ABSTRACT
It is a nontrivial task to manage crowds in public places and recognize unacceptable behavior (such as violating social distancing norms during the COVID-19 pandemic). In such situations, people should avoid loitering (unnecessary moving out in public places without apparent purpose) and maintain a sufficient physical distance. In this study, a multi-object tracking algorithm has been introduced to improve short-term object occlusion, detection errors, and identity switches. The objects are tracked through bounding box detection and with linear velocity estimation of the object using the Kalman filter frame by frame. The predicted tracks are kept alive for some time, handling the missing detections and short-term object occlusion. ID switches (mainly due to crossing trajectories) are managed by explicitly considering the motion direction of the objects in real time. Furthermore, a novel approach to detect unusual behavior of loitering with a severity level is proposed based on the tracking information. An adaptive algorithm is also proposed to detect physical distance violation based on the object dimensions for the entire length of the track. At last, a mathematical approach to calculate actual physical distance is proposed by using the height of a human as a reference object which adheres more specific distancing norms. The proposed approach is evaluated in traffic and pedestrian movement scenarios. The experimental results demonstrate a significant improvement in the results.
Subject(s)
Airway Management/standards , COVID-19/prevention & control , COVID-19/therapy , Disease Transmission, Infectious/prevention & control , Trauma Centers , Airway Management/methods , COVID-19/epidemiology , Humans , India/epidemiology , SARS-CoV-2/genetics , Safety Management/methods , Safety Management/standardsABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted several waves of infection in many countries worldwide. The large variations in case fatality ratio among different geographical regions suggests that the human susceptibility against this virus varies substantially. Several studies from different parts of the world showed a significant association of ABO blood group and COVID-19 susceptibility. It was shown that individuals with blood group O are at the lower risk of coronavirus infection. To establish the association of ABO blood group in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility, we for the first time analysed SARS-CoV-2 neutralising antibodies as well as blood groups among 509 random individuals from three major districts of Eastern Uttar Pradesh region of India.. Interestingly, we found neutralising antibodies in significantly higher percentage of people with blood group AB (0.36) followed by B (0.31), A (0.22) and lowest in people with blood group O (0.11). This indicates that people with blood group AB are at comparatively higher risk of infection than other blood groups. Further, in line to previous reports we too observed that people with blood group O have significantly decreased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Thus, among the asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals with blood group AB has highest, whilst blood group O has lowest risk of infection.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Coronavirus InfectionsABSTRACT
Infection born by Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has swept the world within a time of a few months. It has created a devastating effect on humanity with social and economic depressions. Europe and America were the hardest hit continents. India has also lost several lives, making the country fourth most deadly worldwide. However, the infection and death rate per million and the case fatality ratio in India were substantially lower than many of the developed nations. Several factors have been proposed including the genetics. One of the important facts is that a large chunk of Indian population is asymptomatic to the SARS-CoV-2 infection. Thus, the real infection in India is much higher than the reported number of cases. Therefore, the majority of people are already immune in the country. To understand the dynamics of real infection as well as level of immunity against SARS-CoV-2, we have performed antibody testing (serosurveillance) in the urban region of fourteen Indian districts encompassing six states. In our survey, the seroprevalence frequency varied between 0.01-0.48, suggesting high variability of viral transmission among states. We also found out that the cases reported by the Government were several fold lower than the real infection. This discrepancy is majorly driven by a higher number of asymptomatic cases. Overall, we suggest that with the high level of immunity developed against SARS-CoV-2 in the majority of the districts, it is less likely to have a second wave in India.