Real-Time and Accurate Monitoring of Social Distance and Contact Tracing during COVID-19 Situation

In recent years, a lot of research works have been done on object detection using various machine learning models. However, not many works have been done on detecting and tracking humans in particular. This study works with the YOLOv4 object detector to detect humans to use the detections for maintaining social distance. For this study, the YOLOv4 model is trained on only one class named 'Person'. This is done to improve the speed of detecting humans in real time scenario with satisfying accuracy of 97% to 99%. These detections are then tracked to build a system for maintaining social distance and alerting the authority if a breach in the social distance is detected. This system can be applied at ticket counters, hospitals, offices, factories etc. It can also be used for maintaining social distance among the students and the teachers in the classroom for their safety. © 2022 IEEE.

How COVID-19 Affects the Willingness of the Elderly to Continue to Use the Online Health Community: A Longitudinal Survey

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the governments of different countries adopted restrictions, such as locking down cities and restricting travel and social contact. Online health communities (OHCs) with specialized physicians have become an important way for the elderly to access health information and social support, which has expanded their use since the outbreak. This paper examines the factors influencing elderly people's behavior in terms of the continuous use of OHCs from a social support perspective to understand the impact of public health emergencies. Research collected data from March to April 2019, February 2020, and August 2021 in China. A total of 189 samples were collected and analyzed by using SmartPLS. The results show that (1) social support to the elderly during different stages has different influences on their sense of community and (2) the influence of the sense of community on the intention to continuously use OHCs also seems to change over time. The results of this study provide important implications for research and practice related to both OHCs and COVID-19. © 2022 IGI Global. All rights reserved.

Impacts of COVID-19-Related Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions on Mobility and Accidents in Bangladesh

Transport plays a major role in spreading contagious diseases such as COVID-19 by facilitating social contacts. The standard response to fighting COVID-19 in most countries has been imposing a lockdown—including on the transport sector—to slow down the spread. Though the Government of Bangladesh also imposed a lockdown quite early, it was forced to relax the lockdown for economic reasons. This motivates this study to assess the interaction between various non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) policies and transport sector outcomes, such as mobility and accidents, in Bangladesh. The study explores the effect of NPIs on both intra-and inter-regional mobility. Intra-regional mobility is captured using Google mobility reports which provide information about the number of visitors at different activity locations. Inter-regional, or long-distance, mobility is captured using vehicle count information from toll booths on a major bridge. Modeling shows that, in most cases, the policy interventions had the desired impact on people's mobility patterns. Closure of education institutes, offices, public transport, and shopping malls reduced mobility at most locations. The closure of garment factories reduced mobility for work and at transit stations only. Mobility was increased at all places except at residential locations, after the wearing of masks was made mandatory. Reduced traffic because of policy interventions resulted in a lower number of accidents (crashes) and related fatalities. However, mobility-normalized crashes and fatalities increased nationally. The outcomes of the study are especially useful in understanding the differential impacts of various policy measures on transport, and thus would help future evidence-based decision-making. © National Academy of Sciences: Transportation Research Board 2021.

Quantifying social contact patterns in Minnesota during stay-at-home social distancing order.

SARS-CoV-2 is primarily transmitted through person-to-person contacts. It is important to collect information on age-specific contact patterns because SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility, transmission, and morbidity vary by age. To reduce the risk of infection, social distancing measures have been implemented. Social contact data, which identify who has contact with whom especially by age and place are needed to identify high-risk groups and serve to inform the design of non-pharmaceutical interventions. We estimated and used negative binomial regression to compare the number of daily contacts during the first round (April-May 2020) of the Minnesota Social Contact Study, based on respondent's age, gender, race/ethnicity, region, and other demographic characteristics. We used information on the age and location of contacts to generate age-structured contact matrices. Finally, we compared the age-structured contact matrices during the stay-at-home order to pre-pandemic matrices. During the state-wide stay-home order, the mean daily number of contacts was 5.7. We found significant variation in contacts by age, gender, race, and region. Adults between 40 and 50 years had the highest number of contacts. The way race/ethnicity was coded influenced patterns between groups. Respondents living in Black households (which includes many White respondents living in inter-racial households with black family members) had 2.7 more contacts than respondents in White households; we did not find this same pattern when we focused on individual's reported race/ethnicity. Asian or Pacific Islander respondents or in API households had approximately the same number of contacts as respondents in White households. Respondents in Hispanic households had approximately two fewer contacts compared to White households, likewise Hispanic respondents had three fewer contacts than White respondents. Most contacts were with other individuals in the same age group. Compared to the pre-pandemic period, the biggest declines occurred in contacts between children, and contacts between those over 60 with those below 60.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Swedish adults aged 77 years and older: Age differences in lifestyle changes.

