Solidarity in response to COVID-19 outbreak in the Eastern Mediterranean Region.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak that began in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China in late 2019 has spread globally within a few months. The Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak to be a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) after the second meeting of the IHR (2005) Emergency Committee on 30 January 2020. On 12 March 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 was characterized as a pandemic.

Safely resuming neglected tropical disease control activities during COVID-19: Perspectives from Nigeria and Guinea.

Since its early spread in early 2020, the disease caused by the novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused mass disruptions to health services. These have included interruptions to programs that aimed to prevent, control, and eliminate neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) released interim guidelines recommending the temporary cessation of mass drug administration (MDA), community-based surveys, and case detection, while encouraging continuation of morbidity management and vector control where possible. Over the course of the following months, national programs and implementing partners contributed to COVID-19 response efforts, while also beginning to plan for resumption of NTD control activities. To understand the challenges, opportunities, and recommendations for maximizing continuity of disease control during public health emergencies, we sought perspectives from Nigeria and Guinea on the process of restarting NTD control efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through semistructured interviews with individuals involved with NTD control at the local and national levels, we identified key themes and common perspectives between the 2 countries, as well as observations that were specific to each. Overall, interviewees stressed the challenges posed by COVID-19 interruptions, particularly with respect to delays to activities and related knock-on impacts, such as drug expiry and prolonged elimination timelines, as well as concerns related to funding. However, respondents in both countries also highlighted the benefits of a formal risk assessment approach, particularly in terms of encouraging information sharing and increasing coordination and advocacy. Recommendations included ensuring greater availability of historical data to allow better monitoring of how future emergencies affect NTD control progress; continuing to use risk assessment approaches in the future; and identifying mechanisms for sharing lessons learned and innovations between countries as a means of advancing postpandemic health systems and disease control capacity strengthening.

Lives saved and lost in the first six month of the US COVID-19 pandemic: A retrospective cost-benefit analysis.

In the beginning of the COVID-19 US epidemic in March 2020, sweeping lockdowns and other aggressive measures were put in place and retained in many states until end of August of 2020; the ensuing economic downturn has led many to question the wisdom of the early COVID-19 policy measures in the US. This study's objective was to evaluate the cost and benefit of the US COVID-19-mitigating policy intervention during the first six month of the pandemic in terms of COVID-19 mortality potentially averted, versus mortality potentially attributable to the economic downturn. We conducted a synthesis-based retrospective cost-benefit analysis of the full complex of US federal, state, and local COVID-19-mitigating measures, including lockdowns and all other COVID-19-mitigating measures, against the counterfactual scenario involving no public health intervention. We derived parameter estimates from a rapid review and synthesis of recent epidemiologic studies and economic literature on regulation-attributable mortality. According to our estimates, the policy intervention saved 866,350-1,711,150 lives (4,886,214-9,650,886 quality-adjusted life-years), while mortality attributable to the economic downturn was 57,922-245,055 lives (2,093,811-8,858,444 life-years). We conclude that the number of lives saved by the spring-summer lockdowns and other COVID-19-mitigation was greater than the number of lives potentially lost due to the economic downturn. However, the net impact on quality-adjusted life expectancy is ambiguous.

The network limits of infectious disease control via occupation-based targeting.

Policymakers commonly employ non-pharmaceutical interventions to reduce the scale and severity of pandemics. Of non-pharmaceutical interventions, physical distancing policies-designed to reduce person-to-person pathogenic spread - have risen to recent prominence. In particular, stay-at-home policies of the sort widely implemented around the globe in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have proven to be markedly effective at slowing pandemic growth. However, such blunt policy instruments, while effective, produce numerous unintended consequences, including potentially dramatic reductions in economic productivity. In this study, we develop methods to investigate the potential to simultaneously contain pandemic spread while also minimizing economic disruptions. We do so by incorporating both occupational and contact network information contained within an urban environment, information that is commonly excluded from typical pandemic control policy design. The results of our methods suggest that large gains in both economic productivity and pandemic control might be had by the incorporation and consideration of simple-to-measure characteristics of the occupational contact network. We find evidence that more sophisticated, and more privacy invasive, measures of this network do not drastically increase performance.

Socioeconomic differences and persistent segregation of Italian territories during COVID-19 pandemic.

