scholarly journals Impact of COVID-19 Restrictions on Air Quality Levels in Samsun, Turkey

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Bahtiyar Efe

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (hereafter COVID-19) has changed the daily routines of people around the world. The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in December 2019, whilst it was confirmed on 11 March 2020 in Turkey. After the number of cases reached 4500 per day by 10 April, the government declared more restrictive lockdown measures for 31 metropolitan cities, which were implemented for the following weekends and national and religious holidays. The changes in the concentrations of CO, NOx, NO2 and PM10 during the period of these measures with respect to the pre-lockdown period and for different levels of measures for Samsun, the biggest city of the Karadeniz region, were investigated in this study. The daily mean concentrations of CO, NOx, NO2 and PM10 were obtained from Tekkekoy station due to it having data completeness greater than 95% for all pollutants. The average CO, NOx and NO2 concentrations during the lockdown period declined with respect to the pre-lockdown period, whilst PM10 increased by 3%. The average concentrations of all the pollutants decreased when the level of restrictions increased during the COVID-19 lockdown period. The number of days exceeding the WHO limit for PM10 was decreased during the lockdown period to 16 days with respect to the pre-lockdown period at 19 days. There was only a positive weak relationship between the mobility decrease rate and NO2 concentrations.

An infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus called COVID-19 has raged across the world since December 2019. The novel coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan, China, and quickly spread to Asia and now many countries around the world are affected by the epidemic. The deaths of many patients, including medical staff, caused social panic, media attention, and high attention from governments and world organizations. Today, with the joint efforts of the government, the doctors and all walks of life, the epidemic in Hubei Province has been brought under control, preventing its spread from affecting the lives of the people. Because of its rapid spread and serious consequences, this sudden novel coronary pneumonia epidemic has become an important social hot spot event. Through the analysis of the novel coronary pneumonia epidemic situation, we can also have a better understanding of sudden infectious diseases in the future, so that we can take more effective response measures, establish a truly predictable and provide reliable and sufficient information for prevention and control model.


Author(s):  
Md. Taimur Islam ◽  
Anup Kumar Talukder ◽  
Md. Nurealam Siddiqui ◽  
Tofazzal Islam

An outbreak of a pandemic COVID-19 disease caused by a novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has posed a serious threat to human health and the economy of the whole world. Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, which has also come under the attack of this viral disease. This perspective report aimed to describe the responses of Bangladesh to tackle the COVID-19, particularly on how Bangladesh is dealing with this novel viral disease with limited resources. The first case of a COVID-19 patient was detected in Bangladesh on March 8, 2020. Since then, a total of 2,144 peoples are officially reported as COVID-19 infected with 84 deaths. To combat the COVID-19, the government has taken various steps to tackle the epidemic outbreak of it such as diagnosis of the suspected cases, quarantine of doubted people and isolation of infected patients, local or regional lockdown, grant general leave from all offices for staying home of people, increase public awareness and enforce social distancing and so on. In addition, to address the socio-economic situations, the government announced several financial stimulus packages of about USD 11.17 billion. However, very limited diagnostic facilities, health workers, resources such as hospital beds, personal protective equipment, intensive care unit, and ventilators in the hospitals along with limited public unawareness are the major challenges for Bangladesh to tackle the situation effectively. This report described the responses of Bangladesh to tackle the COVID-19 and discusses prevailing challenges to mitigate this highly contagious disease with limited resources.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-11
Author(s):  
Bin Zhao

