Infectious Diseases

The COVID-19 pandemic consistently demonstrated a pattern of growing community transmission worldwide, even with the adoption of social distancing measures (lockdown or voluntarily shelter in place) in January and early May 2020.

The continuing transmission of the virus despite the policy measures adopted in some countries was an important point of debate and investigation in the scientific community and among authorities. Unexpected forms of transmission (atmospheric) associated with the social distancing policy became the central question for the infectious transmission modeling of SARS-CoV-2 and predictive methods.

Daily new COVID-19 cases from January to April 2020 demonstrate varying patterns of SARS-CoV-2 transmission across different geographical regions.

China and South Korea successfully and quickly flattened their COVID-19 curve. To understand why this was the case, this paper investigated possible aerosol-forming patterns in the atmosphere and their relationship to the policy measures adopted by select countries.

Objective: The main research objective was to compare the outcomes of policies adopted by countries between January and April 2020. Policies included physical distancing measures that in some cases were associated with mask use and city disinfection. We investigated whether the type of social distancing framework adopted by some countries (ie, without mask use and city disinfection) led to the continual dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 (daily new cases) in the community during the study period.

Methods: We examined the policies used as a preventive framework for virus community transmission in some countries and compared them to the policies adopted by China and South Korea. Countries that used a policy of social distancing by 1-2 m were divided into two groups. The first group consisted of countries that implemented social distancing (1-2 m) only, and the second comprised China and South Korea, which implemented distancing with additional transmission/isolation measures using masks and city disinfection. Global daily case maps from Johns Hopkins University were used to provide time-series data for the analysis.

Results: The results showed that virus transmission was reduced due to policies affecting SARS-CoV-2 propagation over time. Remarkably, China and South Korea obtained substantially better results than other countries at the beginning of the epidemic due to their adoption of social distancing (1-2 m) with the additional use of masks and sanitization (city disinfection). These measures proved to be effective due to the atmosphere carrier potential of SARS-CoV-2 transmission.

Conclusions: Our findings confirm that social distancing by 1-2 m with mask use and city disinfection yields positive outcomes. These strategies should be incorporated into prevention and control policies and be adopted both globally and by individuals as a method to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

read the study at https://publichealth.jmir.org/2021/4/e20699/

The WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence will be a global platform for pandemic and epidemic intelligence, creating shared and networked access to vital multi-sectoral data, driving innovations in data analytics and building the communities
of practice needed to predict, prevent, detect, prepare for and respond to worldwide health threats.

The WHO Hub will be a new global collaboration of countries and partners worldwide, driving innovations to increase availability and linkage of diverse data; develop tools and predictive models for risk analysis; and to monitor disease control measures
and infodemics. 

The WHO Hub will enable partners from around the world to collaborate and co-create the tools and data access that all countries need to prepare, detect and respond to pandemic and epidemic risks. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Federal Republic of Germany will establish a new global hub for pandemic and epidemic intelligence, data, surveillance and analytics innovation. The Hub, based in Berlin and working with partners around the
world, will lead innovations in data analytics across the largest network of global data to predict, prevent, detect prepare for and respond to pandemic and epidemic risks worldwide. 

Critically, the WHO Hub will support the work of public health experts and policy-makers in all countries with insights so
they can take rapid decisions to prevent and respond to future public health emergencies.“We need to identify pandemic and epidemic risks as quickly as possible, wherever they occur in the world. For that aim, we need to strengthen the global early warning surveillance system with improved collection of health-related data and inter-disciplinary risk analysis,” said Jens Spahn, German Minister of Health.

Working with partners globally, the WHO Hub will drive a scale-up in innovation for existing forecasting and early warning capacities in WHO and Member States.

At the same time, the WHO Hub will accelerate global collaborations across public and private sector organizations, academia, and international partner networks. It will help them to collaborate and co-create the necessary tools for managing and analyzing data for early warning surveillance. It will also promote greater access to data and information.

“One of the lessons of COVID-19 is that world needs a significant leap forward in data analysis to help leaders make informed public health decisions,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “This requires harnessing the potential of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, combining diverse data sources, and collaborating across multiple disciplines. Better data and better analytics will lead to better decisions.”

read the release at the WHO website at https://www.who.int/news/item/05-05-2021-who-germany-launch-new-global-hub-for-pandemic-and-epidemic-intelligence

also useful to read the note on the UN website about the same

https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/05/1091332