Frontiers in public health
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Front Public Health · Jan 2020
Awareness and Preparedness of COVID-19 Outbreak Among Healthcare Workers and Other Residents of South-West Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Survey.
Background: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) was declared a "pandemic" by the World Health Organization (WHO) in early March 2020. Globally, extraordinary measures are being adopted to combat the formidable spread of the ongoing outbreak. Under such conditions, people's adherence to preventive measures is greatly affected by their awareness of the disease. ⋯ Conclusion: As the global threat of COVID-19 continues to emerge, it is critical to improve the awareness and preparedness of the targeted community members, especially the less educated ones. Educational interventions are urgently needed to reach the targeted residents beyond borders and further measures are warranted. The outcome of this study highlighted a growing need for the adoption of innovative local strategies to improve awareness in general population related to COVID-19 and its preventative practices in order to meet its elimination goals.
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Front Public Health · Jan 2020
COVID-19 Infection Process in Italy and Spain: Are Data Talking? Evidence From ARMA and Vector Autoregression Models.
COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) has spread successfully worldwide in a matter of weeks. After the example of China, all the affected countries are taking hard-confinement measures to control the infection and to gain some time to reduce the significant amount of cases that arrive at the hospital. Although the measures in China reduced the percentages of new cases, this is not seen in other countries that have taken similar measures, such as Italy and Spain. ⋯ The forecast advanced a significant increase in the ICU needs for Spain surpassing 8,000 units by the end of April, but for Italy, ICU needs would decrease in the same period, according to the model. We present the following predictions to inform political leaders because they have the responsibility to maintain the national health systems away from collapsing. We are confident these data could help them into decision-taking and place the capitals (from hospital beds to human resources) into the right place.
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Front Public Health · Jan 2020
Hyperlocal Postcode Based Crowdsourced Surveillance Systems in the COVID-19 Pandemic Response.
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has rapidly saturated healthcare resources across the globe and has led to a restricted screening process, hindering efforts at comprehensive case detection. This has not only facilitated community spread but has also resulted in an underestimation of the true incidence of disease, a statistic which is useful for policy making aimed at controlling the current pandemic and in preparing for future outbreaks. In this perspective, we present a crowdsourced platform developed by us for the true estimation of all SARS-CoV-2 infections in the community, through active self-reporting and layering other authentic datasets. The granularity of data captured by this system could prove to be useful in assisting governments to identify SARS-CoV-2 hotspots in the community facilitating lifting of restrictions in a controlled fashion.
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Front Public Health · Jan 2020
Gender Differences in Patients With COVID-19: Focus on Severity and Mortality.
Objective: The recent outbreak of Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) is reminiscent of the SARS outbreak in 2003. We aim to compare the severity and mortality between male and female patients with COVID-19 or SARS. Study Design and Setting: We extracted the data from: (1) a case series of 43 hospitalized patients we treated, (2) a public data set of the first 37 cases of patients who died of COVID-19 and 1,019 patients who survived in China, and (3) data of 524 patients with SARS, including 139 deaths, from Beijing in early 2003. ⋯ In SARS patients, the gender role in mortality was also observed. The percentage of males were higher in the deceased group than in the survived group (P = 0.015). Conclusion: While men and women have the same prevalence, men with COVID-19 are more at risk for worse outcomes and death, independent of age.
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December 2019 saw a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) from China quickly spread globally. Currently, COVID-19, defined as the new pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), has reached over 750,000 confirmed cases worldwide. The virus began to spread in Italy from the 22nd February, and the number of related cases is still increasing. ⋯ To better reflect the actual spread of COVID-19 in Sardinia based on data from 15th March (first Sardinian declared outbreak), two Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered-Dead (SIRD) models have been developed, describing the best and worst scenarios. We believe that our findings represent a valid contribution to better understand the epidemiological context of COVID-19 in Sardinia. Our analysis can help health authorities and policymakers to address the right interventions to deal with the rapidly expanding health emergency.