After the national lockdown imposed on March 11, 2020, the Italian government has gradually resumed the suspended economic and social activities since May 4, while maintaining the closure of schools until September 14. We use a model of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission to estimate the health impact of different exit strategies. The strategy adopted in Italy kept the reproduction number R at values close to one until the end of September, with marginal regional differences. Based on the estimated postlockdown transmissibility, reopening of workplaces in selected industrial activities might have had a minor impact on the transmissibility. Reopening educational levels in May up to secondary schools might have influenced SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility only marginally; however, including high schools might have resulted in a marked increase of the disease burden. Earlier reopening would have resulted in disproportionately higher hospitalization incidence. Given community contacts in September, we project a large second wave associated with school reopening in the fall.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2019617118 | DOI Listing |
BMC Infect Dis
January 2025
Yunnan Institute of Endemic Diseases Control and Prevention, Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory for Zoonosis Control and Prevention, Dali, Yunnan, 671000, China.
Background: Yunnan Province, located in the southwestern part of China and neighboring endemic dengue regions of Southeast Asia, has experienced annual autochthonous outbreaks of dengue fever from 2013 to 2023. This study examines the epidemiological and spatiotemporal clustering characteristics of dengue within the province.
Methods: Descriptive epidemiological methods were used to analyse outbreak characteristics.
J Infect
January 2025
Asia-Pacific Health, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, The Royal Children's Hospital, 50 Flemington Road, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia; Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne, The Royal Children's Hospital, 50 Flemington Road, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia. Electronic address:
Objectives: In this ecological study, we describe SARS-CoV-2 case incidence and COVID-19 hospitalisation and death rates for school-aged and adult populations during the Delta and early Omicron periods, before and after schools reopened in five countries.
Methods: Data were extracted from government websites. Cases and COVID-19 hospitalisation and death incidence rates were calculated during the Delta and early Omicron periods in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland and the United Kingdom, for two weeks preceding and six weeks after schools reopened.
Heart Lung
January 2025
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Pneumológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Rua Ramiro Barcelos, 2350, Sala 2050, CEP 90035-003, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil; Unidade de Fisiologia Pulmonar, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre - Rua Ramiro Barcelos, 2350, Sala 2050, CEP 90035-003, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
Background: Pulmonary function testing (PFT) is paramount in assessing patients with respiratory symptoms and chronic cardiopulmonary diseases. Although seminal studies have demonstrated that PFT generates aerosols, this simple observation does not confirm the potential for enhanced pathogen transmission.
Objective: We aimed to describe the frequency of patients who developed suspected symptoms of COVID-19, prompting SARS-CoV-2 testing after undergoing PFT during the reopening of a laboratory amid the deceleration of the pandemic.
J Appl Gerontol
January 2025
Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA.
During 2020-21, states established essential caregiver (EC) programs which allowed nursing home residents to receive in-person supports during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study presents comparative data on the designs of these programs. We conducted on-line searches for federal and states' nursing home visitation and reopening guidelines published in 2020-22.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoc Sci Med
December 2024
Department of Psychology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510006, China. Electronic address:
COVID-19 reopening of China in the context of the highly transmissible Omicron variant has resulted in an unprecedented wave of infections, placing significant strain on healthcare systems and giving rise to a range of psychological responses, including perceptions of the pandemic's threat, emotional reactions, and prosocial intentions amid moral conflicts over medical resource scarcity and evolving public health responses. This study employed a comprehensive approach integrating surveys, behavioral experiments, and agent-based modeling (ABM) to examine these psychological impacts of COVID-19 reopening. A total of 1,675 participants from 34 Chinese provinces completed the surveys, with 587 also undertaking the reversal-learning task.
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