The social cost of contacts: Theory and evidence for the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Quaas MF
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7978372 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Proteomic Ig-SEQ identification of SARS-COV-2 specific antibodies from serum of two convalescent patients during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Total IgG was isolated from serum, digested with IdeS protease to generate F(ab)2 fragments, and subjected to antigen affinity chromatography using agarose beads coupled with SARS-COV-2 spike protein. Purified F(ab)2 fragments were reduced, alkylated, and digested with trypsin prior to LC-MSMS analysis on an Orbitrap Fusion Lumos mass spectrometer. Resulting peptide IDs were used to identify IgG clonotypes in antigen-specific and flow-through fractions.
2024-01-26 | PXD046829 | Pride
Project description:The extraordinary COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most severe disruptions of human life since the end of World War II, even in rich and industrialized countries like Germany. The introduction of a rather comprehensive "lockdown" and the restriction of multiple basic civil rights have affected the population in many areas of life, like employment, economic prosperity, health and trust in public institutions. The question arises how life satisfaction is influenced by these measures in detail and whether there are interactions between institutional trust, life satisfaction and time of crisis. Fixed-effect regression analyses using German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) data demonstrate that life satisfaction has fallen sharply after the onset of the crisis and that interaction effects with institutional trust are present. Individuals with low levels of pre-crisis trust in institutions like the government, courts or the media report a stronger decrease of satisfaction than individuals with higher levels of trust. We believe that these results are relevant to explain the role of institutions in times of crisis and might serve as foundations for interventions to strengthen trust and increase overall satisfaction.
| S-EPMC8326641 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Since the Covid-19 outbreak, pandemic-specific stressors have potentiated the-already severe-stress load across the world. However, stress is more than an adverse state, and chronic exposure is causally involved in the development of mental and physical disease. We ask the question whether resilience and the Big Five personality traits predict the biological stress response to the first lockdown in Germany. In a prospective, longitudinal, observational study, N = 80 adult volunteers completed an internet-based survey prior to the first Covid-19-related fatality in Germany (T0), during the first lockdown period (T1), and during the subsequent period of contact restrictions (T2). Hair strands for the assessment of systemic cortisol and cortisone levels were collected at T2. Higher neuroticism predicted higher hair cortisol, cortisone and subjective stress levels. Higher extraversion predicted higher hair cortisone levels. Resilience showed no effects on subjective or physiological stress markers. Our study provides longitudinal evidence that neuroticism and extraversion have predictive utility for the accumulation of biological stress over the course of the pandemic. While in pre-pandemic times individuals high in neuroticism are typically at risk for worse health outcomes, extraverted individuals tend to be protected. We conclude that, in the pandemic context, we cannot simply generalize from pre-pandemic knowledge. Neurotic individuals may currently suffer due to their general emotional lability. Extraverted individuals may primarily be socially stressed. Individualized stress management programs need to be developed, and offered in a lockdown-friendly format, to minimize the stress burden caused by Covid-19 or future pandemics and to protect the most severely affected individuals from the development of stress-associated disease.
| S-EPMC8401367 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectivesTo measure the effect of social distancing on reducing daily deaths, infections and hospital resources needed for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients during the first wave of the pandemic in Nordic countries.MethodsThe observations of social distancing, daily deaths, infections along with the needed hospital resources for COVID-19 patient hospitalizations including the numbers of all hospital beds, beds needed in ICUs and infection wards, nursing staffs needed in ICUs and infection wards were collected from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) by the University of Washington. The observations of social distancing were based on the reduction in human contact relative to background levels for each location quantified by cell phone mobility data collected from IHME. The weighted data per 100,000 population gathered in a 40-day period of the first wave of the pandemic in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Statistical technique of panel data analysis is used to measure the associations between social distancing and COVID-19 indicators in long-run.ResultsResults of dynamic long-run models confirm that a 1% rise in social distancing by reducing human contacts may decline daily deaths, daily infections, all hospital beds needed, beds/nurses needed in ICUs and beds/nurses needed in infection wards due COVID-19 pandemic by 1.13%, 15.26%, 1.10%, 1.17% and 1.89%, respectively. Moreover, results of error correction models verify that if the equilibriums between these series are disrupted by a sudden change in social distancing, the lengths of restoring back to equilibrium are 67, 62, 40, 22 and 49 days for daily deaths, daily infections, all hospital beds needed, nurses/beds needed in ICUs and nurses/beds needed in infection wards, respectively.ConclusionProper social distancing was a successful policy for tackling COVID-19 with falling mortality and infection rates as well as the needed hospital resources for patient hospitalizations in Nordic countries. The results alert governments of the need for continuously implementing social distancing policies while using vaccines to prevent national lockdowns and reduce the burden of patient hospitalizations.
| S-EPMC7975574 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The global COVID-19 pandemic poses challenges to the economy, politics and public health systems of developed and developing countries alike. However, the latter are less well placed to cope with adverse effects. In particular, important advances towards sustainable development might be reversed. Tackling the pandemic and its effects therefore requires global cooperation as well as solidarity in the form of development assistance. Yet, support for development assistance among donor publics might be dampened by individual health-related and economic worries as well as decreasing trust in government during the pandemic. Against this backdrop, we investigate the possible effect of pandemic-induced worries on public support for development assistance as well as the moderating role of moral considerations and trust in government. Drawing on literature on aid attitudes, and using survey data for Germany provided by the COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO) project from April 2020 (N = 1,006), our analyses show that neither health-related nor economic worries are associated with less support for providing development assistance during the first wave of the pandemic. However, we observe a marginal interaction between health-related worries and trust in government in predicting support for development assistance. For those with high levels of trust in government the effect of worry regarding the loss of friends or relatives on support for development assistance is positive, whereas it is close to zero for those with low levels of trust. We conclude that at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic there was little need for concern by policy-makers endorsing development assistance as neither form of worry correlated negatively with public support for development assistance and trust was high. However, when worries recur and trust in government simultaneously decreases, public support for global solidarity may wane.