AIMS: This study aimed to describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on lifestyle and social activities among older adults in Sweden, with a special focus on differences between the 'younger old' (aged 77-84) and 'older old' (aged 85-109). METHODS: This study is based on a nationally representative sample of older adults (aged ⩾77 years) in Sweden (SWEOLD). Data were collected between May 2021 and April 2022, when many recommendations were removed but the virus was still classified as a public health disease. We studied occurrences and differences between the two age groups in several lifestyle factors and social activities. RESULTS: The younger old displayed larger changes in lifestyles because of the pandemic than the older old. Most changes were found in social interactions with family. CONCLUSIONS: Our results highlight the large heterogeneity within the Swedish population aged ⩾77 years, and that the younger old experienced a bigger lifestyle change than the older old. Previous activity levels might be important to consider in order to understand how regulations may affect the older population. Finally, our findings indicate large age differences in Internet use, which require attention to prevent digital exclusion of an already vulnerable group.

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and social contact patterns in Pakistan: results from a national cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND: Vaccination is a key tool against COVID-19. However, in many settings it is not clear how acceptable COVID-19 vaccination is among the general population, or how hesitancy correlates with risk of disease acquisition. In this study we conducted a nationally representative survey in Pakistan to measure vaccination perceptions and social contacts in the context of COVID-19 control measures and vaccination programmes. METHODS: We conducted a vaccine perception and social contact survey with 3,658 respondents across five provinces in Pakistan, between 31 May and 29 June 2021. Respondents were asked a series of vaccine perceptions questions, to report all direct physical and non-physical contacts made the previous day, and a number of other questions regarding the social and economic impact of COVID-19 and control measures. We examined variation in perceptions and contact patterns by geographic and demographic factors. We describe knowledge, experiences and perceived risks of COVID-19. We explored variation in contact patterns by individual characteristics and vaccine hesitancy, and compared to patterns from non-pandemic periods. RESULTS: Self-reported adherence to self-isolation guidelines was poor, and 51% of respondents did not know where to access a COVID-19 test. Although 48.1% of participants agreed that they would get a vaccine if offered, vaccine hesitancy was higher than in previous surveys, and greatest in Sindh and Baluchistan provinces and among respondents of lower socioeconomic status. Participants reported a median of 5 contacts the previous day (IQR: 3-5, mean 14.0, 95%CI: 13.2, 14.9). There were no substantial differences in the number of contacts reported by individual characteristics, but contacts varied substantially among respondents reporting more or less vaccine hesitancy. Contacts were highly assortative, particularly outside the household where 97% of men's contacts were with other men. We estimate that social contacts were 9% lower than before the COVID-19 pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Although the perceived risk of COVID-19 in Pakistan is low in the general population, around half of participants in this survey indicated they would get vaccinated if offered. Vaccine impact studies which do not account for correlation between social contacts and vaccine hesitancy may incorrectly estimate the impact of vaccines, for example, if unvaccinated people have more contacts.

Social contact patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic in 21 European countries - evidence from a two-year study.

