Prerequisite for COVID-19 Prediction: A Review on Factors Affecting the Infection Rate.

Since the year 2020, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as the dominant topic of discussion in the public and research domains. Intensive research has been carried out on several aspects of COVID-19, including vaccines, its transmission mechanism, detection of COVID-19 infection, and its infection rate and factors. The awareness of the public related to the COVID-19 infection factors enables the public to adhere to the standard operating procedures, while a full elucidation on the correlation of different factors to the infection rate facilitates effective measures to minimize the risk of COVID-19 infection by policy makers and enforcers. Hence, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive and analytical review of different factors affecting the COVID-19 infection rate. Furthermore, this review analyses factors which directly and indirectly affect the COVID-19 infection risk, such as physical distance, ventilation, face masks, meteorological factor, socioeconomic factor, vaccination, host factor, SARS-CoV-2 variants, and the availability of COVID-19 testing. Critical analysis was performed for the different factors by providing quantitative and qualitative studies. Lastly, the challenges of correlating each infection risk factor to the predicted risk of COVID-19 infection are discussed, and recommendations for further research works and interventions are outlined.

Examining who benefited from green infrastructure during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020: Considering the issues of access to green areas from socioeconomic and environmental perspectives.

Access to green areas was one of the most contested issues during Japan's first coronavirus emergency period in 2020. The access was examined using a large-scale online questionnaire survey. An integrated analysis of socioeconomic attributes and environmental factors was conducted, and a typology of respondents, in terms of being beneficiaries of green infrastructure, was provided. Based on empirical datasets, we identified: (1) a relatively strong influence of the pandemic on the access to green areas for young females, both positively and negatively, (2) difficulties of green area access for unmarried low-income respondents in terms of aspects such as travel time, and (3) the influence of neighboring environments on green area access; for example, if there were agricultural lands near the respondents' residential areas, they tended to visit those lands instead of other green areas. The identified typology can serve as a basis for policy targets or components within policy, to enhance the management of green infrastructure as "open" and public areas. This analysis method can be applied to different regions globally, and it contributes to policymaking for green area management to enhance social and individual well-being.

Race, ethnicity, community-level socioeconomic factors, and risk of COVID-19 in the United States and the United Kingdom.

BACKGROUND: There is limited prior investigation of the combined influence of personal and community-level socioeconomic factors on racial/ethnic disparities in individual risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional analysis nested within a prospective cohort of 2,102,364 participants from March 29, 2020 in the United States (US) and March 24, 2020 in the United Kingdom (UK) through December 02, 2020 via the COVID Symptom Study smartphone application. We examined the contribution of community-level deprivation using the Neighborhood Deprivation Index (NDI) and the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) to observe racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 incidence. ClinicalTrials.gov registration: NCT04331509. FINDINGS: Compared with non-Hispanic White participants, the risk for a positive COVID-19 test was increased in the US for non-Hispanic Black (multivariable-adjusted odds ratio [OR], 1.32; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.18-1.47) and Hispanic participants (OR, 1.42; 95% CI, 1.33-1.52) and in the UK for Black (OR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.02-1.34), South Asian (OR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.30-1.49), and Middle Eastern participants (OR, 1.38; 95% CI, 1.18-1.61). This elevated risk was associated with living in more deprived communities according to the NDI/IMD. After accounting for downstream mediators of COVID-19 risk, community-level deprivation still mediated 16.6% and 7.7% of the excess risk in Black compared to White participants in the US and the UK, respectively. INTERPRETATION: Our results illustrate the critical role of social determinants of health in the disproportionate COVID-19 risk experienced by racial and ethnic minorities.