Transmission Of COVID-19 Pandemic Research Articles

Patient level barriers to accessing TB care services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda, a mixed methods study

IntroductionLockdown measure has been utilized widely to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic transmission and recently during the 2022 Sudan Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Uganda. These have setback effects on the continuity of essential health services such as tuberculosis (TB) care, reversing progress made in the fight against tuberculosis (TB) over the past decade. We set out to understand patient-reported barriers to accessing TB care services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda.MethodsMixed methods study involving review of medical records of TB patients who received TB care from January to September 2020. We used quantitative and qualitative methods including phone questionnaires and in-depth interviews. We carried out descriptive statistics, a chi-square test and conducted a thematic analysis.ResultsWe carried out phone interviews with 672 participants. The majority (60%) were male and with an average of 35 years (SD:11). A significantly higher proportion of patients reported a barrier to TB care access during the COVID-19 lockdown than pre-lockdown (79.9% vs. 68.1% p = 0.027). We carried out in-depth interviews with 28 participants (54% (15/28): male). Barriers experienced by these participants included lack of a means of transport to reach the health facility, lack of money to pay the transport fares, long distances to the facility, fear of COVID-19 infection, stigma due to overlap between TB and COVID-19 symptoms, and few health care workers available during the lockdown period.ConclusionLockdown measures instituted to mitigate the transmission of COVID1-19 affected access to TB care services in Uganda. Uganda is at risk of future emerging and re-emerging diseases of epidemic potential. Therefore, there should be measures to ensure the continuity of essential services such as tuberculosis care during the implementation of future epidemic response interventions such as a lockdown.

Penahelix integrated health protocol education model for Covid-19 pandemic handling based on Tri Hita Karana

Many people have not implemented health protocols according to government advice, such as not washing hands and wearing masks in public; thus, COVID-19 pandemic transmission has rapidly occurred. This cause is mostly the citizen’s lack of awareness in implementing 3 M (memakai masker, menjaga jarak, mencuci tangan in English read washing hands, wearing masks, and maintaining distance). The status quo becomes the researcher’s foundation in developing a pentahelix integrated health protocol education model for handling COVID-19 based on Tri Hita Karana. This development research refers to the prototyping model according to Nieveen that covers (1) preliminary research, (2) the prototyping stage, and (3) the assessment stage. The research subjects were 100 people. The data collection method used a questionnaire of community appreciation that measures knowledge and the community’s level of awareness. The data analysis used was a t test. The results of the research show that the model of pentahelix integrated health protocol education for the handling of COVID-19 based on Tri Hita Karana was effectively used to improve the community’s appreciation of conducting health protocols. This is shown by the improvement of average values before and after the implementation. Thus, it can be recommended as a solution to COVID-19 prevention.

Government Restriction Efficiency on Curbing COVID-19 Pandemic Transmission in Western Europe

The World Health Organization (WHO)-confirmed pandemic (March 2020) of the new Coronavirus 2 severe acute respiratory syndrome infection (SARS-CoV-2) reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 (first reported cases), then spread to Italy and successively around the world. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the restrictions implemented by different governments from a statistical point of view. We quantitatively evaluated how restrictions influenced the temporal evolution of the distribution of the weekly number of hospitalized patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) for different countries that applied different levels of restrictions, which can be summarized with the average stringency index, a synthetic index that represents a metric for quantifying the severity of the restrictions applied. We found that the stringency index is strongly correlated with the distribution skewness, while standard deviation and kurtosis are poorly and moderately influenced. Furthermore, we compared the values of the skewness of the distribution of hospitalized patients during several pre-pandemic influenza outbreaks in Italy (data not available for other countries). Analysis shows that for normal flu, there is a substantial difference in skewness (as much as 70%) in the distribution with respect to the first COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, where social restrictions were applied. This large difference highlights that the restrictions implemented modify the symmetry of the peak of the distribution of the hospitalized patient in the ICU. Therefore, skewness can be used as a valid indicator to assess whether restriction has any effect on pandemic transmission and can be used as a support for decision makers.