BACKGROUND: Most countries have enacted some restrictions to reduce social contacts to slow down disease transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic. For nearly two years, individuals likely also adopted new behaviours to avoid pathogen exposure based on personal circumstances. We aimed to understand the way in which different factors affect social contacts - a critical step to improving future pandemic responses. METHODS: The analysis was based on repeated cross-sectional contact survey data collected in a standardized international study from 21 European countries between March 2020 and March 2022. We calculated the mean daily contacts reported using a clustered bootstrap by country and by settings (at home, at work, or in other settings). Where data were available, contact rates during the study period were compared with rates recorded prior to the pandemic. We fitted censored individual-level generalized additive mixed models to examine the effects of various factors on the number of social contacts. RESULTS: The survey recorded 463,336 observations from 96,456 participants. In all countries where comparison data were available, contact rates over the previous two years were substantially lower than those seen prior to the pandemic (approximately from over 10 to < 5), predominantly due to fewer contacts outside the home. Government restrictions imposed immediate effect on contacts, and these effects lingered after the restrictions were lifted. Across countries, the relationships between national policy, individual perceptions, or personal circumstances determining contacts varied. CONCLUSIONS: Our study, coordinated at the regional level, provides important insights into the understanding of the factors associated with social contacts to support future infectious disease outbreak responses.

Priming close social contact protective behaviors enhances protective social norms perceptions, protection views, and self-protective behaviors during disasters.

Many people do not make choices that minimize risk in the face of health and environmental threats. Using pre-registered analyses, we tested whether a risk communication that primed perceptions about health-protective preparation and behavior of close social contacts promoted protection views and protective behaviors. From December 10-24, 2020, we fielded a 2 (threat vignette: wildfire or COVID-19) x 3 (social contact prime: control, inaction, or action) experiment to a representative sample of 1,108 California residents facing increased COVID-19 cases/deaths, who had recently experienced the most destructive wildfire season in California history. Outcome variables were protection views and protective behavior (i.e., information seeking). Across threat conditions, stronger social norms, efficacy, and worry predicted greater protection views and some protective behaviors. Priming social-contact action resulted in greater COVID-19 information-seeking compared to the control. In the wildfire smoke condition, priming social contact action and inaction increased perceived protective behavior social norms compared to the control; social norms partially mediated the relationships of priming with protection views and protective behaviors; and having existing mask supplies enhanced the relationship between priming inaction and greater protection views compared to priming action or the control. Findings highlight the importance of social influence for health protection views and protective behaviors. Communications enhancing social norms that are sensitive to resource contexts may help promote protective behaviors.

The Effect of Self-efficacy on Workplace Loneliness under COVID-19: The Chain Mediating Role of Professional Identity and Social Support

As the epidemic normaliztion continues, more and more enterprises chose telecommuting as their working mode. However, telecommuting has greatly reduced the opportunities and time for employees to socialize in the workplace. In that case, the workplace loneliness may induced by the lack of quantity and quality of employees' social contact, which would seriously affect the job satisfaction, organizational commitment and even the physical and mental health of employees. Based on the self-determination theory and the theory of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, this study explored the impact of self-efficacy on workplace loneliness, with professional identity and social support for mediation. The results showed that self-efficacy has a negative influence on the workplace loneliness, and professional identity and social support in the relationship between self-efficacy and workplace loneliness the chain intermediary role. Corporate managers should pay more attention to the harm of workplace loneliness. According to these findings, suggestions for organization managers and department of human resources, especially on alleviate workplace loneliness, were proposed and discussed. © 2022 ACM.

Assessing the effect of school closures on the spread of COVID-19 in Zurich

The effect of school closure on the spread of COVID-19 has been discussed intensively in the literature and the news. To capture the interdependencies between children and adults, we consider daily age-stratified incidence data and contact patterns between age groups which change over time to reflect social distancing policy indicators. We fit a multivariate time-series endemic-epidemic model to such data from the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland and use the model to predict the age-specific incidence in a counterfactual approach (with and without school closures). The results indicate a 17% median increase of incidence in the youngest age group (0-14 year olds), whereas the relative increase in the other age groups drops to values between 2% and 3%. We argue that our approach is more informative to policy makers than summarising the effect of school closures with time-dependent effective reproduction numbers, which are difficult to estimate due to the sparsity of incidence counts within the relevant age groups.

