Social Distancing against COVID-19: Implication for the Control of Influenza

Abstract

Social distancing has been adopted as one of basic protective measures against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). During 2019-2020 season, influenza epidemic period was exceptionally short and epidemic peak was low in comparison with previous seasons in Korea. Influenza epidemic pattern was bimodal in 2016-2017 and 2018-2019 seasons, however, influenza viruses have rarely been circulating in spring, 2020 in Korea. Although multiple factors could affect the size of influenza epidemic, extensive application of nonpharmaceutical interventions including mask wearing and social distancing in response to COVID-19 seems to be a major factor of reduced influenza epidemic. Social distancing measures with high feasibility and high acceptability should be implemented even if severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccines are developed in the future. Establishment of guideline for workplace social distancing is needed and it would contribute to reduce disease burden of influenza, especially in vaccine mismatch year.

COVID-19 outbreak in Brazil: Adherence to national preventive measures and impact on people’s lives

“…Overall, only 45.5% reported wearing a face mask when going out. This is much lower than in Asian countries, where most people wear face masks once the COVID-19 epidemic was introduced in their country [14,15,16]. This is however higher than in several European countries where initially wearing facemasks was initially advised, following WHO recommendations, only to be used in health care settings [17,18,19].…”

Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions targeted at COVID-19 pandemic on influenza burden – a systematic review

“…Of the 23 included studies, the results related to comparative seasons are presented. The majority of the studies (n=18) describe results from the Asian region [21][22][23][24][26][27][28][29][30][31]33,34,36,[39][40][41]43], 9 from North America [21,27,28,32,37,38,[41][42][43] and 5 from Europe [21,25,27,28,41]. The observation period of the studies in the 2020 season ends in the 8 th [26] to 21 st [38] calendar week.…”

New Paradigm of Pediatric Clinical Clerkship during the Epidemic of COVID-19

“…Pediatric clinical clerkship faces another barrier with a drastic decrease of up to 70% in pediatric patients visiting primary clinics and tertiary hospitals, 8,9 even though the prevalence of flu has decreased in Korea. 10 In Korea, common infectious diseases such as upper respiratory infection, hand-foot-mouth disease, and viral or bacterial pneumonia in children and adolescents, rapidly decreased, 11 which may be related to suspension of classes, mask wearing, and correct and frequent hand washing. Most parents postponed the child's vaccination and routine development examination because they feared that their children might come in contact with the febrile patients in the hospital.…”