Background: An infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus called COVID-19 has raged across the world since December 2019. The novel coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan, China, and quickly spread to Asia and now many countries around the world are affected by the epidemic. The deaths of many patients, including medical staff, caused social panic, media attention, and high attention from governments and world organizations. Today, with the joint efforts of the government, the doctors and all walks of life, the epidemic in Hubei Province has been brought under control, preventing its spread from affecting the lives of the people. Because of its rapid spread and serious consequences, this sudden novel coronary pneumonia epidemic has become an important social hot spot event. Through the analysis of the novel coronary pneumonia epidemic situation, we can also have a better understanding of sudden infectious diseases in the future, so that we can take more effective response measures, establish a truly predictable and provide reliable and sufficient information for prevention and control model. Methods: We establish different models according to the different developments of the epidemic situation, different time points, and different response measures taken by the government. To be specific, during the period of 2020.1.23-2020.2.7, the traditional SIR model is adopted; during the period of 2020.2.8-2020.3.30, according to the scientific research results, it was considered that the novel coronary pneumonia has a latent period, so in the later phase of epidemic development, the government has effectively isolated patients, thus we adopt the SEIQR model accordingly. During the period of 2020.3.31-2020.5.16, because more asymptomatic infected people were found, we use the SEIQLR model to fit. Finally, through a SEIR simulator, considering the susceptible number, the latent number, the infected number, the cured number, death number and other factors, we simulate the change of various numbers of people from the beginning to the next 180 days of novel coronary pneumonia. Findings: The results based on the analysis of differential equations and kinetic models show that through the prediction of the model established in the first phase, the epidemic situation of novel coronary pneumonia in Hubei Province was controlled at the end of March, which is in line with the actual situation. The rest of Hubei province, except for Wuhan, lifted control of the departure channel from 0:00 am on March 25, and Wuhan was also unblocked on April 8. Through the establishment of the second-phase model, it is found that the epidemic situation will reach its peak in mid-February. For example, the quarantine admission of the hospital declined after mid-February, which is inseparable from the measures to build square cabin hospitals in early February so that more and more patients can be admitted. The model established in the third phase shows that the epidemic had been completely controlled by the end of May, which is also in line with the reality. Because in mid-May, the Wuhan government conducted a nucleic acid test on all the citizens to screen for asymptomatic infected persons to fundamentally control the spread of novel coronary pneumonia. Interpretation: Hubei Province, as the center of the initial outbreak of novel coronary pneumonia, people were forced to be isolated at home during the Spring Festival, the most important Chinese holiday, and the whole society was in a state of suspension of work and study. The Chinese government had taken many measures in response to the epidemic, such as shutting down the city, vigorously building square cabin hospitals, and prohibiting people from gathering. At the beginning of May this year, the epidemic in Hubei Province was finally effectively controlled. For ordinary citizens, we should not cause unnecessary panic about the unknown novel coronavirus. Instead, we should fully understand and be familiar with this virus. In addition to the relevant medical knowledge, we should also understand the spread of infectious diseases through appropriate mathematical models. By mathematical models, we can understand the degree of harm of infectious diseases, when to control it, how to stop it, and use scientific views to reveal the original face of the novel coronavirus to the public without causing social panic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-266
Author(s):  
D. D. Pawar ◽  
◽  
W. D. Patil ◽  
D. K. Raut ◽  
◽  
...  

An outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease was first reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019. In India, the first case was reported on January 30, 2020 on a person with a travel history to an affected country. Considering the fact of a heavily populated and diversified country like India, we have proposed a novel fractional-order mathematical model to elicit the transmission dynamics of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the control strategy for India. The classical SEIR model is employed in three compartments, namely: quarantined immigrated population, non-quarantined asymptomatic immigrated population, and local population subjected to lockdown in the containment areas by the government of India to prevent the spread of disease in India. We have also taken into account the physical interactions between them to evaluate the coronavirus transmission dynamics. The basic reproduction number ($R_{0}$) has been derived to determine the communicability of the disease. Numerical simulation is done by using the generalised Euler method. To check the feasibility of our analysis, we have investigated some numerical simulations for various fractional orders by varying values of the parameters with help of MATLAB to fit the realistic pandemic scenario.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richmond Sam Quarm ◽  
Rosemond Sam-Quarm ◽  
Richmond Sam-Quarm

The novel, dreaded, disruptive, and disastrous Covid-19 pandemic took the world by storm in January, 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic in Ghana is part of the worldwide coronavirus disease caused by “severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2)”. On 12th January, 2020 the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed that the novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness that affected a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. This was reported to the WHO on 31st December, 2019. On 11th March, 2020, WHO declared the novel Covid-19 a global pandemic (Graphic Online, 2020a). It is worthy to note how the Government of Ghana, political parties, citizens, scientists and academia, corporate entities, faith based organisations, traditional rulers, have offered varied forms of interventions to combat the scourge. The Theoretical Framework of this research was underpinned by the Theory of Epidemics, the Agency Theory, the Rational Choice Theory, and the Stakeholder Theory. We conducted a cross-sectional research through non-probability and purposive sampling with 250 respondents. We also employed face-to-face interviews, structured closed-ended and open-ended Questionnaires (Braun and Clarke, 2012; Denzin, 2017), which were administered online through email application via Google Forms. One of our major findings was that with the approval of Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine by the UK’s MHRA on 1st December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020b); and subsequently by the US FDA a week later on 8th December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020c), all governments around the globe in general, but Africa in particular, must make conscious efforts backed by adequate budgetary allocations to secure maximum quantities of the vaccines for their vulnerable teeming population.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehsan Ullah

Coronaviruses infect mammals and birds worldwide, and some of these viruses infect humans to cause mild to moderate lower-respiratory tract illnesses and rarely a severe illness. Like other viruses, coronaviruses evolved (change their genetic material and protein structure) and spread from animals to humans. The world has witnessed coronavirus evolving into severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in 2012. Other recent examples include Dengue, Ebola, Chikungunya, Influenza and Zika virus outbreaks. It may or may not be relevant to note that first cases of both SARS-CoV in 2003 avian influenza virus (H5N1) in 1997 were isolated and identified at the same hospital in Hong Kong where the first case of the current outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus has been identified. The new virus has been named as the Novel coronavirus (2019 nCoV).


