The reshaping of the future by the Covid 19 pandemic: an assessment of the impact on population and resources

The WHO declared Covid 19 as a pandemic on the eleventh of March, 2020. This led to individuals, governments, institutions and businesses asking what impact this pandemic would have on the future. What imprint would this outbreak leave on human civilisation? Pandemics can alter the course of history. Pandemics impact people, governments, policies and economies. The pandemic has broken out at a time of significant demographic transition. 2020 was the first year in documented human history where the global population of people over the age of 60 is more than the population of children younger than 5 years of age. The richer countries have high concentrations of aging populations. Historically, pandemics have had significant impacts on cities and urban areas. Public health institutions, garbage collection, sanitation, scientific drainage and hospitals all developed to varying extents in urban responses to epidemics. The covid 19 pandemic has also brought about changes. In 2019, the United Nations reported that there had been a 33 percent increase in the population of migrants across the world. The international migrant population was put at 270 million. The previous forecast was for this population level to be attained in 2050. But the pandemic has slowed the growth of migration. The impact of the pandemic on energy markets was immediate and cataclysmic. Large parts of the global economy were forced to close down. The demand for petroleum fell by 25 percent in the United States. The demand for public transport fell by 70 percent in San Francisco, 60 percent in London and 80 percent in Italy and France between March and May 2020. Pandemics and changes in climate are inextricably linked. As humans encroach further into the wild, the United Nations expects more animal viruses to infect and affect humans. 75 percent of all emerging infectious diseases originate in animals. 60 percent of viruses infecting humans come from wildlife and livestock. Zoonotic epidemics are triggered by flooding, climate variability and other extreme weather events linked to climate change. Climate change has also expanded the span of geographies susceptible to zoonoses. Even though this pandemic has brought to the fore these dangers, steps to effectively tackle climate change and to implement practices in agriculture that are more sustainable have halted. The global food system is responsible for fulfilling the nutrition requirements of 80 percent of the world's population. This system has been greatly disturbed by the pandemic. 4 shocks account for this great disturbance: 1. The movement of agricultural goods has been disturbed by restrictions on transport. 2. Supply chains have been seriously damaged by borders being sealed and bans on exports. 3. Overall production has been reduced because of major disruptions in the supply of agricultural raw material, labor and services. 4. Food purchasing power has reduced dramatically because of job losses, especially among the socioeconomically disadvantaged sections of society.Copyright © 2020 Ubiquity Press. All rights reserved.

Added value of the measles-rubella supplementary immunization activity in reaching unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children, a cross-sectional study in five Indian districts, 2018-20.

INTRODUCTION: Supplementary immunization activities (SIAs) aim to interrupt measles transmission by reaching susceptible children, including children who have not received the recommended two routine doses of MCV before the SIA. However, both strategies may miss the same children if vaccine doses are highly correlated. How well SIAs reach children missed by routine immunization is a key metric in assessing the added value of SIAs. METHODS: Children aged 9 months to younger than 5 years were enrolled in cross-sectional household serosurveys conducted in five districts in India following the 2017-2019 measles-rubella (MR) SIA. History of measles containing vaccine (MCV) through routine services or SIA was obtained from documents and verbal recall. Receipt of a first or second MCV dose during the SIA was categorized as "added value" of the SIA in reaching un- and under-vaccinated children. RESULTS: A total of 1,675 children were enrolled in these post-SIA surveys. The percentage of children receiving a 1st or 2nd dose through the SIA ranged from 12.8% in Thiruvananthapuram District to 48.6% in Dibrugarh District. Although the number of zero-dose children prior to the SIA was small in most sites, the proportion reached by the SIA ranged from 45.8% in Thiruvananthapuram District to 94.9% in Dibrugarh District. Fewer than 7% of children remained measles zero-dose after the MR SIA (range: 1.1-6.4%) compared to up to 28% before the SIA (range: 7.3-28.1%). DISCUSSION: We demonstrated the MR SIA provided considerable added value in terms of measles vaccination coverage, although there was variability across districts due to differences in routine and SIA coverage, and which children were reached by the SIA. Metrics evaluating the added value of an SIA can help to inform the design of vaccination strategies to better reach zero-dose or undervaccinated children.

Data Science Methods to Develop Decision Support Systems for Real-time Monitoring of COVID-19 Outbreak

Data analysis and visualization are essential for exploring and communicating findings in medical research, especially in epidemiological surveillance. Data on COVID-19 diagnosed cases and mortality from crowdsourced website COVID-19 India Tracker, Census 2011, and Google Mobility reports has been used to develop a real-time analytics and monitoring system for the COVID-19 outbreak in India. We have developed a dashboard application for data visualization and analysis of several indicators to follow the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic using data science techniques. A district-level tool for basic epidemiological surveillance, in an interactive and user-friendly manner, which includes time trends, epidemic curves, and key epidemiological parameters such as growth rate, doubling time, and effective reproduction number, has been estimated. This demonstrates the application of data science methods and epidemiological techniques in public health decision-making while addressing the gap of timely and reliable decision-aiding tools. © Authors retain all copyrights.

