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Journal Article 18 May 2021

India’s COVID-19 crisis: a call for international action.

Kuppalli, Krutika, Gala, Pooja, Cherabuddi, Kartikeya, Kalantri, S P, Mohanan, Manoj, Mukherjee, Bhramar, Pinto, Lancelot, Prakash, Manu, Pramesh, C S, Rathi, Sahaj, Pai, Nitika Pant, Yamey, Gavin, Pai, Madhukar

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India’s current COVID-19 surge is an unprecedented public health crisis. With exponential growth in the number of daily COVID-19 cases since March, 2021, India reported more than 400 000 new cases daily on May 1, 2021.1 This number is likely to be an underestimate of the true burden of COVID-19 cases, given reports of backlogs of test results, poor access to testing, and many people not getting tested due to fear and stigma.2, 3 Without mitigation, estimates suggest India could reach more than 1 million COVID-19 cases per day with over 1 million cumulative COVID-19 deaths by Aug 1, 2021.4 The Indian Government and health authorities must act fast to flatten this second wave. We strongly endorse the national action plan laid out by The Lancet COVID-19 Commission India Task Force and we have summarised some of their recommendations in the panel .5 Early in the pandemic, India...

Journal Article 18 May 2021

A new SEIAR model on small-world networks to assess the intervention measures in the COVID-19 pandemics.

Li, Jie, Zhong, Jiu, Ji, Yong-Mao, Yang, Fang

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A new susceptible-exposed-infected-asymptomatically infected-removed (SEIAR) model is developed to depict the COVID-19 transmission process, considering the latent period and asymptomatically infected. We verify the suppression effect of typical measures, cultivating human awareness, and reducing social contacts. As for cutting off social connections, the feasible measures encompass social distancing policy, isolating infected communities, and isolating hub nodes. Furthermore, it is found that implementing corresponding anti-epidemic measures at different pandemic stages can achieve significant results at a low cost. In the beginning, global lockdown policy is necessary, but isolating infected wards and hub nodes could be more beneficial as the situation eases. The proposed SEIAR model emphasizes the latent period and asymptomatically infected, thus providing theoretical support...

Preprint 14 May 2021

Covid-19 and Economy of Bangladesh

Farzana Sharmin

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The most severe threat that the Covid-19 pandemic poses to the global economy is the need to choose between human lives and livelihoods. Bangladesh must assess the implications of such impacts on Bangladesh’s macro-financial scenario to maintain the economy’s current high growth trajectory. The paper outlines the major Covid-19 shock wave transmission channels to the four major sectors of the Bangladesh economy. Authorities around the world have taken every precaution possible to halt the spread of the pandemic. An aggregate transmission framework that includes these four sectors is required to contain the impact of Covid-19 can propagate through these sectors and eventually impact macro-financial stability.

Journal Article 12 May 2021

Political neglect of COVID-19 and the public health consequences in Brazil: The high costs of science denial.

Malta, Monica,Vettore, Mario Vianna,da Silva, Cosme Marcelo Furtado Passos,Silva, Angelica Baptista,Strathdee, Steffanie A

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Brazil represents a tragic example of how lack of appropriate policies and pandemic denial impact public health. The country of 212 million inhabitants (3% of the world population) recorded around 1/3 of all daily COVID-19 deaths worldwide in late March 2021 [1]. Brazil’s brutal surge in COVID-19 deaths in the first months of 2021 has been climbing steadily, reaching over 4000 fatalities/day in early April, as a consequence of the widespread of the new variants overwhelming hospitals. In spite of the alarming scenario, the federal government is not yet adopting evidence-based and reliable public health measures, such as use of masks and social distancing.Brazil’s public health system provides healthcare for 78% of the population. Its free, publicly funded national vaccination program has an excellent track record: 96% of the population is vaccinated against TB, diphtheria, polio...

Journal Article 11 May 2021

COVID-19 Vaccine Allocation: Modeling Health Outcomes and Equity Implications of Alternative Strategies.

Ferranna, Maddalena, Cadarette, Daniel, Bloom, David E

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Given the scarcity of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, a chief policy question is how to allocate them among different sociodemographic groups. This paper evaluates COVID-19 vaccine prioritization strategies proposed to date, focusing on their stated goals; the mechanisms through which the selected allocations affect the course and burden of the pandemic; and the main epidemiological, economic, logistical, and political issues that arise when setting the prioritization strategy. The paper uses a simple, age-stratified susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered model to quantitatively assess the performance of alternative prioritization strategies with respect to avoided deaths, avoided infections, and life-years gained. We demonstrate that prioritizing essential workers is a viable strategy for reducing the number of cases and years of life lost, while the largest reduction in...

Journal Article 11 May 2021

Epidemics and macroeconomic outcomes: Social distancing intensity and duration.

La Torre, Davide, Liuzzi, Danilo, Marsiglio, Simone

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We analyze the determination of the optimal intensity and duration of social distancing policy aiming to control the spread of an infectious disease in a simple macroeconomic-epidemiological model. In our setting the social planner wishes to minimize the social costs associated with the levels of disease prevalence and output lost due to social distancing, both during and at the end of epidemic management program. Indeed, by limiting individuals’ ability to freely move or interact with others (since requiring to wear face mask or to maintain physical distance from others, or even forcing some businesses to remain closed), social distancing has on the one hand the effect to reduce the disease incidence and on the other hand to reduce the economy’s productive capacity. We analyze both the early and the advanced epidemic stage intervention strategies highlighting their implications...