Lockdowns implemented to address the COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted human mobility flows around the globe to an unprecedented extent and with economic consequences which are unevenly distributed across territories, firms and individuals. Here we study socioeconomic determinants of mobility disruption during both the lockdown and the recovery phases in Italy. For this purpose, we analyze a massive data set on Italian mobility from February to October 2020 and we combine it with detailed data on pre-existing local socioeconomic features of Italian administrative units. Using a set of unsupervised and supervised learning techniques, we reliably show that the least and the most affected areas persistently belong to two different clusters. Notably, the former cluster features significantly higher income per capita and lower income inequality than the latter. This distinction persists once the lockdown is lifted. The least affected areas display a swift (V-shaped) recovery in mobility patterns, while poorer, most affected areas experience a much slower (U-shaped) recovery: as of October 2020, their mobility was still significantly lower than pre-lockdown levels. These results are then detailed and confirmed with a quantile regression analysis. Our findings show that economic segregation has, thus, strengthened during the pandemic.

Riding the waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea.

During the first months of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in early 2020, South Korea stood as one of the most successful in preventing a nationwide outbreak. The country was unique in that it did so without enforcing massive border restrictions and tight social distancing measures, instead focusing on maximal testing, contact tracing, and treatment. But as the year 2020 went on, the country has suffered second and third waves, each one being larger and harder to combat than the last. The Korean government, however, has been unwilling to impose stringent measures due to potential economic consequences and has still relied on its initial strategies in an attempt to prevent further disease transmission. It is therefore crucial to revisit their position beyond their early successes to re-evaluate the effectiveness of their strategy, and to finally decide if it is time to move on to more drastic measures.

How did Covid-19 impact US household foods? an analysis six months in.

Using a nationwide survey of primary grocery shoppers conducted in August 2020, we examine household food spending when the economy had partially reopened and consumers had different spending opportunities in comparison to when the Covid-19 lockdown began. We estimate the impact of Covid-19 on household spending using interval and Order Probit regressions. Income levels, age, access to grocery stores and farmers markets, household demographic information, along with other independent variables are controlled in the model. Findings show that middle-class households (with income below $50,000, or with income between $50,000 and $99,999) are less likely to increase their grocery expenditures during the pandemic. Households with children or elderlies that usually require higher food quality and nutrition intakes had a higher probability of increasing their spending during Covid-19 than before. Furthermore, consumers' spending behaviors were also significantly affected by their safe handing levels and the Covid-19 severity and food accessibility in their residences.

The health-economy trade-off during the Covid-19 pandemic: Communication matters.

How do people balance concerns for general health and economic outcomes during a pandemic? And, how does the communication of this trade-off affect individual preferences? We address these questions using a field experiment involving around 2000 students enrolled in a large university in Italy. We design four treatments where the trade-off is communicated using different combinations of a positive framing that focuses on protective strategies and a negative framing which refers to potential costs. We find that positive framing on the health side induces students to give greater relevance to the health dimension. The effect is sizeable and highly effective among many different audiences, especially females. Importantly, this triggers a higher level of intention to adhere to social distancing and precautionary behaviors. Moreover, irrespective of the framing, we find a large heterogeneity in students' preferences over the trade-off. Economics students and students who have directly experienced the economic impact of the pandemic are found to give greater value to economic outcomes.

College Campuses and COVID-19 Mitigation: Clinical and Economic Value.

