Related papers: School reopening should be guided by solid evidenc…

We propose a simple SIR model in order to investigate the impact of various confinement strategies on a most virulent epidemic. Our approach is motivated by the current COVID-19 pandemic. The main hypothesis is the existence of two…

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2020. Currently, there are no vaccines or treatments that have been approved after clinical…

The dataset described in this paper contains daily data about COVID-19 cases that occurred in Italy over the period from Jan. 28, 2020 to March 20, 2021, divided into ten age classes of the population, the first class being 0-9 years, the…

In the present article we introduce an epidemiological model for the investigation of the spread of epidemics caused by viruses. The model is applied specifically to COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-Cov-2 virus (aka "novel…

Social distancing strategies have been adopted by governments to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, since the first outbreak began. However, further epidemic waves keep out the return of economic and social activities to their standard levels of…

This study aims to statistically assess the effectiveness of vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. It is indispensable to investigate the relationship between Covid-19 deadliness and vaccination in order to study the impact of vaccine in…

The infection fatality rate (IFR) of COVID-19 is one of the measures of disease impact that can be of importance for policy making. Here we show that many of the studies on which these estimates are based are scientifically flawed for…

Purpose: In this study we propose to identify significant economic, political, and social factors that helped contribute to the incidence and mortality of SARS-CoV-2 around the world during the first seven months of the COVID-19 pandemic.…

When a new infectious disease (or a new strain of an existing one) emerges, as in the recent COVID-19 pandemic, different types of mobility restrictions are considered to slow down or mitigate the spread of the disease. The measures to be…

Susceptible-Invective-Recovered (SIR) mathematical models are in high demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They are used in their standard formulation, or through the many variants, trying to fit and hopefully predict the number of new…

This paper presents a critical analysis of the literature and perspective research ideas for modeling the epidemics caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It goes beyond deterministic population dynamics to consider several key complexity features…

Assessing the economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic and public health policies is essential for a rapid recovery. In this paper, we analyze the impact of mobility contraction on furloughed workers and excess deaths in Italy. We provide a…

Due to its high lethality amongst the elderly, the safety of nursing homes has been of central importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. With test procedures becoming available at scale, such as antigen or RT-LAMP tests, and increasing…

The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been holding the world hostage for more than a year now. Mobility is key to viral spreading and its restriction is the main non-pharmaceutical interventions to fight the virus expansion. Previous works…

COVID-19 vaccines are highly efficacious at preventing symptomatic infection, severe disease, and death. Most of the evidence that COVID-19 vaccines also reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is based on retrospective, observational studies.…

The rapid spread of the new SARS-CoV-2 virus triggered a global health crisis disproportionately impacting people with pre-existing health conditions and particular demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. One of the main concerns of…

We recently described a dynamic causal model of a COVID-19 outbreak within a single region. Here, we combine several of these (epidemic) models to create a (pandemic) model of viral spread among regions. Our focus is on a second wave of new…

Understanding how widely COVID-19 has spread is critical for examining the pandemic's progression. Despite efforts to carefully monitor the pandemic, the number of confirmed cases may underestimate the total number of infections. We…

We introduce a new probabilistic model to estimate the real spread of the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus along regions or countries. Our model simulates the behavior of each individual in a population according to a probabilistic model through an…

We analyze the management of the Italian pandemic during the five identified waves. We considered the following problems: (i) The composition of the CTS ("Scientific Technical Committee"), which was composed entirely of doctors, mainly…