Disaster medicine and public health preparedness
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Sep 2020
Social Network Analysis of COVID-19 Public Discourse on Twitter: Implications for Risk Communication.
The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the use of social network analysis to understand public discourse on Twitter around the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We examined different network properties that might affect the successful dissemination by and adoption of public health messages from public health officials and health agencies. ⋯ Looking at basic metrics might create a misleading picture of the effectiveness of risk communication efforts on social media if not analyzed within the context of the larger network. Social network analysis of conversations on social media should be an integral part of how public health officials and agencies plan, monitor, and evaluate risk communication efforts.
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Sep 2020
Why May COVID-19 Overwhelm Low-Income Countries Like Pakistan?
Since the coronavirus disease 2019, called COVID-19, has overwhelmed the high-income countries with ample resources and established health-care system, we argue that there are plausible concerns why it may devastate the low-income countries like Pakistan. Focusing on Pakistan, we highlight the underlying reasons, eg, demographic features, ineffective health-care system, economic and political inequalities, corruption, and socio-cultural characteristics, that create fertile grounds for COVID-19 to overwhelm low-income countries. ⋯ The study concludes that the country may make appropriate and possibly effective short-term preparedness measures to halt or slow the transmission of the virus, and deal with its current implications as well as it may pay significant attention to long-term measures to deal effectively with COVID-19's longer-term effects. These measures will help them, including Pakistan, to deal appropriately with a similar future critical event.
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Sep 2020
Predictive Value of 5 Early Warning Scores for Critical COVID-19 Patients.
A simple evaluation tool for patients with novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) could assist the physicians to triage COVID-19 patients effectively and rapidly. This study aimed to evaluate the predictive value of 5 early warning scores based on the admission data of critical COVID-19 patients. ⋯ SEWS, NEWS, NEWS2, and HEWS demonstrated moderate discriminatory power and, therefore, offer potential utility as prognostic tools for screening severely ill COVID-19 patients. However, MEWS is not a good prognostic predictor for COVID-19.
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Sep 2020
Modeling the Number of Confirmed Cases and Deaths from the COVID-19 Pandemic in the UK and Forecasting from April 15 to May 30, 2020.
The UK is one of the epicenters of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the world. As of April 14, there have been 93 873 confirmed patients of COVID-19 in the UK and 12 107 deaths with confirmed infection. On April 14, it was reported that COVID-19 was the cause of more than half of the deaths in London. ⋯ The drawback of this study is the shortage of observations. Also, to conduct a more exact study, it is possible to take the number of the tests into account as an explanatory variable besides time.
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Aug 2020
Disaster Response to a Mass Casualty Incident in a Hospital Fire by Regional Disaster Medical Assistance Team: Characteristics of Hospital Fire.
A disaster in the hospital is particularly serious and quite different from other ordinary disasters. This study aimed at analyzing the activity outcomes of a disaster medical assistance team (DMAT) for a fire disaster at the hospital. ⋯ For an effective disaster-response system in hospital disasters, it is important to secure the safety of medical staff, to utilize available medical resources, to secure patients' medical records, and to reorganize the DMAT dispatch system.