Long-term social restrictions and lack of work activities during the COVID-19 pandemic: impact on the daily lives of people with intellectual disabilities.

PURPOSE: Lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic may have had a disproportionate impact on the daily lives of people with intellectual disabilities. Many of them had to deal with limited social contacts for an extended period. This study explores in depth how people with intellectual disabilities in the Netherlands experienced their daily lives, in particular due to lack of access to regular work activities. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eight participants with intellectual disabilities were interviewed. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was employed in conducting and analysing interviews. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Analysis yielded three overarching themes that are conceptually linked. Participants experienced a prolonged lack of social connections that resulted in experiences of social isolation and feelings of loneliness. This led to different kinds of struggles: either internal struggles involving negative thoughts or depressive feelings, or a perceived threat to their autonomous position in society. Meanwhile participants had to sustain their sense of self-worth in the absence of work activities. The findings emphasise the importance of social opportunities through the access to work activities for people with intellectual disabilities. Interventions are suggested to help reverse the increased social inequalities and enhance rehabilitation via work activities for people with intellectual disabilities.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABLITATIONMore awareness may be raised among authorities, employers and the general public about the significant value people with intellectual disabilities attribute to meaningful social connections, in particular through work activities.Also, more awareness may be raised about the potential adverse effects of the loss of work activities and social connections on the quality of life of people with intellectual disabilities.Providing social support to others may help people with intellectual disabilities to construct social valued roles, either in or outside the work situation.Professionals and employers can support people with intellectual disabilities to find opportunities to provide social support to others.It is important to invest in sustainable and innovative post-pandemic community participation initiatives and particularly in accessible post-pandemic employment support, for example by organising paid in-company training placements.It is essential that professionals support people with intellectual disabilities to enhance their sources of resilience and coping strategies, that may have diminished as a result of the pandemic.

Characterising social contacts under COVID-19 control measures in Africa.

BACKGROUND: Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, countries adopted non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as lockdowns to limit SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Social contact studies help measure the effectiveness of NPIs and estimate parameters for modelling SARS-CoV-2 transmission. However, few contact studies have been conducted in Africa. METHODS: We analysed nationally representative cross-sectional survey data from 19 African Union Member States, collected by the Partnership for Evidence-based Responses to COVID-19 (PERC) via telephone interviews at two time points (August 2020 and February 2021). Adult respondents reported contacts made in the previous day by age group, demographic characteristics, and their attitudes towards COVID-19. We described mean and median contacts across these characteristics and related contacts to Google Mobility reports and the Oxford Government Response Stringency Index for each country at the two time points. RESULTS: Mean reported contacts varied across countries with the lowest reported in Ethiopia (9, SD=16, median = 4, IQR = 8) in August 2020 and the highest in Sudan (50, SD=53, median = 33, IQR = 40) in February 2021. Contacts of people aged 18-55 represented 50% of total contacts, with most contacts in household and work or study settings for both surveys. Mean contacts increased for Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sudan, and Uganda and decreased for Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Tunisia between the two time points. Men had more contacts than women and contacts were consistent across urban or rural settings (except in Cameroon and Kenya, where urban respondents had more contacts than rural ones, and in Senegal and Zambia, where the opposite was the case). There were no strong and consistent variations in the number of mean or median contacts by education level, self-reported health, perceived self-reported risk of infection, vaccine acceptance, mask ownership, and perceived risk of COVID-19 to health. Mean contacts were correlated with Google mobility (coefficient 0.57, p=0.051 and coefficient 0.28, p=0.291 in August 2020 and February 2021, respectively) and Stringency Index (coefficient -0.12, p = 0.304 and coefficient -0.33, p=0.005 in August 2020 and February 2021, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: These are the first COVID-19 social contact data collected for 16 of the 19 countries surveyed. We find a high reported number of daily contacts in all countries and substantial variations in mean contacts across countries and by gender. Increased stringency and decreased mobility were associated with a reduction in the number of contacts. These data may be useful to understand transmission patterns, model infection transmission, and for pandemic planning.

