The effect of the definition of ‘pandemic’ on quantitative assessments of infectious disease outbreak risk

Singer, Benjamin J; Thompson, Robin N; Bonsall, Michael B.

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-81814-3

Cited by 29 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…There is no unambiguous strict definition of an epidemic wave or a specific threshold of cases that marks the beginning of a new wave or just a phase of the previous one in recurrences [ 17 ]. Even if operational definitions have been proposed, pandemic waves should not be simplified as incidence curves [ 18 ] since other indicators are needed to interpret and create prediction models, considering under-ascertainment and indicators’ limits [ 19 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrative Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic’s First Two Years in Italy

Beccia

Pilla

Causio

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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Italy was the first country in the western world to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, arguably among the worst-affected ones, counting 12 million cases and 150 thousand deaths two years since the first case. Facing new challenges, Italy has enacted different strategies and policies to limit the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and treat those affected by COVID-19. This narrative review provided an overview of factors, measures, and actions that shaped Italy’s first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic by investigating epidemiological data and using a mixed-method approach. This narrative review aimed to summarize the most relevant aspects and measures and analyze available data to provide policymakers and healthcare providers with the instruments to learn from this pandemic and improve their preparedness for future pandemic events. The first two years of the pandemic differ in that, during the first year, significant necessary changes to the way health systems were organized were implemented, increasing healthcare spending and adopting social and physical distancing measures that were stricter than the ones adopted in the second year. However, as the pandemic progressed, increased knowledge of the virus and related variants, as well as the introduction of highly effective vaccines, which were not equally available to the whole population, resulted in a stratification of COVID-19 infections and deaths based on factors such as age, vaccination status, and individual susceptibility to the virus.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrative Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic’s First Two Years in Italy

Beccia

Pilla

Causio

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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“…Our model adopted a star network topology [28,29] to represent the contacts between the first generation and the susceptible employees. The central hub of the network represents the firstgeneration cases who arrive at the workplace.…”

Section: Network Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

A stochastic contact network model for assessing outbreak risk of COVID-19 in workplaces

Gupta

Sampat

et al. 2022

PLoS ONE

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The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically shifted the way people work. While many businesses can operate remotely, a large number of jobs can only be performed on-site. Moreover as businesses create plans for bringing workers back on-site, they are in need of tools to assess the risk of COVID-19 for their employees in the workplaces. This study aims to fill the gap in risk modeling of COVID-19 outbreaks in facilities like offices and warehouses. We propose a simulation-based stochastic contact network model to assess the cumulative incidence in workplaces. First-generation cases are introduced as a Bernoulli random variable using the local daily new case rate as the success rate. Contact networks are established through randomly sampled daily contacts for each of the first-generation cases and successful transmissions are established based on a randomized secondary attack rate (SAR). Modification factors are provided for SAR based on changes in airflow, speaking volume, and speaking activity within a facility. Control measures such as mask wearing are incorporated through modifications in SAR. We validated the model by comparing the distribution of cumulative incidence in model simulations against real-world outbreaks in workplaces and nursing homes. The comparisons support the model’s validity for estimating cumulative incidences for short forecasting periods of up to 15 days. We believe that the current study presents an effective tool for providing short-term forecasts of COVID-19 cases for workplaces and for quantifying the effectiveness of various control measures. The open source model code is made available at github.com/abhineetgupta/covid-workplace-risk.

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“…An epidemic is typically more localized, affecting only a particular country or region, whereas a pandemic has a global impact Dicker, et al [11] and Kelly [12]. Nevertheless, this classical description of a pandemic ignores the severity of the spreading disease or societal immunity, so there is no consensus on what constitutes a pandemic, and different schools of thought exist based on these limitations [12,13]. Some argue that the name should be based on the severity of the disease and the number of deaths, while others believe it should be based on its spread rate.…”

Section: Epidemiological Disastersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epidemiological Disaster Management: Literature Survey and Analysis

Al-Kandari¹

2022

ijirss

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Epidemiological disasters can cause significant suffering and change lives, but how they are handled can have just as much of an impact. This research aims to shed light on epidemiological disaster management literature from multidisciplinary perspectives and analyze its development and trends. A total of 365 scholarly articles were analyzed for this study using a number of databases from various academic disciplines. Search Keywords included “pandemic disaster management,” “pandemic planning,” “pandemic preparedness,” “pandemic response,” and “pandemic recovery.” Consequently, this paper surveys the literature and presents a brief background on epidemiological disasters and their management, a descriptive and inferential analysis of studies on the subject matter, a discussion of relevant issues, and suggested potential research directions for those interested. The analysis reveals that traditional methods for managing epidemiological disasters primarily rely on medical principles and policies, with medical sciences accounting for the great majority of studies, followed by social sciences. Moreover, the majority of the research has focused on response and preparedness, while recovery has gotten relatively little attention in favor of these earlier phases. Accordingly, based on various strategies/approaches exploited by different countries to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and the trend of the existing body of research identified in this study, a paradigm shift in epidemiological disaster management is inevitable.

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The effect of the definition of ‘pandemic’ on quantitative assessments of infectious disease outbreak risk

Cited by 29 publications

References 72 publications

Narrative Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic’s First Two Years in Italy

Narrative Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic’s First Two Years in Italy

A stochastic contact network model for assessing outbreak risk of COVID-19 in workplaces

Epidemiological Disaster Management: Literature Survey and Analysis

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