Analyzes of the relationship between human mobility and the spread of SARS-CoV-2 revealed three groups of countries: a new study that looks at the link between reduced human movement and coronavirus spread in 2020 shows that in some countries, the virus spread more quickly when people stayed home. In addition, restricting people’s mobility to some extent seemed, in retrospect, to be better at minimizing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 than extreme mobility restrictions, in many countries.
“More than two years mark the beginning of the pandemic that changed the lives of many of us in different ways. The current development of the spread of SARS-CoV-2 suggests that this chapter of history entitled COVID-19 could, hopefully, fade to its end.However, there is still much to learn about it.Reflecting on how we have reacted to the pandemic could help us draw useful lessons on how to minimize damage from similar challenges, especially now that infectious diseases they appear to be a re-emerging threat, “point out researchers Mounir Ould Setti and Sylvain Tollis.
Government-imposed blockades and movement restrictions were probably the hallmark of the response to this pandemic. These interventions were found to be invasive in some circumstances and environments. Were blockages and movement restrictions efficient in reducing the spread of SARS-CoV-2? Researchers at the University of Eastern Finland analyzed how the movement of people aligned with daily changes in the number of effective SARS-CoV-2 replication. The number of effective replication reflects the rate of disease spread as it captures dynamic changes in person-to-person viral transmission. Mobility metrics are based on anonymous location data from Google service users who have location history turned on on their mobile phones. Positions are classified into different mobility categories, including, for example, residential mobility, which indicates that people stay at home. Researchers focused on the pre-vaccination and pre-variant phase of pandemic concern from February 15 to December 31, 2020 by analyzing daily changes in mobility and the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to 125 countries and 52 regions. or states of the United States. .
The analysis identified three groups of countries based on patterns of correlations between mobility indicators and the number of effective reproductions of SARS-CoV-2. Group 1 consisted of countries with “normal” correlations, that is, negative correlations between residential mobility and the spread of SARS-CoV-2, for example, the United States, Turkey, and most OECD countries. . Group 2 included countries with “inverted” correlations, referring to positive correlations between residential mobility and the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Group 3 consisted of countries with more complex correlation patterns or “inconclusive” correlations.
In group 1 countries such as Austria, the more time people spent at home, the less the spread of the disease was recorded, while in group 2 countries, such as Bolivia, the exact opposite was observed: the more time people spent at home, more disease was. extending. In addition, in many countries, correlation patterns between mobility and disease spread showed a minimum of disease spread at an intermediate level of mobility restriction (U-shaped correlations), indicating an optimal level for above which restricting the mobility of people could lead to further spread of the disease. In other words, complete blockades could have been counterproductive at certain levels and in some countries.
The authors concluded that a systematic analysis of the correlations between mobility and disease spread at the regional level could help to understand the optimal level of mobility restriction that minimizes the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in this specific region.
Research article: In-depth correlation analysis of the number of effective reproductions of SARS-CoV-2 and mobility patterns: three groups of countries. J Prev Med Public Health. 2022; 55 (2): 134-143. Published online February 10, 2022.
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