Covid19-Sources

This chapter provides an initial assessment of the impact of COVID-19 and the resilience of European health systems to the pandemic, bearing in mind that the pandemic is ongoing and so any definitive assessment would be premature. As of 31 October, over 7 million people were infected and 220 000 died from the virus across EU countries, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. During the first wave, the virus had a much more adverse impact on a number of Western European countries, notably Belgium, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom, as well as Sweden. Since...

More than 300,000 of Belgium's 11 million people have COVID-19 right now. The president of Belgium's medical union tells DW how desperate and precarious the country's health system has become.

The tiny island nation brought huge scientific heft to its attempts to contain and study the coronavirus. Here’s what it learnt.

It’s not R.

The COVID-19 pandemic in the UK has been characterised by periods of exponential growth and decline, as different non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are brought into play. During the early uncontrolled phase of the outbreak (early March 2020) there was a period of prolonged exponential growth with epidemiological observations such as hospitalisation doubling every 3-4 days (growth rate r ≈ 0.2). The enforcement of strict lockdown measures led to a noticeable decline in all epidemic quantities ( r ≈ −0.06) that slowed during the summer as control measures were relaxed ( r ≈ −0.02). Sinc...

We can’t simply ‘cocoon’ our most vulnerable when they rely on others for care and services, say public health academics Devi Sridhar and Yasmin Rafiei

No matter what happens now, the virus will continue to circulate around the world.

HONG KONG — Humans may never develop immunity against Covid-19, according to new research on antibodies by Chinese and American scientists.

Politicians and Business Leaders: What Should You Do and When?

Die Bundesbürger sind sehr zufrieden mit der Performance ihres Landes in der Corona-Bekämpfung. Doch in anderen Staaten gelang manches noch besser.

And What Can Countries like the US or Netherlands Learn from It?

Unterschiede zwischen Individuen senkt die Anzahl der erforderlichen Infektionen für Herdenimmunität

Lower-income countries have recognized the potential impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from observing ongoing epidemics. Many have intervened quickly and early with measures to slow viral transmission, which may partly explain the low rates observed so far in these countries. Walker et al. calibrated a global model with country-specific data (see the Perspective by Metcalf et al. ). Despite the potentially protective effects of younger demographics, the closer intergenerational contact, limitations on health care facilities, and frequency of comorbidities in lower-income countri...

Regionale Verteilung der COVID-19-Fälle weltweit

Interaktive Karte zeigt die aktuellen Corona-Ansteckungszahlen in Deutschland nach Landkreisen und Bundesländern.

Recently, a new SARS-CoV-2 lineage called B.1.1.7 (variant of concern: VOC 202012/01) emerged in the United Kingdom that was reported to spread more efficiently and faster than other strains. This variant has an unusually large number of mutations with 10 amino acid changes in the spike protein, raising concerns that its recognition by neutralizing antibodies may be affected. Here, we tested SARS-CoV-2-S pseudoviruses bearing either the Wuhan reference strain or the B.1.1.7 lineage spike protein with sera of 40 participants who were vaccinated in a previously reported trial with the mRNA-ba...

"Priesemann"-Modell

Bayesian python toolbox for inference and forecast of the spread of the Coronavirus - Priesemann-Group/covid19_inference

SARS-CoV-2 Mutations and Variants of Interest

From infectious diseases to brain activity, complex systems can be approximated using autoregressive models. Here, the authors show that incomplete sampling can bias estimates of the stability of such systems, and introduce a novel, unbiased metric for use in such situations.

From February to April 2020, many countries introduced variations on social distancing measures to slow the ravages of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Publicly available data show that Germany has been particularly successful in minimizing death rates. Dehning et al. quantified three governmental interventions introduced to control the outbreak. The authors predicted that the third governmental intervention—a strict contact ban since 22 March—switched incidence from growth to decay. They emphasize that relaxation of controls must be done carefully, not only bec...

Test, trace, and isolate programmes are central to COVID-19 control. Here, Viola Priesemann and colleagues evaluate how to allocate scarce resources to keep numbers low, and find that if case numbers exceed test, trace and isolate capacity, there will be a self-accelerating spread.