# pos

id: cord-031072-uit0nm20
pos: NNP
token:
  cnbc.com/2019/10/10/reuters-america-update-1-italy-plans-to-issue-more-foreign-currency-bonds-next-year.html

lemma:
  cnbc.com/2019/10/10/reuters-america-update-1-italy-plans-to-issue-more-foreign-currency-bonds-next-year.html


id: cord-255221-v4r2ek6a
pos: ADD
token:
  https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-jointmission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf

lemma:
  https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-jointmission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf


id: cord-315641-bzfrd7xj
pos: NNP
token:
  www.who.int/news-room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-on-thesecond-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee-regarding-the-outbreak-of-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov

lemma:
  www.who.int/news-room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-on-thesecond-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee-regarding-the-outbreak-of-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov


id: cord-335213-0cji7tzq
pos: NNP
token:
  https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Bollettino-sorveglianzaintegrata-COVID-19_30-marzo-2020.pdf

lemma:
  https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Bollettino-sorveglianzaintegrata-COVID-19_30-marzo-2020.pdf


id: cord-343123-s7fzex7v
pos: NNP
token:
  https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/download-todays-data-geographic-distribution-COVID-19-cases-worldwide

lemma:
  https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/download-todays-data-geographic-distribution-COVID-19-cases-worldwide


# ent

id: cord-003775-1axsebya
type: DISEASE
entity:
  Chordopoxviruses Avipoxvirus Capripoxvirus Centapoxvirus Cervidpoxvirus Crocodylidpoxvirus Leporipoxvirus Molluscipoxvirus Orthopoxvirus


id: cord-253736-cd4qnp2m
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  Dati sul Personale in Attività nel Sistema Sanitario Pubblico e Privato Data Analysis on Active Health Personnel


id: cord-021449-jrhqh493
type: EVENT
entity:
  Buffalo Husbandry Asia Cheese Pasta Filata Cheeses Concentrate Feeds Byproduct Feeds Dairy Animals Water Buffalo Dairy Farm Design


id: cord-021449-jrhqh493
type: DISEASE
entity:
  coccidia Eimeria Giardia Cryptosporidium liver parasites Fasciola tick parasites Hyalomma Sarcoptes blood parasites Theileria


id: cord-166918-hop33fxg
type: ORG
entity:
  Logistic Regression Logistic Equation From MathWorld A Wolfram Web Resource Quasi Exact Solution of the Fisher Equation


id: cord-024564-ff5ex004
type: DISEASE
entity:
  seus motivos opções de vigilância e reflexões sobre sua importância para informar medidas de saúde pública No caso do COVID


id: cord-025811-i8gy4dhj
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  Annual Report of the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network EARS Net European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control ECDC Stockholm ECDC European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control


id: cord-295622-znmpheia
type: GGP
entity:
  SSN i e Sistema Sanitario Nazionale and the expected need for treatment required by forecasts on the


id: cord-295622-znmpheia
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing Vienna R Foundation for Statistical Computing COVID 19


id: cord-292711-c5np5bar
type: ORG
entity:
  Sassari Sassari Italy Department of Medical Surgical and Experimental Sciences G D University of Sassari Sassari Italy


id: cord-303690-8h58rmwk
type: DISEASE
entity:
  epidemia di Covid 19 Sesto Rapporto 1 Febbraio 25 Aprile Statistiche import export Graduatoria delle regioni italiane per valore delle esportazioni importazioni


id: cord-301348-h21rnyww
type: EVENT
entity:
  Spring Meetings IMFC Press Conference IMF Executive Board Approves Proposals to Enhance the Fund s Emergency Financing Toolkit


id: cord-301348-h21rnyww
type: FAC
entity:
  the Spanish Flu for the Coronavirus s Potential Effects on Mortality and Economic Activity Global Economic Prospects Economic


id: cord-285232-0p27ez9i
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  Accogli Michele Bisignani Giovanni Forleo Giovanni Battista Landolina Maurizio D Onofrio Antonio Ricci Renato De Ponti Roberto title Impact


id: cord-307219-okvvajms
type: ORG
entity:
  Nîmes European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control ECDC European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control ECDC Infection


id: cord-314466-6j4vuqer
type: ORG
entity:
  The Document Foundation LibreOffice Free Office Suite A Two Interface Transport Model With Pore Size Distribution for Predicting the Performance of Direct 565 Contact Membrane Distillation


id: cord-318468-7s5znn5c
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  Di Tanna 5 Giovanni Milito 6 Francesco Bianco 7 Roberto Perinotti 8 Iacopo Giani 9 Ugo Grossi 10 on behalf of ProctoLock2020 Working Group Domenico Aiello Francesco Bianco Andrea Bondurri Gaetano Gallo Marco La


id: cord-285187-1h5tjs0r
type: ORG
entity:
  Scotland S Digital Health Care Strategy n d Danish Ministry of Health South African National Department of Health National Digital Health Strategy


id: cord-275978-pezm1tnw
type: ORG
entity:
  the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention Case Fatality Rate and Characteristics of Patients Dying in Relation to


id: cord-318237-22s13v2y
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  cord 318237 22s13v2y authors Mira Francesco Purpari Giuseppa Di Bella Santina Colaianni Maria Loredana Schirò Giorgia Chiaramonte Gabriele Gucciardi Francesca Pisano Patrizia Lastra Antonio Decaro Nicola Guercio Annalisa title Spreading


id: cord-286958-e1ey31eo
type: ORG
entity:
  Notice of the People s Government of Hubei Province on Strengthening the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia Infected


id: cord-321194-xi4zy5ow
type: CELL_LINE
entity:
  China Displayed Sign Banning Black People Trump Signs Historic 2 Trillion Stimulus After Congress Passes


