Related papers: Did lockdowns serve their purpose?

The case fatality ratio (CFR) for COVID-19 is difficult to estimate. One difficulty is due to ignoring or overestimating time delay between reporting and death. We claim that all of these cause large errors and artificial time dependence of…

We use data from 107 Italian provinces to characterize and compare mortality patterns in the first two COVID-19 epidemic waves, which occurred prior to the introduction of vaccines. We also associate these patterns with mobility, timing of…

Epidemic spreading can be suppressed by the introduction of containment measures such as social distancing and lock downs. Yet, when such measures are relaxed, new epidemic waves and infection cycles may occur. Here we explore this issue in…

This paper analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on the populations and equity markets of 92 countries. We compare country-by-country equity market dynamics to cumulative COVID-19 case and death counts and new case trajectories. First, we examine…

Starting with the power law for the total number of detected infections, we propose differential equations describing the effect of momentum epidemic management. Our 2-phase formula matches very well the curves of the total numbers of the…

The number of deaths from car accidents and from the unlawful use of guns can be described by logistic growth curves. The annual rates of both have traced completed logistic trajectories following which they have been self-regulated for…

The effectiveness of face masks as a population level intervention against respiratory viral transmission remains contested. While a large observational literature published during the COVID-19 pandemic reported beneficial effects,…

Combinations of intense non-pharmaceutical interventions ('lockdowns') were introduced in countries worldwide to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Many governments have begun to implement lockdown exit strategies that allow restrictions to be…

We study the effectiveness of tracking and testing in mitigating or suppressing epidemic outbreaks, in combination with or as an alternative to quarantines and global lockdowns. We study these intervention methods on a network-based SEIR…

In this paper, we model the trajectory of the cumulative confirmed cases and deaths of COVID-19 (in log scale) via a piecewise linear trend model. The model naturally captures the phase transitions of the epidemic growth rate via…

We propose a simple rule of thumb for countries which have embarked on a vaccination campaign while still facing the need to keep non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) in place because of the ongoing spread of SARS-CoV-2. If the aim is to…

One of the critical measures to control infectious diseases is a lockdown. Once past the lockdown stage in many parts of the world, the crucial question now concerns the effects of relaxing the lockdown and finding the best ways to…

We study variants of the SEIR model for interpreting some qualitative features of the statistics of the Covid-19 epidemic in France. Standard SEIR models distinguish essentially two regimes: either the disease is controlled and the number…

Countries are recording health information on the global spread of COVID-19 using different methods, sometimes changing the rules after a few days. They are all publishing the number of new individuals infected, cured and dead, along with…

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all countries of the world producing a substantial number of fatalities accompanied by a major disruption in their social, financial, and educational organization. The strict disciplinary measures…

The spread of COVID-19 disease affected people's lives worldwide, particularly their travel behaviours and how they performed daily activities. During the first wave of the pandemic, spring 2020, countries adopted different strategies to…

Compliance with public health measures, such as restrictions on movement and socialization, is paramount in limiting the spread of diseases such as the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (also referred to as COVID-19). Although…

The rapid spread of COVID-19 has already affected human lives throughout the globe. Governments of different countries have taken various measures, but how they affected people lives is not clear. In this study, a rule-based and a…

Many countries have passed their first COVID-19 epidemic peak. Traditional epidemiological models describe this as a result of non-pharmaceutical interventions that pushed the growth rate below the recovery rate. In this new phase of the…

We analyze an approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic without shutting down the economy while staying within the capacity of the healthcare system. We base our analysis on a detailed heterogeneous epidemiological model, which takes into…