Does Social Distancing Matter for Infectious Disease Propagation? An SEIR Model and Gompertz Law Based Cellular Automaton.

In this paper, we present stochastic synchronous cellular automaton defined on a square lattice. The automaton rules are based on the SEIR (susceptible → exposed → infected → recovered) model with probabilistic parameters gathered from real-world data on human mortality and the characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 disease. With computer simulations, we show the influence of the radius of the neighborhood on the number of infected and deceased agents in the artificial population. The increase in the radius of the neighborhood favors the spread of the pandemic. However, for a large range of interactions of exposed agents (who neither have symptoms of the disease nor have been diagnosed by appropriate tests), even isolation of infected agents cannot prevent successful disease propagation. This supports aggressive testing against disease as one of the useful strategies to prevent large peaks of infection in the spread of SARS-CoV-2-like diseases.

THE ASYMPTOTIC BEHAVIOR OF AN SIR EPIDEMIC MODEL: COLLECTIVE REED-FROST PROCESS

The aim of this research is to provide a historical overview of the mathematical theory of epidemics and to study the asymptotic behavior of the final size of a collective Reed-Frost epidemic process with different types of infected people. This model was introduced by Picard and Lefèvre [25] provides an extension of the model of Pettigrew and Weiss [24]. Under certain conditions, we show that when the number of the initial susceptible individuals is large and the number of the initial infected people is finite, the infection process is equivalent to a multitype Galton-Watson process. Our method is simple and based on Bernstein polynomials. © 2022, SCIK Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

History of infections – never ending story

The optimistic dream of a "Golden Age without infections" remained a dream. To this day, as in the past, epidemics, or worse pandemics, caused by different infectious agents still emerge in various parts of the world. Reports of infectious diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, HIV, syphilis, cholera, and a persistently high incidence of malaria, including other transmissible diseases, continue to occur periodically, often accompanied by an increase in the number of affected people. Moreover, new infectious diseases are emerging, which of pathogens have not yet been reliably identified or are already known, but up to this time have been considered non-pathogenic to humans. However, the current pandemic of Covid-19 (Coronavirus disease) caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Coronaviridae) has proved to redirect biomedical research mainly to early diagnosis and rational therapy of respiratory viruses in particular, as well as to preventing their spreading not only by conventional means (limitation of direct contacts among persons, protection by masks, or by hand hygiene), but also by supporting of antiviral non-specific immunity. However, ensuring the rapid development of safe and effective vaccines is essential, by means of using the latest knowledge of contemporary biomedicine including that of molecular-genomic technologies (sequencing the genome of the SARS-CoV-2) with the hope that the newly constructed vaccines will be equally effective against genetic variants of the virus elicited by its expected mutations. © 2021, Czech Medical Association J.E. Purkyne. All rights reserved.

Lessons from the 1656 Neapolitan Plague: Something to learn for the current coronavirus Pandemic?

In the spring of 1656, an epidemic of bubonic plague suddenly fell on Naples, the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The epidemic had put a strain on the government authorities, forcing them to take sometimes drastic measures but, in most cases, scarcely decisive. The current health emergency caused by Covid-19 disease has many similarities with the epidemics of the past. Here we report the parallelism among plague and Covid-19 in several respects. Taking as a paradigm the plague epidemic of Naples of 1656, we can easily understand how history, showing us how past epidemics were managed and overcome, even with the intrinsic differences due to the limits of time and scientific progress, can still give us a useful lesson to face the present.

[Ensuring mental health care during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in France: A narrative review]. / Assurer les soins aux patients souffrant de troubles psychiques en France pendant l'épidémie à SARS-CoV-2.