| S-EPMC8446708 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The COVID-19 pandemic has kept the world in suspense for the past year. In most federal countries such as Germany, locally varying conditions demand for state- or county-level decisions to adapt to the disease dynamics. However, this requires a deep understanding of the mesoscale outbreak dynamics between microscale agent models and macroscale global models. Here, we use a reparameterized SIQRD network model that accounts for local political decisions to predict the spatiotemporal evolution of the pandemic in Germany at county resolution. Our optimized model reproduces state-wise cumulative infections and deaths as reported by the Robert Koch Institute and predicts the development for individual counties at convincing accuracy during both waves in spring and fall of 2020. We demonstrate the dominating effect of local infection seeds and identify effective measures to attenuate the rapid spread. Our model has great potential to support decision makers on a state and community politics level to individually strategize their best way forward during the months to come.
| S-EPMC8493548 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundDuring the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic various ambulatory health care models (SARS-CoV-2 contact points: Subspecialised Primary Care Practices, Fever Clinics, and Special Places for Corona-Testing) were organised in a short period in Baden-Wuerttemberg, a region in Southern Germany. The aim of these SARS-CoV-2 contact points was to ensure medical treatment for patients with (suspected) and without SARS-CoV-2 infection. The present study aimed to assess the beliefs and practices of primary care physicians who either led a Subspecialised Primary Care Practice or a Primary Care Practice providing care as usual in Baden-Wuerttemberg during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was based on a paper-based questionnaire in primary care physicians during the first wave of the pandemic. Participants were identified via the web page of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians Baden-Wuerttemberg. The questionnaire was distributed in June and July 2020. It measured knowledge, practices, self-efficacy and fears towards SARS-CoV-2, using newly developed questions. Data was descriptively analysed.ResultsOne hundred fifty-five participants (92 leads of SARS-CoV-2 contact points/ 63 leads of primary care practices) completed the questionnaire. Out of 92 leads of SARS-CoV-2 contact points 74 stated to lead n Subspecialised Primary Care Practices. About half participants of both groups did not fear an own infection with the novel virus (between 50.8% and 62.2%), however about 75% feared financial loss. Knowledge was gained using various sources; main sources were the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (between 82.5% and 83.8%) and the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology (RKI) (between 88.9% and 95.9%). Leads of Subspecialised Primary Care Practice felt more confident to perform anamnestic/diagnostic procedures (p < 0.001). The same was found for the confidence level regarding decision-making concerning the further treatment (p < 0.001). Several prevention measures to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 were adopted. Subspecialised Primary Care Practice had treated on average more patients with (suspected) COVID-19 (mean 408.12) than primary care practices (mean 83.8) (p < 0.001).ConclusionThe results of this study suggest that the Subspecialised Primary Care Practice that were implemented during the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic contributed containment of the pandemic. Leads of Subspecialised Primary Care Practice indicated that physical separation of patients with potential SARS-CoV-2 infection was easier compared to those who continued working in their own practice. Additionally, leads of Subspecialised Primary Care Practice felt more confident in dealing with patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection.Trial registrationThe study has been prospectively registered at the German Clinical Trial Register (DRKS00022224).
| S-EPMC8099434 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background: The first wave of COVID-19 pandemic may have significantly impacted antimicrobial consumption in hospitals. The objective of this study was to assess the evolution of antimicrobial consumption during this period.Methods: A retrospective quasi-experimental before-after study was conducted in a Spanish tertiary care hospital. The study compared two periods: pre-pandemic, from January 2018 to February 2020, and during the COVID-19 pandemic from March to June 2020. Antimicrobial consumption was analyzed monthly as defined daily doses (DDD)/100 bed-days and overall hospital and ICU consumption were evaluated. Results: An increase in the hospital consumption was noticed. Although only ceftaroline achieved statistical significance (p = 0.014), a rise was observed in most of the studied antimicrobials. A clear temporal pattern was detected. While an increase in ceftriaxone and azithromycin was observed during March, an increment in the consumption of daptomycin, carbapenems, linezolid, ceftaroline, novel cephalosporin/β-lactamase inhibitors or triazoles during April-May was noticed. In the ICU, these findings were more evident, namely ceftriaxone (p = 0.029), carbapenems (p = 0.002), daptomycin (p = 0.002), azithromycin (p = 0.030), and linezolid (p = 0.011) but followed a similar temporal pattern. Conclusion: An increase in the antimicrobial consumption during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic was noticed, especially in the ICU. Availability of updated protocols and antimicrobial stewardship programs are essential to optimize these outcomes.
| S-EPMC7911440 | biostudies-literature
Project description:To evaluate the gene expression profiling of peripheral leukocytes in different outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infections, whole blood samples were collected from individuals with positive SARS-CoV-2 nasopharyngeal swab by RT-PCR (54 patients) and healthy uninfected individuals (12 volunteers). Infected patients were classified into mild, moderate, severe and critical groups according to a modified statement in the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Diagnosis and Treatment Guideline. Blood were collected into EDTA tubes and the buffy coat samples were stored in TRIzol reagent at -80 °C until use for RNA extraction. Affymetrix Clariom S array was used to perform the high-throughput gene expression profiling. Microarray analyses were performed using APT Affymetrix software, R packages and Bioconductor libraries. This systemic view of SARS-CoV-2 infections through blood transcriptomics will foster the understanding about molecular mechanisms and immunopathological processes involved in COVID-19 disease and its different outcomes.
2022-04-29 | E-MTAB-11240 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC8078895 | biostudies-literature