Governor's Digital Education Campaign (Greeting Style) in the Prevention of the Covid-19 Pandemic Transmission in Central Java, Indonesia

Central Java is a province that ranks in the top three with the highest number of cases exposed to Covid-19 in Indonesia. During the pandemic situation, the Central Java Provincial Government intensively carried out a digital campaign to fight the spread and transmission of the virus. The digital campaign contains a number of health protocol educational videos conducted by the governor and published through official social media accounts, such as Youtube and Instagram. This study aims to describe the public's attitude towards health protocol education carried out by Governor Ganjar Pranowo through this digital campaign. Rhetoric theory is used as a basis for explaining the success aspects of digital campaigns. This type of research is descriptive quantitative research. Primary data were obtained through online surveys. As many 19 questions were asked to respondents. A total of 121 respondents participated by voluntary sampling in the online survey. Respondents' answers were then processed using SPSS. The research findings show that the respondents show a positive attitude towards the Covid-19 digital campaign conducted by the Central Java Provincial Government. Respondents considered that the digital campaign was a creative step taken by the Central Java Provincial Government to educate the public in the midst of a pandemic situation.

Determinants of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and access among people experiencing homelessness in Germany: A qualitative interview study.

People experiencing homelessness face lower life expectancy, higher prevalence of somatic and mental diseases and a more difficult access to healthcare compared to people in secure living. During the COVID-19 pandemic transmission rates were higher among people experiencing homelessness and preventive public health measures were not properly adapted to the specific needs of people experiencing homelessness. Thus, goal of our study was understanding the determinants of acceptability and access of the COVID-19 vaccine. We conducted a qualitative interview study with twenty guideline interviews with adult people currently experiencing homelessness in Berlin, Germany (August 2021 - April 2022). Participants were approached in a purposive sampling strategy. The interviews were analyzed with qualitative content analysis according to Mayring. Acceptance and attitude toward the COVID-19 vaccine is influenced by confidence in the vaccine as well as in the political and healthcare system, the individual COVID-19 risk perception and sense of collective responsibility. Overall, the acceptance of the vaccine was high among our participants. Facilities offering low threshold COVID-19 vaccines for people experiencing homelessness were perceived as helpful. Language barriers and the need for identity documents were major barriers to access the COVID 19 vaccine. People experiencing homelessness are a marginalized and vulnerable group often underrepresented in the public and scientific discourse. During the COVID-19 pandemic, preventive public health measures, including the COVID-19 vaccine, failed to consider specific needs of people experiencing homelessness. Multidimensional strategy to enhance inclusive healthcare are needed to improve access and to reduce discrimination and stigmatization.

COUNTERSAVIOR: AIoMT and IIoT-Enabled Adaptive Virus Outbreak Discovery Framework for Healthcare Informatics

In the current pandemic, global issues have caused health issues as well as economic downturns. At the beginning of every novel virus outbreak, lockdown is the best possible weapon to reduce the virus spread and save human life as the medical diagnosis followed by treatment and clinical approval takes significant time. The proposed COUNTERSAVIOR system aims at an Artificial Intelligence of Medical Things (AIoMT), and an edge line computing enabled and Big data analytics supported tracing and tracking approach that consumes global positioning system (GPS) spatiotemporal data. COUNTERSAVIOR will be a better scientific tool to handle any virus outbreak. The proposed research discovers the prospect of applying an individual’s mobility to label mobility streams and forecast a virus such as COVID-19 pandemic transmission. The proposed system is the extension of the previously proposed COUNTERACT system. The proposed system can also identify the alternative saviour path concerning the confirmed subject’s cross-path using GPS data to avoid the possibility of infections. In the undertaken study, dynamic meta direct and indirect transmission, meta behavior, and meta transmission saviour models are presented. In conducted experiments, the machine learning and deep learning methodologies have been used with the recorded historical location data for forecasting the behavior patterns of confirmed and suspected individuals and a robust comparative analysis is also presented. The proposed system produces a report specifying people that have been exposed to the virus and notifying users about available pandemic saviour paths. In the end, we have represented 3-D tracker movements of individuals, 3-D contact analysis of COVID-19 and suspected individuals for 24 h, forecasting and risk classification of COVID-19, suspected and safe individuals.

