The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated the development of robust tools for tracking and modeling the spread of the virus. We present 'K-Track-Covid,' an interactive web-based dashboard developed using the R Shiny framework, to offer users an intuitive dashboard for analyzing the geographical and temporal spread of COVID-19 in South Korea. Our dashboard employs dynamic user interface elements, employs validated epidemiological models, and integrates regional data to offer tailored visual displays.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel SARS-COV-2 virus poses a great risk to the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, observing and forecasting several important indicators of the epidemic (like new confirmed cases, new cases in intensive care unit, and new deaths for each day) helped prepare the appropriate response (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVaccine development is one of the key efforts to control the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, it has become apparent that the immunity acquired through vaccination is not permanent, known as the waning effect. Therefore, monitoring the proportion of the population with immunity is essential to improve the forecasting of future waves of the pandemic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In the absence of an effective treatment method or vaccine, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic elicited a wide range of unprecedented restriction policies aimed at mitigating and suppressing the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These policies and their Stringency Index (SI) of more than 160 countries were systematically recorded in the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) data set. The SI is a summary measure of the overall strictness of these policies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Public Health
December 2022
The global outbreak of COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus elicited immense global interest in the development and distribution of safe COVID-19 vaccines by various governments and researchers, capable of stopping the spread of COVID-19 disease. After COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, several vaccines have been developed for emergency use authorization. The accelerated development of the vaccines was attributed to many factors but mainly by capitalizing on years of research and technology development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe outbreak of novel COVID-19 disease elicited a wide range of anti-contagion and economic policies like school closure, income support, contact tracing, and so forth, in the mitigation and suppression of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, a systematic evaluation of these policies has not been made. Here, 17 implemented policies from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker dataset employed in 90 countries from December 31, 2019, to August 31, 2020, were analyzed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
July 2021
The outbreak of the novel COVID-19, declared a global pandemic by WHO, is the most serious public health threat seen in terms of respiratory viruses since the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic. It is surprising that the total number of COVID-19 confirmed cases and the number of deaths has varied greatly across countries. Such great variations are caused by age population, health conditions, travel, economy, and environmental factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), predictive modeling, in the literature, uses broadly susceptible exposed infected recoverd (SEIR)/SIR, agent-based, curve-fitting models. Governments and legislative bodies rely on insights from prediction models to suggest new policies and to assess the effectiveness of enforced policies. Therefore, access to accurate outbreak prediction models is essential to obtain insights into the likely spread and consequences of infectious diseases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNovel biomarkers for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer (PC) are necessary to improve prognosis. We aimed to discover candidate biomarkers by identifying compositional differences of microbiome between patients with PC (n = 38) and healthy controls (n = 52), using microbial extracellular vesicles (EVs) acquired from blood samples. Composition analysis was performed using 16S rRNA gene analysis and bacteria-derived EVs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
February 2021
Since the outbreak of novel SARS-COV-2, each country has implemented diverse policies to mitigate and suppress the spread of the virus. However, no systematic evaluation of these policies in their alleviation of the pandemic has been done. We investigate the impact of five indices derived from 12 policies in the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker dataset and the Korean government's index, which is the social distancing level implemented by the Korean government in response to the changing pandemic situation.
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