Micro-level social structures and the success of COVID-19 national policies

Similar policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in different success rates. Although many factors are responsible for the variances in policy success, our study shows that the micro-level structure of person-to-person interactions—measured by the average household size and in-person social contact rate—can be an important explanatory factor. To create an explainable model, we propose a network transformation algorithm to create a simple and computationally efficient scaled network based on these micro-level parameters, as well as incorporate national-level policy data in the network dynamic for SEIR simulations. The model was validated during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, which demonstrated that it can reproduce the dynamic ordinal ranking and trend of infected cases of various European countries that are sufficiently similar in terms of some socio-cultural factors. We also performed several counterfactual analyses to illustrate how policy-based scenario analysis can be performed rapidly and easily with these explainable models. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc.

Coronavirus statistics, google mobility trend, and Census demographics in US counties

The Coronavirus had been viral and heavily influenced daily lives for more than two years. Two popular procedures to combat the pandemic were general vaccine implantation and limited social contact. We evaluated the effectiveness of these procedures by exploring the trends of vaccination rate, public mobility, and case/death rate at the county level in the mainland United States overtime during 2021. In addition, we investigated how demographic variables such as education and income hindered or promoted vaccination and social contact at the county level. We tested the associations between vaccination rate, public mobility, demographics, and case/death rate using Spearman Correlation tests, Student t-tests, and linear regression. Our findings provide domestic statistical feedback to the anti-epidemic policies and help public health officials make informed decisions in the future. © 2022 ACM.

Social contact patterns and changes at leisure/tourism activity settings during COVID-19 period: An international comparison

Social contacts are an important indicator to track the spread of pandemics and evaluate the effectiveness of policy interventions in specific settings. Using a retrospective survey, this chapter compared the reported contact patterns during the COVID-19 outbreak to contact patterns during the influenza period in leisure/tourism settings of four developed countries. Changes in social contact patterns across demographic and other factors at different locations and regions are identified, which are helpful for classifying the heterogeneity of contact patterns and potential post-lockdown transmission patterns. This analysis can assist policymakers to implement more evidence-based interventions to guide the economic recovery of the tourism sector.

Effective Social Network-Based Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccines

We study allocation of COVID-19 vaccines to individuals based on the structural properties of their underlying social contact network. Using a realistic representation of a social contact network for the Commonwealth of Virginia, we study how a limited number of vaccine doses can be strategically distributed to individuals to reduce the overall burden of the pandemic. We show that allocation of vaccines based on individuals' degree (number of social contacts) and total social proximity time is significantly more effective than the usually used age-based allocation strategy in reducing the number of infections, hospitalizations and deaths. The overall strategy is robust even: (i) if the social contacts are not estimated correctly;(ii) if the vaccine efficacy is lower than expected or only a single dose is given;(iii) if there is a delay in vaccine production and deployment;and (iv) whether or not non-pharmaceutical interventions continue as vaccines are deployed. For reasons of implementability, we have used degree, which is a simple structural measure and can be easily estimated using several methods, including the digital technology available today. These results are significant, especially for resource-poor countries, where vaccines are less available, have lower efficacy, and are more slowly distributed. © 2022 Owner/Author.

Estimating social contacts in mass gatherings for disease outbreak prevention and management: case of Hajj pilgrimage.

