Related papers: Germany's current COVID-19 crisis is mainly driven…
Progress of the COVID-19 pandemic was quantified, in the first instance, using the daily number of positive cases recorded by the national public health authorities. Averaged over a seven-day window, the daily incidence of COVID-19 in…
In order to slow the spread of the CoViD-19 pandemic, governments around the world have enacted a wide set of policies limiting the transmission of the disease. Initially, these focused on non-pharmaceutical interventions; more recently,…
Aims: Nonpharmaceutical interventions against the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Germany included the cancellation of mass events (from March 8), closures of schools and child day care facilities (from March 16) as well as a "lockdown" (from March…
Given limited supply of approved vaccines and constrained medical resources, design of a vaccination strategy to control a pandemic is an economic problem. We use time-series and panel methods with real-world country-level data to estimate…
How will the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic develop in the coming months and years? Based on an expert survey, we examine key aspects that are likely to influence COVID-19 in Europe. The future challenges and developments will…
In this position paper, a large group of interdisciplinary experts outlines response strategies against the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the winter of 2021/2022 in Germany. We review the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic, from incidence and…
Background: There is uncertainty about the role of different age groups in propagating the SARS-CoV-2 epidemics in different countries. Methods: We used the Koch Institute data on COVID-19 cases in Germany. To minimize the effect of changes…
Since the primary mode of respiratory virus transmission is person-to-person interaction, we are required to reconsider physical interaction patterns to mitigate the number of people infected with COVID-19. While research has shown that…
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disturbance to human life. An important reason behind the widespread social anxiety is the huge uncertainty about the pandemic. A fundamental uncertainty is how many or what percentage of people have…
Countries around the world implement nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Design of efficient NPIs requires identification of the structure of the disease transmission network. We here identify the key…
Vaccines are among the most powerful tools used to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. They are highly effective against infection and substantially reduce the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, ICU admission, and death. However, their…
Since the beginning of March 2020, the cumulative numbers of cases of infection with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in Germany have been reported on a daily basis. The reports originate from national laws, according to which positive test…
In late 2019, the gravest pandemic in a century began spreading across the world. A state of uncertainty related to what has become known as SARS-CoV-2 has since fueled conspiracy narratives on social media about the origin, transmission…
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented global public health challenge. In the United States (US), state governments have implemented various non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), such as physical distance…
This article is a reproduction of a Fraunhofer ITWM report from 28 June 2021 on the contribution of various non-pharmaceutical measures in breaking the 3rd Corona wave in Germany. The main finding is that testing contributed more to the…
The Covid-19 pandemic still causes severe impacts on society and the economy. This paper studies excess mortality during the pandemic years 2020 and 2021 in Germany empirically with a special focus on the life insurer's perspective. Our…
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…
A second wave of SARS-CoV-2 is unfolding in dozens of countries. However, this second wave manifests itself strongly in new reported cases, but less in death counts compared to the first wave. Over the past three months in Germany, the…
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused over 6.4 million registered deaths to date and has had a profound impact on economic activity. Here, we study the interaction of transmission, mortality, and the economy during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic from…
Background: There is a lack of population-based studies on the effectiveness and durability of the SARS-CoV-2-induced immune protection during the Omicron wave. Methods: This retrospective study included 470 159 cases aged 60 years or…