An Estimate of Time-Dependent Transmission of COVID-19 Pandemic in Katsina State from June to November 2021

This paper investigates the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in Katsina state from 23rd June to 27th November, 2021, using graphical tools to visually analyse infection over time and time-dependent reproduction number to quantify the transmissibility of the disease. Study data consist of diagnostic results of reverse transcriptase real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction assays (RT-PCR) on nine hundred and eighty-nine nasal swab samples from suspected COVID-19 cases, collected from public and private health facilities across Local government areas of the State and analysed by the Molecular Laboratory of the Federal Medical Centre Katsina, recording a total of 137 positive cases. Our investigation revealed that, over the study period, COVID-19 transmission reaches its peak on 17th October 2021 (Epidemic Week 41), with a mean Reproduction number (Rt) of 3.22 and a standard deviation of 0.5976 (95% CI: 2.6193 - 3.8145), culminating in 19 new infections on Wednesday the 27th (Epidemic Week 43). The combined age groups 21-30 and 31-40 constituted the most affected cases with 29 (21.17%) and 19 (13.87%) positive cases, respectively. This was closely followed by age group 51-60 with 19 (13.87%) positive cases. On gender basis, 70 (51%) females tested positive compared to 67 (49%) males. We therefore conclude that for the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Katsina State, disease transmission reaches its peak in Epidemic Week 41 in October, then rapidly diminishes to Rt values of less than one, indicating that no new infections were expected by the end of November, with female gender and age groups in the range 21 to 40 years being most infected. We recommend that mitigation strategies that take into consideration features inherent in female gender and more pronounced in young (21 to 40 years) and middle-aged (51-60 years) adults should be adopted in case of future waves.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY RESULTS ON IN-PERSON AND ONLINE SESSIONS OF FALL SEMESTER OF 2020-2021

It is inevitable that digital transformation and technological advancement in ICT sector brings drastic changes into every aspect of our lives, and it has become top priorities of the countries around the world for the successful utilization into the mode of learning and teaching within the education sector. Though the fall semester of our university started off with regular regulations, all the education services were shut down due to the local transmission of COVID-19 pandemic in Mongolia. To continue the education services to the students during the strict lockdown, the usage of online training approaches through TV, radio and other means of technology were required to be introduced. The purpose of this comparative study is to conduct detailed analysis on the benefits and downsides of both online and in-person training approaches with its impact, and to highlight the key follow-ups for further improvement.

MEASURING FARM SENSITIVITY TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AFTERMATH

The goal of this paper is to suggest a list of indicators of farm sensitivity to the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic brought rapid changes for many economies, organisations, and individuals. Top-down restrictions in travel, obligatory infection tests, masks, and disinfection, closing of many service points combined with changes in consumer behaviour were undoubtedly a shock to many forms of business. Second-round consequences, such as changes in demand for certain products, truncated logistic chains, currency and price changes affected, among others, the agrifood sector. The paper is of methodical character. The paper is based on a short literature review concerning the vulnerability and sensitivity analysis for various organisation types (countries, regions, households) on external conditions (such as weather and economic conditions). Basing on the COVID-19 pandemic transmission channels to food and agriculture, the author suggests a set of indicators that can be used to analyse farm sensitivity to the pandemic. These measures, after necessary modifications, can be used also for measuring the impact of other exogenous shocks on farms.