Preprint 11 May 2021

Consideration of Trade-offs Regarding COVID-19 Containment Measures in the United States

Rebeira, Mayvis, Nauenberg, Eric

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Background: The economic stimulus package in the United States, which totalled $2.48 trillion, was designed to soften the economic impact of sweeping containment measures including shelter-in-place orders that were put in place to control the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: In healthcare, interventions are rarely justified simply in terms of the number of lives saved but also in terms of a myriad of other trade-off factors including value-for-money or cost-effectiveness. Cost-effectiveness analysis was therefore conducted as the cost per life-year gained (Cost/LYG) from the containment measures adopted based on several different projections of the baseline number of deaths in the absence of any containment measures. Reductions in premature mortality due to the shutdown (i.e. the difference between years of life lost relative to life expectancy under the shutdown and no shutdown...

Journal Article 8 May 2021

Lives versus Livelihoods? Perceived economic risk has a stronger association with support for COVID-19 preventive measures than perceived health risk.

Nisa, Claudia F, Bélanger, Jocelyn J, Faller, Daiane G, Buttrick, Nicholas R, Mierau, Jochen O, Austin, Maura M K, Schumpe, Birga M, Sasin, Edyta M, Agostini, Maximilian, Gützkow, Ben, Kreienkamp, Jannis, Abakoumkin, Georgios, Abdul Khaiyom, Jamilah Hanum, Ahmedi, Vjollca, Akkas, Handan, Almenara, Carlos A, Atta, Mohsin, Bagci, Sabahat Cigdem, Basel, Sima, Kida, Edona Berisha, Bernardo, Allan B I, Chobthamkit, Phatthanakit, Choi, Hoon-Seok, Cristea, Mioara, Csaba, Sára,Damnjanović, Kaja, Danyliuk, Ivan,Dash, Arobindu, Di Santo, Daniela, Douglas, Karen M, Enea, Violeta, Fitzsimons, Gavan, Gheorghiu, Alexandra, Gómez, Ángel,Grzymala-Moszczynska, Joanna, Hamaidia, Ali, Han, Qing,Helmy, Mai, Hudiyana, Joevarian, Jeronimus, Bertus F, Jiang, Ding-Yu,Jovanović, Veljko, Kamenov, Željka,Kende, Anna, Keng, Shian-Ling, Kieu, Tra Thi Thanh, Koc, Yasin, Kovyazina, Kamila, Kozytska, Inna, Krause, Joshua, Kruglanski, Arie W, Kurapov, Anton, Kutlaca, Maja, Lantos, Nóra Anna, Lemay, Edward P, Lesmana, Cokorda Bagus Jaya, Louis, Winnifred R, Lueders, Adrian, Malik, Najma Iqbal, Martinez, Anton, McCabe, Kira O, Mehulić, Jasmina, Milla, Mirra Noor, Mohammed, Idris, Molinario, Erica, Moyano, Manuel, Muhammad, Hayat, Mula, Silvana, Muluk, Hamdi, Myroniuk, Solomiia, Najafi, Reza, Nyúl, Boglárka, O'Keefe, Paul A, Osuna, Jose Javier Olivas, Osin, Evgeny N, Park, Joonha, Pica, Gennaro, Pierro, Antonio, Rees, Jonas, Reitsema, Anne Margit, Resta, Elena, Rullo, Marika, Ryan, Michelle K, Samekin, Adil, Santtila, Pekka, Selim, Heyla A, Stanton, Michael Vicente, Sultana, Samiah, Sutton, Robbie M, Tseliou, Eleftheria, Utsugi, Akira, van Breen, Jolien Anne, Van Lissa, Caspar J, Van Veen, Kees,vanDellen, Michelle R, Vázquez, Alexandra, Wollast, Robin, Yeung, Victoria Wai-Lan, Zand, Somayeh, Žeželj, Iris Lav, Zheng, Bang, Zick, Andreas, Zúñiga, Claudia, Leander, N Pontus

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This paper examines whether compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures is motivated by wanting to save lives or save the economy (or both), and which implications this carries to fight the pandemic. National representative samples were collected from 24 countries (N = 25,435). The main predictors were (1) perceived risk to contract coronavirus, (2) perceived risk to suffer economic losses due to coronavirus, and (3) their interaction effect. Individual and country-level variables were added as covariates in multilevel regression models. We examined compliance with various preventive health behaviors and support for strict containment policies. Results show that perceived economic risk consistently predicted mitigation behavior and policy support-and its effects were positive. Perceived health risk had mixed effects. Only two significant interactions between health and...

Editorial 6 May 2021

India, Brazil and the human cost of sidelining science

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Last week, Brazil’s total death toll from COVID-19 passed 400,000. In India, the pandemic is taking around 3,500 lives every day and has prompted a global response, with offers of oxygen, ventilators, intensive-care beds and more. Although these two countries are thousands of miles apart, the crises in both are the result of political failings: their leaders have either failed or been slow to act on researchers’ advice. This has contributed to an unconscionable loss of life.

Journal Article 4 May 2021

Mathematical model for the mitigation of the economic effects of the Covid-19 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Balike Dieudonné, Zirhumanana

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Since the apparition of the SRAS-Cov-2 in Wuhan in China, several countries have set diverse measures to stop its spread. Measures envisaged include national or local lockdown and travels ban. In the DRC, these measures have seriously prejudiced the economy of the country which is mainly informal. In this paper, a mathematical model for the spread of Covid-19 in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) taking into account the vulnerability of congolese economy is proposed. To mitigate the spreading of the virus no national lockdown is proposed, only individuals affected by the virus or suspicious are quarantined. The reproduction number for the Covid-19 is calculated and numerical simulations are performed using Python software. A clear advice for policymakers is deduced from the forecasting of the model.