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Register a new userAre mouse and cat the missing link in the COVID-19 outbreaks in seafood markets?
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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus caused the novel coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) affecting the whole world. Like SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 are thought to originate in bats and then spread to humans through intermediate hosts. Identifying intermediate host species is critical to understanding the evolution and transmission mechanisms of COVID-19. However, determining which animals are intermediate hosts remains a key challenge. Virus host-genome similarity (HGS) is an important factor that reflects the adaptability of virus to host. SARS-CoV-2 may retain beneficial mutations to increase HGS and evade the host immune system. This study investigated the HGSs between 399 SARS-CoV-2 strains and 10 hosts of different species, including bat, mouse, cat, swine, snake, dog, pangolin, chicken, human and monkey. The results showed that the HGS between SARS-CoV-2 and bat was the highest, followed by mouse and cat. Human and monkey had the lowest HGS values. In terms of genetic similarity, mouse and monkey are halfway between bat and human. Moreover, given that COVID-19 outbreaks tend to be associated with live poultry and seafood markets, mouse and cat are more likely sources of infection in these places. However, more experimental data are needed to confirm whether mouse and cat are true intermediate hosts. These findings suggest that animals closely related to human life, especially those with high HGS, need to be closely monitored.
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With the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic, mathematical modeling of epidemics has been perceived and used as a central element in understanding, predicting, and governing the pandemic event. However, soon it became clear that long term predictions were extremely challenging to address. Moreover, it is still unclear which metric shall be used for a global description of the evolution of the outbreaks. Yet a robust modeling of pandemic dynamics and a consistent choice of the transmission metric is crucial for an in-depth understanding of the macroscopic phenomenology and better-informed mitigation strategies. In this study, we propose a Markovian stochastic framework designed to describe the evolution of entropy during the COVID-19 pandemic and the instantaneous reproductive ratio. We then introduce and use entropy-based metrics of global transmission to measure the impact and temporal evolution of a pandemic event. In the formulation of the model, the temporal evolution of the outbreak is modeled by the master equation of a nonlinear Markov process for a statistically averaged individual, leading to a clear physical interpretation. We also provide a full Bayesian inversion scheme for calibration. The time evolution of the entropy rate, the absolute change in the system entropy, and the instantaneous reproductive ratio are natural and transparent outputs of this framework. The framework has the appealing property of being applicable to any compartmental epidemic model. As an illustration, we apply the proposed approach to a simple modification of the Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Removed (SEIR) model. Applying the model to the Hubei region, South Korean, Italian, Spanish, German, and French COVID-19 data-sets, we discover a significant difference in the absolute change of entropy but highly regular trends for both the entropy evolution and the instantaneous reproductive ratio.
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 strongly depend on the progress of national and global vaccination programs, the emergence and spread of variants of concern, and public responses to nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). In the short term, many people are still unvaccinated, VOCs continue to emerge and spread, and mobility and population mixing is expected to increase over the summer. Therefore, policies that lift restrictions too much and too early risk another damaging wave. This challenge remains despite the reduced opportunities for transmission due to vaccination progress and reduced indoor mixing in the summer. In autumn 2021, increased indoor activity might accelerate the spread again, but a necessary reintroduction of NPIs might be too slow. The incidence may strongly rise again, possibly filling intensive care units, if vaccination levels are not high enough. A moderate, adaptive level of NPIs will thus remain necessary. These epidemiological aspects are put into perspective with the economic, social, and health-related consequences and thereby provide a holistic perspective on the future of COVID-19.
This note describes a simple score to indicate the effectiveness of mitigation against infections of COVID-19 as observed by new case counts. The score includes normalization, making comparisons across jurisdictions possible. The smoothing employed provides robustness in the face of reporting vagaries while retaining salient features of evolution, enabling a clearer picture for decision makers and the public.
Background: The global spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic has clearly shown the importance of considering the long-range transportation networks in the understanding of emerging diseases outbreaks. The introduction of extensive transportation data sets is therefore an important step in order to develop epidemic models endowed with realism. Methods: We develop a general stochastic meta-population model that incorporates actual travel and census data among 3 100 urban areas in 220 countries. The model allows probabilistic predictions on the likelihood of country outbreaks and their magnitude. The level of predictability offered by the model can be quantitatively analyzed and related to the appearance of robust epidemic pathways that represent the most probable routes for the spread of the disease. Results: In order to assess the predictive power of the model, the case study of the global spread of SARS is considered. The disease parameter values and initial conditions used in the model are evaluated from empirical data for Hong Kong. The outbreak likelihood for specific countries is evaluated along with the emerging epidemic pathways. Simulation results are in agreement with the empirical data of the SARS worldwide epidemic. Conclusions: The presented computational approach shows that the integration of long-range mobility and demographic data provides epidemic models with a predictive power that can be consistently tested and theoretically motivated. This computational strategy can be therefore considered as a general tool in the analysis and forecast of the global spreading of emerging diseases and in the definition of containment policies aimed at reducing the effects of potentially catastrophic outbreaks.
Diabetes is considered as an critical comorbidity linked with the latest coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which spreads through Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2). The diabetic patients have higher threat of infection from novel corona virus. Depending on the region in the globe, 20% to 50% of patients infected with COVID-19 pandemic had diabetes. The current article discussed the risk associated with diabetic patients and also recommendation for controlling diabetes during this pandemic situation. The article also discusses the case study of COVID-19 at various regions around the globe and the preventive actions taken by various countries to control the effect from the virus. The article presents several smart healthcare solutions for the diabetes patients to have glucose insulin control for the protection against COVID-19.
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