Community Mitigation Guidelines to Prevent Pandemic Influenza - United States, 2017

Analytical investigation of compartmental models and measure for reactions of governments

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses a major threat to the worldwide health care. In this context, epidemic modelling is an integral part of containment strategies. Compartmental models are typically used for this purpose. Analytical solutions of the two distinct but connected Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered-Deceased (SIRD) and Susceptible-Infectious-Quarantine-Recovered (SIQR) models are presented in this study. Furthermore, the behaviour at the start of a disease outbreak is derived. This analysis shows that a combination of transmission, recovery and isolation rates dominates the behaviour at the start of an epidemic. In addition, the loss occurring due to quarantine and lockdown measures is investigated, where it can be observed that quarantine procedures lead to a smaller loss in comparison with lockdown regulations. Within this framework, optimized strategies that lead to a constant epidemic peak or a minimized loss are presented.

Socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from rural mountain community in Pakistan

This study examines the trend of the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Pakistan and to explore the community perception of the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 pandemic in a rural mountain area of Pakistan. An online survey was conducted through snowball sampling technique and total 367 people participated in the survey. The results of the study show that COVID-19 cases spiked amid ease of lockdown in the country and the spread of novel coronavirus pandemic has significant socioeconomic impact on the lives of mountain communities in Gilgit-Baltistan. Financial uncertainty, decrease in income, fear of job loss, and food insecurity are some major challenges that mountain communities face due to outbreak of coronavirus in the region. The results further show that lack of community cooperation with government agencies, lack of awareness about the severity of coronavirus, and insufficient COVID-19 testing kits are the major factors that caused the spread of coronavirus cases. This study suggests that the short-, medium-, and long-term policies are required to mitigate the consequences of this pandemic and to revitalize the mountain economy of Gilgit-Baltistan, and in this regard, this study provides baseline information for policy-makers and practitioners to devise such demanding policies.