BACKGROUND: Most mass gathering events have been suspended due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. However, with vaccination rollout, whether and how to organize some of these mass gathering events arises as part of the pandemic recovery discussions, and this calls for decision support tools. The Hajj, one of the world's largest religious gatherings, was substantively scaled down in 2020 and 2021 and it is still unclear how it will take place in 2022 and subsequent years. Simulating disease transmission dynamics during the Hajj season under different conditions can provide some insights for better decision-making. Most disease risk assessment models require data on the number and nature of possible close contacts between individuals. METHODS: We sought to use integrated agent-based modeling and discrete events simulation techniques to capture risky contacts among the pilgrims and assess different scenarios in one of the Hajj major sites, namely Masjid-Al-Haram. RESULTS: The simulation results showed that a plethora of risky contacts may occur during the rituals. Also, as the total number of pilgrims increases at each site, the number of risky contacts increases, and physical distancing measures may be challenging to maintain beyond a certain number of pilgrims in the site. CONCLUSIONS: This study presented a simulation tool that can be relevant for the risk assessment of a variety of (respiratory) infectious diseases, in addition to COVID-19 in the Hajj season. This tool can be expanded to include other contributing elements of disease transmission to quantify the risk of the mass gathering events.

Close encounters during a pandemic: Social habits and inter-generational links in the first two waves of COVID-19.

Social habits are ingrained in a community and affect human behaviour. Have they played any role in the spread of the pandemic? We use high-frequency data for 220 regions in 15 European countries from March to December 2020 to compare the association between social contacts outside the family and within inter-generational families, on the one hand, and cases and excess mortality on the other. We find that a standard deviation increase in the percentage of people having daily face-to-face contacts outside the household is associated with 5 new daily cases and 2.6 additional weekly deaths, while the incidence of inter-generational households exhibits a less robust association with both COVID-19 transmission and mortality. We compare results across the first and the second wave of pandemic and show that differences are related to the average age of the most affected groups. Our findings are robust to the inclusion of a number of controls, fixed effects, the chosen sample of countries, and the estimation method. We argue that type and frequency of social interactions are interweaved with a region culture and habits and are informative on the potential transmission of contagion and on its lethality.

Social Isolation Among Older Adults in the Time of COVID-19: A Gender Perspective.

We aimed to analyze inequalities in social isolation among older adults in a time of COVID-19 social restrictions, using a gender perspective. A random population-based survey, including 21,543 older adults (65+) was conducted during and post COVID-19 lockdown in France. Our main outcome was a three-dimension indicator of social isolation based on living conditions, i.e., living alone (i) and not having gone out in the past week (ii), completed by an indicator measuring Internet use i.e., never using the Internet (iii). Logistic regressions were used to identify factors associated with isolation for women and men. Women were more likely to live alone (aOR = 2.72 [2.53; 2.92]), not to have gone out in the past week (aOR = 1.53 [1.39; 1.68]), and not to use the Internet (aOR = 1.30 [1.20; 1.44]). In addition to gender effects, being older, at the bottom of the social hierarchy, and from an ethno-racial minority was also associated with social isolation. Preventive policies should take into account these inequalities when addressing the issue of social isolation among older women and men, so as to enable all social groups to maintain social contacts, and access health information.

The Emotional Lockdown: How Social Distancing and Mask Wearing Influence Mood and Emotion Recognition in Adolescents and Adults.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, government-mandated protection measures such as contact restrictions and mask wearing significantly affected social interactions. In the current preregistered studies we hypothesized that such measures could influence self-reported mood in adults and in adolescents between 12 and 13 years of age, who are in a critical phase of social development. We found that mood was positively related to face-to-face but not to virtual interactions in adults and that virtual interactions were associated with negative mood in adolescents. This suggests that contact restrictions leading to a decrease in face-to-face compared to virtual interactions may be related to negative mood. To understand if prolonged exposure to people wearing masks during the pandemic might be related to increased sensitivity for subtle visual cues to others' emotions from the eye region of the face, we also presented both age groups with the same standardized emotion recognition test. We found slightly better performance in emotion recognition from the eyes in our student sample tested during the pandemic relative to a comparable sample tested prior to the pandemic although these differences were restricted to female participants. Adolescents were also better at classifying emotions from the eyes in the current study than in a pre-pandemic sample, with no gender effects occurring in this age group. In conclusion, while social distancing might have detrimental effects on self-reported mood, the ability to recognize others' emotions from subtle visual cues around the eye region remained comparable or might have even improved during the COVID-19 pandemic.