Progress Update on the Epidemiology of COVID-19 Variants and the Assessment Status of Developed Vaccines

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread rapidly and diffused to more than 180 countries at varying severities. This pandemic has accounted for increased mortality and morbidity in developed as well as developing nations. The WHO has announced that there is a persistent need for the evaluation of the COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness (VE) against major outcomes, which include severe diseases, symptomatic COVID-19, and mortalities related to COVID-19. Therefore, mass vaccination programs using vaccines of high effectiveness are among the strategies that have been used by governments worldwide to impede the COVID-19 pandemic transmission. In this regard, massive efforts were made by governments, scientists, biomedical researchers, and healthcare professionals leading to the successful development of various vaccines to bring this pandemic under control. This editorial aims to shed light on the epidemiological status of COVID-19 variants, namely, Delta, Omicron, and Deltacron variants as well as discuss the effectiveness of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines.

An isothermal lab-on-phone test for easy molecular diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 near patients and in less than 1 hour

ObjectivesThe performance of a new point-of-care CE-IVD-marked isothermal lab-on-phone COVID-19 assay was assessed in comparison to a gold standard real-time reverse transcriptase–PCR method. MethodsThe study was conducted following a nonprobability sampling of ≥16-year-old volunteers from three different laboratories, using direct mouthwash (N = 24) or nasopharyngeal (N = 191) clinical samples. ResultsThe assay demonstrated 95.19% sensitivity and 100% specificity for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in direct nasopharyngeal crude samples and 78.95% sensitivity and 100% specificity in direct mouthwash crude samples. It also successfully detected currently predominant SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (Beta B.1.351, Delta B.1.617.2, and Omicron B.1.1.529) and demonstrated to be inert against potential cross-reactions of other common respiratory pathogens that cause infections that present similar symptoms to COVID-19. ConclusionThis lab-on-phone pocket-sized assay relies on an isothermal amplification of SARS-CoV-2’s N and E genes, taking just 50 minutes from sample to result, with only 2 minutes of hands-on time. It presents good performance when using direct nasopharyngeal crude samples, enabling a low-cost, real-time, rapid, and accurate identification of SARS-CoV-2 infections at the point of care, which is important for both clinical management and population screening, as a tool to break the chain of transmission of COVID-19 pandemic, especially in low-resources environments.

Relationship between the Chinese Main Air Transport Network and COVID-19 Pandemic Transmission

The COVID-19 pandemic had an unprecedented impact on the civil aviation passenger transport industry. This study analyzes the scale change and spatial distribution of the Chinese main air transport network (CMATN) and its role in the early spread of the pandemic using a complex network analysis method and econometric model. The result shows that CMATN is mainly located in the economically developed and densely populated central and eastern regions of China. The normalized degree, closeness, and betweenness centralities of CMATN node cities show an overall increasing trend, indicating that the air transport network is constantly improving. There was a significant positive relationship between the centrality of node cities, the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the number of confirmed cases, indicating that air transport networks were crucial in the pandemic’s early spread. Furthermore, social and economic variables such as GDP and population had a significant positive impact on the duration of the pandemic, indicating that higher levels of social and economic development increased the seriousness of the pandemic. Our findings are expected to supplement existing research and serve as a point of reference for pandemic prevention and control.

The indirect impact of control measures in COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of other infectious diseases in China

ObjectivesDuring COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, China, some public health measures of forced lockdown, closure of school and public meeting places, staying at home, transportation stop, masks wearing, hands washing, environmental disinfection were taken on to control epidemic transmission, these measures have made indirect affect on the other infectious diseases incidence. Study designDuring COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, we retrospectively analyzed and compared reported cases of other infectious diseases,in order to found what impact of measures in controlling COVID-19 pandemic on the other infectious diseases in China. MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed and compared reported cases of measles, pertussis, scarlet fever, seasonal influenza, mumps, HFMD each month in 2018, 2019 and 2020 from the National Health Commission, PRC. ResultsCases of measles, pertussis, scarlet fever, seasonal influenza, mumps and HFMD in January 2020 were not declined, or even increased compare to 2018 and 2019, but from February to December 2020, began to drop significantly compare with the cases of 2018 and 2019. However, seasonal influenza cases in 2020 were more than in 2018. ConclusionIt shown that how important scientific measures are taken to cut off COVID-19 pandemic transmission, However, these taken measures have led to indirect impact on the diffusion of other infectious diseases, led to measles, pertussis, scarlet fever, seasonal influenza, mumps, HFMD declined.

