Strategies to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The World Health Organization declared a COVID-19 pandemic on March 11, 2020, when there were 4,293 confirmed cumulative deaths. By May 17, 2020 this number increased to 315,005. The risk of death is higher above the age of 60, but there are many deaths below 60 (for example, in Sao Paulo, 25%). Due to the lack of a vaccine or specific treatment, there are at least three types of interventions used in the first wave of this pandemic: increased alertness and hygiene (e.g. Sweden); identification and isolation of infected people and their contacts (e.g. South Korea); lockdown (e.g. Italy). These interventions are complementary. Choices of the right mix of interventions will vary from society to society and in the same society at different times. The search for a miracle drug is dangerous because it is based on the mistaken belief that any treatment option is better than "nothing". Brazilian society will not be able to maintain lockdown for a long period. Naturally, in the near future, regardless of the advice from scientists, doctors and authorities, commerce, services and schools will reopen. In order to implement any strategy aimed to control the pandemic and preserve the economy, the country needs leadership that centralizes and coordinates actions. Unfortunately, the Brazilian government is not fulfilling this role; on the contrary, it is a hindrance. This negative leadership and lack of coordination are causing many deaths and are severely damaging the lives of survivors by delaying the resuming of economic and social activities.

Prevalence of antibodies against sars-cov-2 in professionals of a public health laboratory at são paulo, sp, brazil

“…Transmission is more likely in indoor than outdoor environments (Nishiura et al, 2020) and that home confinement and isolation measures influence due to economic and social aspects, and vary between regions in a country that is heterogeneous like Brazil (Nadanovsky et al, 2020). Our data indicate that living with diagnosed or symptomatic people was more relevant in domestic environment than in the workplace, which can be justified by more intimate contact and extensive sharing of areas, in spite the guidelines advising family members to distance themselves.…”

COVID-19: a new turning point for dental practice

“…SARS-CoV-2 is a new virus to which the human population has no immunity and the threat it poses is in the fast rate. 13 Initially, knowledge of human to human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was based on experience from the previous two epidemics caused by coronaviruses (SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV). Now it is known that COVID-19 patients are the main source of infection.…”

“…35,36 Dealing with COVID-19 pandemic in oral health services Due to the nature of dental procedures and the large number of droplets and aerosols which could be generated, today's standard protective measures in daily dental clinical work are not effective enough to prevent the spread of COVID-19. 13,37 Several guidelines for dental practice environments have been published by dental associations and regulatory boards. They have recommended the suspension of non-emergency dental treatment while providing emergency dental services only.…”

SIRSi compartmental model for COVID-19 pandemic with immunity loss

“…This global emergency brings with it important and yet unanswered questions related to the dynamic behavior of the contagion and its mitigation and control strategies. As a result, measures carried out to contain the contagion such as social distancing, quarantine, and complete lock-down of areas have been studied [5] , [6] , [7] , [8] , [9] , [10] .…”