Approaches to comprehensive and effective rehabilitation in the covid 19 pandemic: Assessment of an oft neglected critical variable in national and global health policy making

The majority of the covid 19 infected cohort recover from mild and uncomplicated infection. 14 % of the cohort develop severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) that might require admission to hospitals and oxygen support. 5 % of the cohort will require ICU admission. Median ICU stay is 8 days.Rehabilitation is an important variable that has a positive effect on the health outcomes of severe cases of Covid 19. It helps the health system by:a. Improving health outcomes: High quality rehabilitation has the potential to reduce ICU associated conditions such as Post intensive care syndrome (PICS). Patient recovery is optimised and there is a significant reduction in the probability of disability. Severe covid 19 has the potential to cause swallow impairments, physical impairments and cognitive impairments. High quality rehabilitation has the potential to address these consequences adequately. Rehabilitation also includes psychosocial support. Rehabilitation assumes heightened significance in the context of older patients and patients with pre existing health conditions. These cohorts have a higher vulnerability to severe covid illness and rehabilitation can be expected to play an especially important role in facilitating the recovery of these patients to their pre illness independence levels.b. Optimal utilisation of hospital beds: A common feature of the pandemic has been a wide spread shortage of hospitals beds, especially ICU beds. Rehabilitation can play a vital role in decreasing the average length of stay of covid patients by getting patients ready for discharge earlier than usual. Rehabilitation is also key in ensuring continuity of care. Rehabilitation can facilitate the smooth discharge of complicated cases as well.c. Reduction in Covid 19 hospital readmission rates: High quality rehabilitation can significantlyreduce hospital readmission rates. It achieves this by ensuring that the clinical condition of patients does not worsen after discharge, thereby not necessitating readmission. This has a salutary effect on bed count.

How do the government and more than 1.3 billion people stand against the covid-19 pandemic in the world’s largest democratic country? a comprehensive reflection from india, in a public health perspective

Background-Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which is caused by deadly novel corona virus has devastated the world causing a morbidity rate of more than 64 million and mortality rate of 1.5 million. India, being a Lower Middle-Income Country (LMIC) with a GNI per capita of nearly $2000, has proactively instituted various containment strategies. India has witnessed the effectiveness of primary prevention strategies in fighting various health problems in the years gone. The most worrying factor was about community spread of the pandemic, which would cause the spread of illness uncontrollable. Economic analysts had forecasted if appropriate strategy on containment of coronavirus is not initiated, the country would regress back to 20 years, in terms of economy and healthcare. This scoping review throws light into the efficacious preventive strategies adopted by India to fight COVID-19 pandemic and attempting to reduce mortality and morbidity rate, to flatten the illness curve. Methods-We used a wide range of scientific database and news reports to conduct an extensive review on India’s fight against COVID-19. Articles which has been published from January to November 2020 were reviewed and pooled the data to write this review. Conclusion-Containment strategies are the key for prevention of any contagious illness. COVID-19 being highly contagious, and infecting millions of populations, is successfully being controlled in India to reduce the cases. The Case Fatality Ratio (CFR) of COVID-19 is very low in India, compared to other countries.

A contrasting of the pernicious and the salubrious: An assessment of the global impact of the covid 19 pandemic on technology and information

In this paper, we do an assessment of the global impact of the Covid 19 pandemic on Technology and Information. Technology is assessed through the indicators of Robotics, 3 D printing, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial intelligence (AI) and Biotechnology. Information is assessed through the indicators of Access/Privacy, Data growth, False news and social media and Knowledge and learning. There has been a heightened interest in Robotics due to public health and labour shortages. In the long term, this could translate into increased replacement of human labour across sectors like agriculture, food and healthcare. The pandemic has stimulated rapid manufacture of medical components through the accelerated adoption of 3D printing technology. Going forward, there is a high probability of an accelerated replacement of traditional manufacturing processes with 3D printing technologies. This is more so in healthcare. IoT usage remains high in the pandemic. Certain sectors have witnessed dramatic increments in quantums of data flows. Going forward, there will be an increased dependence on IoT in everyday use. This will be particularly true for health monitoring and surveillance. The pandemic has seen a massive uptick in the adoption of AI chatbots and other AI applications.In the long term, AI will see increased spending on Research and Development. Adoption timelines will shorten. In hot pursuit of the development of Covid 19 related vaccines and therapeutics, the synthetic biology industry has seen a surge in investment. In the long run, the global competition for leadership in biotechnology will only become more fierce. The pandemic has broadened the use of digital surveillance. Going forward, companies and countries will likely expand digital surveillance. Social and commercial activities have seen digitalisation on a large scale. The future is likely to see a significant shift to an online first culture and an increase in the rate of growth of data volume. The pandemic has facilitated the creation of a fertile environment for fake news. Going ahead, there are heightened prospects of an intensification of the existing geopolitical competition in misinformation. The pandemic has widened the adoption of online learning. Moving ahead, this could have the unfortunate consequence of widening the existing digital divide in society, which in turn could perpetuate inequity. © 2021 Universitatea de Vest Vasile Goldis din Arad. All rights reserved.