BACKGROUND: Colleges in the United States are determining how to operate safely amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. OBJECTIVE: To examine the clinical outcomes, cost, and cost-effectiveness of COVID-19 mitigation strategies on college campuses. DESIGN: The Clinical and Economic Analysis of COVID-19 interventions (CEACOV) model, a dynamic microsimulation model, was used to examine alternative mitigation strategies. The CEACOV model tracks infections accrued by students and faculty, accounting for community transmissions. DATA SOURCES: Data from published literature were used to obtain parameters related to COVID-19 and contact-hours. TARGET POPULATION: Undergraduate students and faculty at U.S. colleges. TIME HORIZON: One semester (105 days). PERSPECTIVE: Modified societal. INTERVENTION: COVID-19 mitigation strategies, including social distancing, masks, and routine laboratory screening. OUTCOME MEASURES: Infections among students and faculty per 5000 students and per 1000 faculty, isolation days, tests, costs, cost per infection prevented, and cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY). RESULTS OF BASE-CASE ANALYSIS: Among students, mitigation strategies reduced COVID-19 cases from 3746 with no mitigation to 493 with extensive social distancing and masks, and further to 151 when laboratory testing was added among asymptomatic persons every 3 days. Among faculty, these values were 164, 28, and 25 cases, respectively. Costs ranged from about $0.4 million for minimal social distancing to about $0.9 million to $2.1 million for strategies involving laboratory testing ($10 per test), depending on testing frequency. Extensive social distancing with masks cost $170 per infection prevented ($49 200 per QALY) compared with masks alone. Adding routine laboratory testing increased cost per infection prevented to between $2010 and $17 210 (cost per QALY gained, $811 400 to $2 804 600). RESULTS OF SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS: Results were most sensitive to test costs. LIMITATION: Data are from multiple sources. CONCLUSION: Extensive social distancing with a mandatory mask-wearing policy can prevent most COVID-19 cases on college campuses and is very cost-effective. Routine laboratory testing would prevent 96% of infections and require low-cost tests to be economically attractive. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: National Institutes of Health.

Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Economic Activities and Well-being of Older Adults in South-eastern Nigeria: Lessons for Gerontological Social Workers.

The novel COVID-19 pandemic and its containment measures such as lockdown and physical distancing are remarkedly affecting older adults' economic activities and well-being in ways deserving of urgent attention. To strengthen caregiving and promote targeted care for older adults during and after the pandemic, this paper investigates the impact of the coronavirus on the economic activities and well-being of older adults in Enugu and Anambra states, Nigeria. Hermeneutic phenomenology was adopted and 16 older adults aged between 60 and 81 years, with a majority of them still working as farmers and traders were phone-interviewed. Findings highlighted four key lessons for gerontological social workers including 1) the fear that impact of the containment measures could kill the older adults faster than the virus; 2) the measures generate a feeling of neglect and marginalization of healthcare needs among older adults; 3) altered positive health-seeking behavior among the older adults; 4) and concern about the absence of functional policy and plan to address the welfare of older adults. Therefore, the central focus of the gerontological social workers and Nigerian polity should not be on how to reduce the spread of the disease alone, but on an application of caution in instituting and implementing the measures.

Tsunami of economic turmoil to hit the healthcare in 2021-2022: COVID-19 pandemic is just an earthquake.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused the United States to hit record numbers of COVID-19 cases: peak unemployment of 14.7%, an increase in $4 trillion in national debt, and an estimated 3.4% GDP decline. The current socio-economic environment the pandemic created is just an earthquake that can create a tsunami that is bound to hit the healthcare system and can be felt around the globe. This tsunami is composed of a post-pandemic increase in healthcare facilities admission of indigent patients, decrease in medical reimbursement, and high operating costs to maintain healthcare workers, which can cause a synergistic effect that can lead to healthcare facilities experiencing significant negative total revenue. Time is of the essence, and it is imperative to make a collective effort from all healthcare professionals and legislatures to shift the nation's attention to the issue at hand that can threaten the closure of many healthcare facilities post-pandemic.

Global economic impacts of COVID-19 lockdown measures stand out in high-frequency shipping data.

The implementation of large-scale containment measures by governments to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus has resulted in large impacts to the global economy. Here, we derive a new high-frequency indicator of economic activity using empirical vessel tracking data, and use it to estimate the global maritime trade losses during the first eight months of the pandemic. We go on to use this high-frequency dataset to infer the effect of individual non-pharmaceutical interventions on maritime exports, which we use as a proxy of economic activity. Our results show widespread port-level trade losses, with the largest absolute losses found for ports in China, the Middle-East and Western Europe, associated with the collapse of specific supply-chains (e.g. oil, vehicle manufacturing). In total, we estimate that global maritime trade reduced by -7.0% to -9.6% during the first eight months of 2020, which is equal to around 206-286 million tonnes in volume losses and up to 225-412 billion USD in value losses. We find large sectoral and geographical disparities in impacts. Manufacturing sectors are hit hardest, with losses up to 11.8%, whilst some small islands developing states and low-income economies suffered the largest relative trade losses. Moreover, we find a clear negative impact of COVID-19 related school and public transport closures on country-wide exports. Overall, we show how real-time indicators of economic activity can inform policy-makers about the impacts of individual policies on the economy, and can support economic recovery efforts by allocating funds to the hardest hit economies and sectors.