OBJECTIVE: The lack of ressources and coordination to face the epidemic of coronavirus raises concerns for the health of patients with mental disorders in a country where we keep in memory the dramatic experience of famine in psychiatric hospitals during the Second World War. This article aims at proposing guidance to ensure mental health care during the SARS-CoV epidemy in France. METHODS: Authors performed a narrative review identifying relevant results in the scientific and medical literature and local initiatives in France. RESULTS: We identified four types of major vulnerabilities in patients suffering from mental disorders during this pandemic: (1) medical comorbidities that are more frequently found in patients suffering from mental disorders (cardiovascular and pulmonary pathologies, diabetes, obesity, etc.) which represent risk factors for severe infections with Covid-19; (2) age (the elderly constituting the population most vulnerable to coronavirus); (3) cognitive and behavioral troubles which can hamper compliance with confinement and hygiene measures and finally and (4) psychosocial vulnerability due to stigmatization and/or socio-economic difficulties. Furthermore, the mental health healthcare system is more vulnerable than other healthcare systems. Current government plans are poorly adapted to psychiatric establishments in a context of major shortage of organizational, material and human resources. In addition, a certain number of structural aspects make the psychiatric institution particularly vulnerable: many beds are closed, wards have a high density of patients, mental health community facilities are closed, medical teams are understaffed and poorly trained to face infectious diseases. We could also face major issues in referring patients with acute mental disorders to intensive care units. To maintain continuity of psychiatric care in this pandemic situation, several directions can be considered, in particular with the creation of Covid+ units. These units are under the dual supervision of a psychiatrist and of an internist/infectious disease specialist; all new entrants should be placed in quarantine for 14 days; the nurse staff should benefit from specific training, from daily medical check-ups and from close psychological support. Family visits would be prohibited and replaced by videoconference. At the end of hospitalization, in particular for the population of patients in compulsory ambulatory care situations, specific case-management should be organized with the possibility of home visits, in order to support them when they get back home and to help them to cope with the experience of confinement, which is at risk to induce recurrences of mental disorders. The total or partial closure of mental health community facilities is particularly disturbing for patients but a regular follow-up is possible with telemedicine and should include the monitoring of the suicide risk and psychoeducation strategies; developing support platforms could also be very helpful in this context. Private psychiatrists have also a crucial role of information with their patients on confinement and barrier measures, but also on measures to prevent the psychological risks inherent to confinement: maintenance of sleep regularity, physical exercise, social interactions, stress management and coping strategies, prevention of addictions, etc. They should also be trained to prevent, detect and treat early warning symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, because their prevalence was high in the regions of China most affected by the pandemic. DISCUSSION: French mental healthcare is now in a great and urgent need for reorganization and must also prepare in the coming days and weeks to face an epidemic of emotional disorders due to the containment of the general population.

Recommendations of the Main Board of the Polish Society of Otorhinolaryngologists, Head and Neck Surgeons for providing services during the COVID-19 pandemic for outpatient and hospital practices.

Recommendations of the Main Board of the Polish Society of Otorhinolaryngologists, Head and Neck Surgeons for providing services during the COVID-19 pandemic constitute the guidance to outpatient and hospital practices in all cases where contact with a patient whose status of COVID-19 is unknown. They have been created based on world publications and recommendations due to the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic. Justification for suspension of planned provision of services in the first phase of a pandemic was presented. The indication of the best medical practices for the time of stabilization, but with the persistence of the risk of COVID-19 infection in the population are discussed. The possibility of providing services in the following months of the pandemic is important. We provide the rationale for launching medical activities and indicate optimal practices until the consolidation of SARS COV-2 prevention and treatment methods.

Challenges of intensive care and anesthesiology related to COVID-19 pandemic. Practical considerations / [Az aneszteziológiai és intenzív ellátás kihívásai a COVID­19-fertozéssel kapcsolatban. Gyakorlati ajánlás]

Due to the coronavirus epidemic, healthcare systems face growing challenges all around the world nowadays. These challenges are the most critical in the field of intensive treatment and anesthesiology. One of the most important prerequisites of effective critical care treatment is preserving the involved healthcare workers from the infection, by providing them with detailed practical advices on the preventive measures and treatment strategies. The aim of the present review is to summarize the most important related knowledge available from previous experiences. Orv Hetil. 2020; 161(17): 652­659.