Surveillance of the Second Wave of COVID-19 in Europe: Longitudinal Trend Analyses.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted Europe, resulting in a high caseload and deaths that varied by country. The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has breached the borders of Europe. Public health surveillance is necessary to inform policy and guide leaders. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to provide advanced surveillance metrics for COVID-19 transmission that account for weekly shifts in the pandemic, speed, acceleration, jerk, and persistence, to better understand countries at risk for explosive growth and those that are managing the pandemic effectively. METHODS: We performed a longitudinal trend analysis and extracted 62 days of COVID-19 data from public health registries. We used an empirical difference equation to measure the daily number of cases in Europe as a function of the prior number of cases, the level of testing, and weekly shift variables based on a dynamic panel model that was estimated using the generalized method of moments approach by implementing the Arellano-Bond estimator in R. RESULTS: New COVID-19 cases slightly decreased from 158,741 (week 1, January 4-10, 2021) to 152,064 (week 2, January 11-17, 2021), and cumulative cases increased from 22,507,271 (week 1) to 23,890,761 (week 2), with a weekly increase of 1,383,490 between January 10 and January 17. France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom had the largest 7-day moving averages for new cases during week 1. During week 2, the 7-day moving average for France and Spain increased. From week 1 to week 2, the speed decreased (37.72 to 33.02 per 100,000), acceleration decreased (0.39 to -0.16 per 100,000), and jerk increased (-1.30 to 1.37 per 100,000). CONCLUSIONS: The United Kingdom, Spain, and Portugal, in particular, are at risk for a rapid expansion in COVID-19 transmission. An examination of the European region suggests that there was a decrease in the COVID-19 caseload between January 4 and January 17, 2021. Unfortunately, the rates of jerk, which were negative for Europe at the beginning of the month, reversed course and became positive, despite decreases in speed and acceleration. Finally, the 7-day persistence rate was higher during week 2 than during week 1. These measures indicate that the second wave of the pandemic may be subsiding, but some countries remain at risk for new outbreaks and increased transmission in the absence of rapid policy responses.

First Detection of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5/22B in Monaco.

The Omicron BA.5/22B variant has been designated as a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organization. We describe, here, the first evidence in Monaco of infection with an Omicron BA.5/22B variant, probably imported from the Republic of Seychelles, harboring a rare combination of non-BA.5/22B signature amino acid changes. SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies were measured with a surrogate virus neutralization test. SARS-CoV-2 genotype screening was performed on nasopharyngeal samples with a multiplex qPCR assay. The SARS-CoV-2 genome was obtained by next-generation sequencing with the Illumina COVID-seq protocol, then assembly using bioinformatics pipelines and software was performed. The BA.5/22B spike protein structure was obtained by molecular modeling. Two spouses were SARS-CoV-2-diagnosed the day they returned from a one-week trip in the Republic of Seychelles. SARS-CoV-2 qPCR screening for variant-specific mutations identified an Omicron variant BA.1/21K, BA.4/22A, or BA.5/22B. A SARS-Co-2 BA.5/22B variant genome was recovered from one of the spouses. Aside from BA.5/22B-defining amino acid substitutions, four other amino acid changes were encoded including Q556K in ORF1a, K2557R in ORF1b, and A67V and A829T in spike; only 13 genomes in sequence databases harbored these four mutations concurrently. Structural analysis of this BA.5/22B variant predicted that A829T in spike may result in a compaction that may affect conformational plasticity. Overall, our findings warrant performing genome-based genotypic surveillance to survey accurately the emergence and circulation of SARS-CoV-2 variants worldwide and point out that their first occurrence in a country is often through international travel despite implemented countermeasures.

Modern tax Havens: the Experience of European Countries

This paper aims to assess the European tax havens in terms of corporate financial misconduct risks. The study relies on an index method developed by a group of economists belonging to the international non-governmental organization - the Tax Justice Network. The method allowed the authors to calculate the Corporate Tax Harbor Index (CTHI) and determine the role of a particular jurisdiction in global corporate financial misconduct risks. The study established a ranking of European tax havens and jurisdictions with features of tax havens and classified these tax havens based on corporate financial misconduct risks. The study found that European tax havens and tax haven jurisdictions accounted for nearly 40% of global corporate financial misuse risks in 2020. The classification of European tax havens according to corporate financial misconduct risks demonstrated that the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, Ireland, and Luxembourg accounted for more than half of the risks. The shares of Liechtenstein (1%), Monaco (1%), Andorra, and San Marino (less than 1%) did not exceed 3% of the European share of the global risk. The results show the need for adjustments to the regulatory policy of international organizations currently focused on fighting classic tax havens. Their real share of global misuse risks is very small compared to the share of 'gray cardinals' of the offshore market.

Splendors of the Serenissima in a Digital Age: The Master of the Murano Gradual Reconsidered

The manuscript has not been digitized, and only six of the illuminations have been reproduced, often in black and white with a single color reproduction of the only full-page miniature.2 A fenestra (or window) label on the binding indicates that this gradual was the fourth in the set for San Mattia.3 The original series of songbooks survives in a dispersed and fragmentary condition as follows: * The Berlin volume containing chants of the temporale portion of the liturgical year (those related to the life of Christ) from Easter Sunday until the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost;* Dispersed cuttings of over fifty known historiated initials by the Murano Master(s) in twenty-six collections across Europe, Russia, and the United States that likely formed part of multiple volumes, including the sanctorale feasts (those commemorating the lives of saints), a hymnal, and an antiphonary for services of the Divine Office (Appendix A);4 and * A second temporale volume, from the first Sunday in Advent to the second Sunday in Lent, presently in the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense in Milan (MS AB. The authors have embraced virtual messaging and meeting platforms to simultaneously study many of the manuscripts and cuttings discussed below on multiple occasions, thereby creating a real-time method for international collaboration even before the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated an increase in digital approaches to collaborative research. [...]in the initial with Saint Margaret (Appendix A, no. 28), the Murano Master used the dragon to form part of the bar of the letter itself-another testament to the artist's creativity. The volume was purchased by the Kupferstichkabinett in 1888, auctioned by the German government in 1898, then reacquired by the state library in 1903.11 The Milan Gradual was recorded at the Palazzo Brera in 1810 but without additional evidence for how it arrived there.12 At least sixteen of the initials from the remaining dispersed volumes were sold at Sotheby's, London, in 1838 in the public sale of William Young Ottley (1771-1836), who likely acquired them during his travels in Italy in the 1790s (he mentions acquiring them from Murano;Appendix B).

Forecasting Covid-19 New Cases in Monaco

In this study, the ANN approach was applied to analyze COVID-19 new cases in Monaco. The employed data covers the period 1 January 2020 – 25 March 2021 and the out-of-sample period ranges over the period 26 March – 31 July 2021. The residuals and forecast evaluation criteria (Error, MSE and MAE) of the applied model indicate that the model is quite stable. The results of the study indicate that daily COVID-19 cases in Monaco are likely to remain between 10 and 30 cases per day over the out-of-sample period. Amongst other suggested policy directions, there is need for the government of Monaco to ensure adherence to safety guidelines while continuing to create awareness about the COVID-19 pandemic.