Semi-nested RT-PCR enables sensitive and high-throughput detection of SARS-CoV-2 based on melting analysis

BackgroundAsymptomatic transmission was found to be the Achilles’ heel of the symptom-based screening strategy, necessitating the implementation of mass testing to efficiently contain the transmission of COVID-19 pandemic. However, the global shortage of molecular reagents and the low throughput of available realtime PCR facilities were major limiting factors. MethodsA novel semi-nested and heptaplex (7-plex) RT-PCR assay with melting analysis for detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA has been established for either individual testing or 96-sample pooled testing. The complex melting spectrum collected from the heptaplex RT-PCR amplicons was interpreted with the support of an artificial intelligence algorithm for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA. The analytical and clinical performance of the semi-nested RT-PCR assay was evaluated using RNAs synthesized in-vitro and those isolated from nasopharyngeal samples. ResultsThe LOD of the assay for individual testing was estimated to be 7.2 copies/reaction. Clinical performance evaluation indicated a sensitivity of 100% (95% CI: 97.83–100) and a specificity of 99.87% (95% CI: 99.55–99.98). More importantly, the assay supports a breakthrough sample pooling method, which makes possible parallel screening of up to 96 samples in one real-time PCR well without loss of sensitivity. As a result, up to 8,820 individual pre-amplified samples could be screened for SARS-CoV-2 within each 96-well plate of realtime PCR using the pooled testing procedure. ConclusionThe novel semi-nested RT-PCR assay provides a solution for highly multiplex (7-plex) detection of SARS-CoV-2 and enables 96-sample pooled detection for increase of testing capacity..

Decision-making framework for identifying regions vulnerable to transmission of COVID-19 pandemic

At the beginning of 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified an unusual coronavirus and declared the associated COVID-19 disease as a global pandemic. We proposed a novel hybrid fuzzy decision-making framework to identify and analyze these transmission factors and conduct proactive decision-making in this context. We identified thirty factors from the extant literature and classified them into six major clusters (climate, hygiene and safety, responsiveness to decision-making, social and demographic, economic, and psychological) with the help of domain experts. We chose the most relevant twenty-five factors using the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM) screening from the initial thirty. We computed the weights of those clusters and their constituting factors and ranked them based on their criticality, applying the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP). We found that the top five factors were global travel, delay in travel restriction, close contact, social cohesiveness, and asymptomatic. To evaluate our framework, we chose ten different geographically located cities and analyzed their exposure to COVID-19 pandemic by ranking them based on their vulnerability of transmission using Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity To Ideal Solution (FTOPSIS). Our study contributes to the disciplines of decision analytics and healthcare risk management during a pandemic through these novel findings. Policymakers and healthcare officials will benefit from our study by formulating and improving existing preventive measures to mitigate future global pandemics. Finally, we performed a sequence of sensitivity analyses to check for the robustness and generalizability of our proposed hybrid decision-making framework.