2022 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hashim Talib Hashim ◽  
Ahed El Abed El Rassoul ◽  
John Bchara ◽  
Attaullah Ahmadi ◽  
Don Eliseo Lucero-Prisno

AbstractCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged in late 2019, with the first case identified in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, on 12 December 2019. In order to perceive the comprehensive impact of this pandemic, we have to know that misinformation and denials about COVID-19 have surely exacerbated its diffusion and hindered the response against it. Turkmenistan remains one of the very few countries in the world that lacks reports about emerging cases of the novel coronavirus. Turkmen authorities claim that they have adopted all attainable measures required in order to combat the virus, asserting that COVID-19 has yet to reach their country. Despite the government’s reported absence of COVID-19 in the country, rumors, media reports and independent sources suggest the spread of the pandemic in Turkmenistan. By mid-June 2020, the outbreak was referred to as being serious with patients suffering extreme health risks, and following its state of disrepair and unethical practices, many of those anticipated to be COVID-19 infected tend to suffer at home, discouraging any interaction with the healthcare system. The civil society in Turkmenistan, for the time being, takes full part of the government’s duty in the process of informing and educating the public regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, and endeavors to keep the government and WHO accountable for behaving in such repressive ways that could lead to rather preventable loss of human life in Turkmenistan. Yet, efforts hang fire before unveiling the real situation, and Turkmenistan’s government owning up to the negations and roaming speculations, not only regarding the coronavirus crisis, but every public-related issue itself.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richmond Sam Quarm ◽  
Rosemond Sam-Quarm ◽  
Richmond Sam-Quarm

The novel, dreaded, disruptive, and disastrous Covid-19 pandemic took the world by storm in January, 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic in Ghana is part of the worldwide coronavirus disease caused by “severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2)”. On 12th January, 2020 the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed that the novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness that affected a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. This was reported to the WHO on 31st December, 2019. On 11th March, 2020, WHO declared the novel Covid-19 a global pandemic (Graphic Online, 2020a). It is worthy to note how the Government of Ghana, political parties, citizens, scientists and academia, corporate entities, faith based organisations, traditional rulers, have offered varied forms of interventions to combat the scourge. The Theoretical Framework of this research was underpinned by the Theory of Epidemics, the Agency Theory, the Rational Choice Theory, and the Stakeholder Theory. We conducted a cross-sectional research through non-probability and purposive sampling with 250 respondents. We also employed face-to-face interviews, structured closed-ended and open-ended Questionnaires (Braun and Clarke, 2012; Denzin, 2017), which were administered online through email application via Google Forms. One of our major findings was that with the approval of Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine by the UK’s MHRA on 1st December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020b); and subsequently by the US FDA a week later on 8th December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020c), all governments around the globe in general, but Africa in particular, must make conscious efforts backed by adequate budgetary allocations to secure maximum quantities of the vaccines for their vulnerable teeming population.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-262
Author(s):  
Popy Devnath ◽  
◽  
Imam Hossain ◽  
Mohammad Sharif Uddin ◽  
Md Hasibul Hossain ◽  
...  

Emerging at the end of 2019 in China, novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infected millions and killed thousands of people across the globe. Like other South Asian countries such as India and Pakistan, Bangladesh is also struggling to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the first detection on March 2020, terrible touch of the corona had been inundated Bangladesh with a total of 5,661,926 suspected patients and reported 776,257 (13.7%) cases, 12,005 deaths (1.5% CFR), and an overall recovery of 715,321 (92%) cases as of May 11, 2020. In attempts to reduce the burden of corona cases in one of the most densely populated country of the world, the government has taken several initiatives. Bangladesh has been stepped up a large number of medical & testing facilities, manpower, social awareness campaigns, and has taken many initial steps to fight against COVID-19. This review article is focused on the overall outbreak situation, the preparedness of the government of Bangladesh as well as challenges and limitations faced by the country so far to tackle the novel coronavirus pandemic 2019.


Author(s):  
Md. Riajul Islam Sardar ◽  
Md. Shamim Hasan ◽  
Md. Mahmud

Since the first coronavirus patient was identified in Bangladesh on March 8, the most controversial issue is about the exact level of the infection in Bangladesh. Conformity with the population density the number of COVID-19 tests is inadequate. As the number of tests increases, so does the number of infections, making it difficult to predict the spread of COVID-19 in Bangladesh. In this case, the unplanned initiatives are particularly responsible in other for unplanned measures, lack of public awareness, and lack of proper knowledge. In this case, the Ministry of Health has made three major mistakes, three important features of the medical system in Bangladesh have been mentioned. It is more effective to prevent COVID-19 by isolating the infected person by further testing COVID-19 until effective treatment is available and to provide adequate and effective masks and personal protective equipment (PPE). In this case, the COVID-19 testing kit invention has received a good response in many countries of the world. This study focuses on the comprehensive data verification, selection, and evaluation of COVID-19 in Bangladesh and its implications for the future, what to do to address and prevent the COVID-19 challenge, and effective treatment against the coronavirus (COVID-19). It is hopeful that the discussion of the material mentioned in this research paper will help to strike a balance between the government, citizens, and experts which will be feasible in improving the current situation in COVID-19 Bangladesh and reducing its severity.


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