw in strategies that emphasize rapid reopening before achieving control of SARS-CoV-2.

Alcohol and Other Drugs: Public Health Ethics Issues

2019 ◽  
pp. 510-523
Author(s):  
Brendan Saloner
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Harm Reduction ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Public Health Intervention ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Intervention ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Alcohol And Other Drugs

This chapter examines ethical principles that guide public health intervention to reduce the harms of alcohol and other drugs, including justice-based concerns regarding intervention. While many egalitarian moral theories support public health measures to reduce these harms, and thereby protect individual capability and opportunity, there are opposing arguments to limit public health intervention based on either individual liberty or personal responsibility. The chapter also reviews ethical issues related to prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and decriminalization/legalization. Prevention through education is politically appealing, but is not always evidence-based and can be stigmatizing. Treatment can be highly cost-effective, but some approaches are controversial, such as legally coerced treatment. Harm reduction approaches, such as needle exchange, can reduce many of the negative health consequences of alcohol and drug use, but they require a more direct government role in illicit behaviors. Marijuana legalization is a growing movement in the United States, but it poses complex regulatory challenges.

scholarly journals Introduction, Transmission Dynamics, and Fate of Early SARS-CoV-2 Lineages in Santa Clara County, California

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsa Villarino ◽  
Xianding Deng ◽  
Carol A Kemper ◽  
Michelle A Jorden ◽  
Brandon Bonin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Viral Genome ◽  
Public Health Intervention ◽  
The United States ◽  
Transmission Dynamics ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Clinical Samples ◽  
Post Mortem ◽  
Santa Clara County

Abstract We combined viral genome sequencing with contact tracing to investigate introduction and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 lineages in Santa Clara County, California from January 27 to March 21, 2020. Of 558 persons with COVID-19, 101 genomes from 143 available clinical samples comprised 17 different lineages including SCC1 (n=41), WA1 (n=9, including the first 2 reported deaths in the United States, diagnosed post-mortem), D614G (n=4), ancestral Wuhan Hu-1 (n=21), and 13 others (n=26). Public health intervention may have curtailed the persistence of lineages that appeared transiently during February–March. By August, only D614G lineages introduced after March 21 were circulating in SCC.

scholarly journals Addressing disease surveillance needs for marine recreational bathers

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Turbow
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Disease Surveillance ◽  
Burden Of Illness ◽  
The United States ◽  
Beach Management ◽  
Water Contact ◽  
High Burden ◽  
Current Water ◽  
Public Health Protection

Contamination of the nearshore marine environment contributes to a high burden of illness among recreational bathers. Disease surveillance activities carried out by local, state, and territorial agencies in the United States are at present voluntary and passive. Several gaps in the existing regulatory framework for beach management and public health protection are highlighted in this paper. The need for disease surveillance of marine bathers is established. A demonstration is made of how surveillance activities can be used to guide risk management and gauge the effectiveness of current water contact standards. Recommendations are offered for agencies to improve surveillance and protect public health. A foundation is presented on which to develop a model marine health code.

scholarly journals State-level Stay-at-home Orders and Objectively Measured Movement in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle J. Bourassa
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Public Health Intervention ◽  
State Level ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
The United States ◽  
Total Change ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Objectively Measured ◽  
At Home

Objective: Social distancing has been one of the primary interventions used to slow the spread of COVID-19. State-wide stay-at-home orders received a large degree of attention as a public health intervention to increase social distancing, but relatively little peer-reviewed research has examined the extent to which stay-at-home orders affected people’s behavior. Method: This study used GPS-derived movement from 2,858 counties in the United States from March 1 to May 7, 2020 to test the degree to which changes in state-level stay-at-home orders were associated with movement outside the home. Results: From the first week of March to the first week of April, people in counties within states that enacted stay-at-home orders decreased their movement significantly more than people in counties within states that did not enact state-level stay-at-home orders. From the first week of April to the first week of May, people in counties within states that ended their stay-at-home orders increased their movement significantly more than people in counties within states whose stay-at-home orders remained in place. The magnitude of change in movement associated with state-level stay-at-home orders was many times smaller than the total change in movement across all counties over the same periods of time in both cases. Conclusions: Stay-at-home orders are likely insufficient to reduce people’s movement outside the home without additional public health actions. Existing research on behavior change would be useful to determine what additional interventions could support social distancing behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic if becomes necessary to reduce movement in the future.

The Affective Politics of Karma among Buddhist Cancer Charities in Vietnam

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 33-62
Author(s):  
Sara Swenson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Global Existence ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Public Health Intervention ◽  
Health Intervention ◽  
Moral Failure ◽  
Cancer Rates ◽  
Charity Work

In this article, I explore how Buddhist charity workers in Vietnam interpret rising cancer rates through understandings of karma. Rather than framing cancer as a primarily physical or medical phenomenon, volunteers state that cancer is a product of collective moral failure. Corruption in public food production is both caused by and perpetuates bad karma, which negatively impacts global existence. Conversely, charity work creates merit, which can improve collective karma and benefit all living beings. I argue that through such interpretations of karma, Buddhist volunteers understand their charity at cancer hospitals as an affective and ethical form of public health intervention.

Can increases in Twitter posts predict increases in cumulative incidence of COVID-19 in the United States? Evidence that social media can inform epidemic surveillance. (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruoyan Sun ◽  
Henna Budhwani
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Cumulative Incidence ◽  
Hot Spots ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Attainment ◽  
Public Health Systems ◽  
Per Capita

BACKGROUND Though public health systems are responding rapidly to the COVID-19 pandemic, outcomes from publicly available, crowd-sourced big data may assist in helping to identify hot spots, prioritize equipment allocation and staffing, while also informing health policy related to “shelter in place” and social distancing recommendations. OBJECTIVE To assess if the rising state-level prevalence of COVID-19 related posts on Twitter (tweets) is predictive of state-level cumulative COVID-19 incidence after controlling for socio-economic characteristics. METHODS We identified extracted COVID-19 related tweets from January 21st to March 7th (2020) across all 50 states (N = 7,427,057). Tweets were combined with state-level characteristics and confirmed COVID-19 cases to determine the association between public commentary and cumulative incidence. RESULTS The cumulative incidence of COVID-19 cases varied significantly across states. Ratio of tweet increase (p=0.03), number of physicians per 1,000 population (p=0.01), education attainment (p=0.006), income per capita (p = 0.002), and percentage of adult population (p=0.003) were positively associated with cumulative incidence. Ratio of tweet increase was significantly associated with the logarithmic of cumulative incidence (p=0.06) with a coefficient of 0.26. CONCLUSIONS An increase in the prevalence of state-level tweets was predictive of an increase in COVID-19 diagnoses, providing evidence that Twitter can be a valuable surveillance tool for public health.

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