Indonesian Muslim Tradition during COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The majority of Indonesians are Muslim (87%) scattered in each province. They celebrated Eid al-Fitr at the end of May 2020 along with the COVID-19 pandemic that has not ended yet. The tradition of celebrating Eid day is contradictive to the COVID-19 transmission prevention efforts that prohibit people from the crowd, prohibit having activities outside of their houses, and limit human mobilization. Even the president has imposed a ban on mudik Lebaran (coming back to hometown) due to the prediction of massive human migration. The handling of the COVID-19 pandemic requires participation of all parties, including the central government, regional governments, local leaders, the private sector, and the whole community. Objective: This study aims to describe the Indonesian Muslim tradition related to the prevention of the transmission of COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This was quantitative research with a cross-sectional design. Data were collected a day before Eid day. There were 246 Muslims in Central Java province as respondents. Variables in this study were respondent characteristics (age, sex, educational level, occupation, and economic level) and Muslim Eid Al-Fitr tradition such as mudik tradition, Eid shopping needs, silaturahmi tradition, and Eid praying. This study also identified the respondents’ practice in preventing COVID-19 transmission. All variables were analyzed descriptively to explain how Muslims conducted their tradition during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: COVID-19 pandemic caused most Muslims not to celebrate Eid as usual. They had to be far away from their families. On the other hand, the tradition to visit the tombs of the ancestors was also maintained by Javanese people and had become a habitual culture. Carelessness and disobedience against health protocols during a pandemic might bring fatal consequences to themselves and others. Conclusion: Most Muslims were discouraged from mudik, silaturahmi, and performing Eid prayer in a congregation in the mosque. They encountered difficulties to keep physical distancing due to people around did not exercise physical distancing for themselves.

Transmission of COVID-19 pandemic (Turkey) associated with short-term exposure of air quality and climatological parameters.

The study aims to investigate associations between air pollution, climate parameters, and the diffusion of COVID-19-confirmed cases in Turkey using Spearman's correlation test as an empirical methodology by Statgraphics Centurion XVI (version 16.1) and to determine the risk factors accelerating the spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus. The present study demonstrates the strong impacts of air pollutants and weather conditions on the transmission of COVID-19 morbidity. Particularly, O3 and PM10 from air quality parameters exhibited the strongest correlation with the number of daily cases in Kütahya (rs = -0.62; p < 0.05) and Sivas (rs = -0.62; p < 0.05) provinces, respectively. In meteorological parameters, rainfall showed the highest impact (rs = 0.76; p < 0.05) on the number of daily COVID-19 cases in Denizli distinct. Moreover, this study suggested that the diffusion of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in regions with high levels of air pollution and low wind speed is dominant. To prevent the negative effects of the future pandemic crisis on public health and economic systems, manifold implications to encourage strategies to reduce air pollution in the polluted region such as being prevalent the usage of renewable energy technologies in particular electricity generation and sustainable policies such as improving the health system should be implemented by decision-makers.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11356-021-18403-4.

Exploring health impact and safety measures against transmission of COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia.

The pandemic of Covid-19 at the global level cannot be underestimated. Arab world including Saudi Arabia is affected with the pandemic of Covid-19. More importantly, the surge of the numbers of infected individuals in Iran has brought fear and anxiety in the whole region in general and Saudi Arabia in particular. Several studies have investigated the prevalence of the virus in different countries from various perspectives. Nonetheless, little focus is given to academic research on health challenge of the virus resulting to fear and anxiety in the recent time in the context of Saudi Arabia. This study primarily aims at exploring the health effect of Covid-19 in Saudi Arabia despite the fact that, the World Health Organization (WHO) has clamored for preventive measures in addressing global health effect of the virus. The methodology of the study is systematic literature review (SLR) and content analysis of the secondary data on health impact of Covid-19 and preventive measures against its transmission in the country are critically analyzed. The results of secondary data of the study indicated that a number of confirmed cases, active cases and deaths in Saudi Arabia manifested negative impact of Covid-19 on citizens’ health especially fear and anxiety despite the fact that records have showed steady recovered cases in the country. More specifically, the findings indicated that, health impact of Covid-19 are as follows namely: fear or anxiety, negative attitude among health workers and women in health workforce. Similarly, Saudi Arabia has put in place various preventive measures such as: preventive measures against transmission of Covid-19 which are as follows: institutional preparedness and strengthening mechanism, curfews and lockdowns and suspension of activities and order of social distancing. In conclusion, this paper has lucidly highlighted the health effect of Covid-19 and safety measures against the transmission of Covid-19 have been elaborated in the context of Saudi Arabia. It is thereby suggested that, the outcome of this study can be helpful to the health workers and policymakers in the country to be acquainted with the magnanimity of the novel coronavirus as well as putting effective safety mechanisms in place in curtailing the spread of Covid-19 in Saudi Arabia. Significance for public health The present paper represents the health effect of Covid-19 and safety measures against the transmission of Covid-19 have been elaborated in the context of Saudi Arabia. The finding of the paper demonstrates the negative impact of Covid-19 among populace. The importance of the topic is that it would guide the health workers and policymakers to be acquainted with the magnanimity of the novel coronavirus as well as putting effective safety mechanism in place in curtailing the spread of Covid-19 in Saudi Arabia.

A Global Survey of Infection Control and Mitigation Measures for Combating the Transmission of COVID-19 Pandemic in Buildings Under Facilities Management Services

Facilities management along with health care are two important aspects in controlling the spread of infectious diseases with regard to controlling the outbreak of global COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, with the increasing outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of examining the relationship between the built environment and the outbreak of infectious diseases has become more significant. The aim of the research described in this article is to develop effective infection control and mitigation measures to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 pandemic in the built environment. This study seeks to answer the question of how the facilities management industry can help reduce the transmission of coronavirus. For this purpose, an online survey questionnaire was distributed internationally from 8 April to 25 July, 2020 to collect data from various key stakeholders. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS software. Various methods for the prevention and control of infectious diseases transmission are evaluated through this questionnaire-based survey with regard to their effectiveness for the healthy and safe built environment. These methods were categorized into three groups, including training protocols, operation and maintenance, and design and construction. The results show that all suggested methods have a positive effect on all types of buildings. These methods have an equal effect on low-risk buildings, while for high and very high-risk buildings, training protocols and design and construction measures have the greatest impact. In addition, training protocols and the measures in operation and maintenance will have the greatest effect on medium-risk buildings. The results can help in more rational decision making in relation to controlling the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in all types of buildings.

Potential Contribution of Climate Conditions on COVID-19 Pandemic Transmission over West and North African Countries

COVID-19, caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a very contagious disease that has killed many people worldwide. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the spread of the disease appears to be slower in Africa. Although several studies have been published on the relationship between meteorological parameters and COVID-19 transmission, the effects of climate conditions on COVID-19 remain largely unexplored and without consensus. However, the transmission of COVID-19 and sensitivity to climate conditions are also not fully understood in Africa. Here, using available epidemiological data over 275 days (i.e., from 1 March to 30 November 2020) taken from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control of the European Union database and daily data of surface air temperature specific humidity and water vapor from the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), this paper investigates the potential contribution of climate conditions on COVID-19 transmission over 16 selected countries throughout three climatic regions of Africa (i.e., Sahel, Maghreb, and Gulf of Guinea). The results highlight statistically significant inverse correlations between COVID-19 cases and temperature over the Maghreb and the Gulf of Guinea regions. In contrast, positive correlations are found over the Sahel area, especially in the central part, including Niger and Mali. Correlations with specific humidity and water vapor parameters display significant and positive values over the Sahelian and the Gulf of Guinea countries and negative values over the Maghreb countries. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic transmission is influenced differently across the three climatic regions: (i) cold and dry environmental conditions over the Maghreb; (ii) warm and humid conditions over the Sahel; and (iii) cold and humid conditions over the Gulf of Guinea. In addition, for all three climatic regions, even though the climate impact has been found to be significant, its effect appears to display a secondary role based on the explanatory power variance compared to non-climatic factors assumed to be dominated by socio-economic factors and early strong public health measures.