id: cord-321194-xi4zy5ow
type: DNA
entity:
  Curb Coronavirus EBRD Unveils V1 Billion Emergency Coronavirus Financing Package Inquiry After 668 of French Aircraft Carrier s Crew Catch Coronavirus Coronavirus Nuggets Report Member of Organization Tested Positive


id: cord-321194-xi4zy5ow
type: ORG
entity:
  Tackle Coronavirus Outbreak Commission Publishes Guidance on Export Requirements for Personal Protective Equipment


id: cord-321194-xi4zy5ow
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  Prisoners to Curb Coronavirus EBRD Unveils V1 Billion Emergency Coronavirus Financing Package Inquiry


id: cord-322348-8opy5z9h
type: ORG
entity:
  the Ethics Committee of the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology Sapienza University of Rome Written


id: cord-311523-erntrh3p
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  Different Types of Clinical Specimens Novel Coronavirus Important Information for Clinicians Clinical


id: cord-320773-zisujjsx
type: ORG
entity:
  Oxford COVID 19 Government Response Tracker Blavatnik School of Government Temporary Reintroduction of Border Control Tracking


id: cord-320773-zisujjsx
type: ORG
entity:
  the University of Hamburg Erasmus University Rotterdam and Nova School of Business Economics Lisbon Chair BPI Fundação La Caixa


id: cord-327589-mr8z65o5
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  Mathematical Tools for Understanding Infectious Disease Dynamics World Health Organization Coronavirus


id: cord-326489-c3ezmshe
type: CELL_TYPE
entity:
  T T T T T T T T Noncoding UTR C 2062 T Noncoding UTR C 3037 T T T T T T T Nucleocapsid protein Nucleotide positions


id: cord-311190-i630n88t
type: EVENT
entity:
  ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement IMC 03 Association for Computing Machinery Packet Delay Variation Applicability Statement


id: cord-327777-pg98zc6o
type: ORG
entity:
  the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus SARS CoV 10 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus


id: cord-327777-pg98zc6o
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  Aujeszky s Disease Virus Long Term Surveillance of Aujeszky s Disease in the Alpine Wild Boar Sus scrofa Development


id: cord-330057-3vucm0s1
type: PRODUCT
entity:
  Improving the Accuracy of Demographic and Molecular Clock Model Comparison While Accommodating Phylogenetic Uncertainty Bayesian Coalescent Inference of Past Population Dynamics


id: cord-335213-0cji7tzq
type: CELL_LINE
entity:
  Wuhan China COVID 19 Track coronavirus cases Cryptic transmission of novel coronavirus revealed by genomic epidemiology Monitoring trends and differences in COVID 19


id: cord-330562-dabjcvno
type: ORG
entity:
  Seismic Noise Analysis System Power Spectral Density Probability Density Function Stand Alone Software Package United States Geological Survey Open File Report Seismic


id: cord-330562-dabjcvno
type: ORG
entity:
  Seismic Network International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks Regional Seismic Network of North Western Italy International Federation of Digital Seismograph


id: cord-350976-ks8g6agf
type: SO
entity:
  F r a n c e G r e e c e P o r t u g a l I t a l y B e l g i u m S p a i n G e r m a n y N e t h e r l a n d s F r a n c e G r e e c e P o r t u g a l I t a l y B e l g i u m S p a i n G e r m a n y N e t h e r l a n d s F r a n c e G r e e c e P o r t u g a l I t a l y B e l g i u m S p a i n G e r m a n y N e t h e r l a n d s F r a n c e G r e e c e P o r t u g a l Forum of acute care hospitals


id: cord-342919-ls2q1g0v
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  Battling the Modern Behavioral Epidemic of Loneliness Suggestions for Research and Interventions Advancing


id: cord-346229-jxlrz0ce
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  SIAARTI COVID 19 clinical ethics recommendations There are no other declarations Mancano posti in terapia intensiva Non ci risulta on behalf of I BELT


id: cord-350006-c4be9eii
type: ORG
entity:
  NCOV Evolving Epidemiology and Transmission Dynamics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Outside Hubei Province China A Descriptive and Modelling Study COVID 19 Factors and Psychological Factors Associated with Elevated Psychological Distress


id: cord-342386-t5b8wpe2
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  Do You Trust The Consequences of Partisanship and Trust in Government for Public Responsiveness to COVID 19 Trust and Trustworthiness Ideology


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  H1 A M Polyanichko 1 H Wieser 2 1 Faculty of Physics Saint Petersburg State University Russia 2 Dept


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  antitumor nonclassical platinum complexes O Vrana V Kohoutkova V Brabec Institute of Biophysics AS CR Královopolská 135 CZ 61265


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  CYP450 L S Goto 2 C O Hokka 1 J F Lima 2 O R Nascimento 2 A P U Araújo 2 1 Grupo de Engenharia Bioquímica UFSCar BR 2


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  Complex I A L Maniero 1 C Bergamini 2 M Bortolus 1 R Fato 2 S Leoni 2 G Lenaz 2 1 Università degli Studi di Padova Padova Italy 2 Università degli studi di Bologna Bologna Italy Complex I NADH Dehydrogenase


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  arXiv 0805 0696v1 S Soria 1 F Quercioli 3 R Mercatelli 3 F Bianco 2 I Cacciari 2 G Righini 2 1 Centro Studi e Ricerche E Fermi P Del Viminale 2 00184 Rome Italy 2


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  plague F1 capsular antigen A Soliakov 1 J R Harris 1 M R Hicks 2 A Rodger 2 R Woody 3 A Watkinson 4 J H Lakey 1 1 Cell


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  membrane proteins C V Kulkarni 3 O Ces 1 S Iwata 2 R H Templer 1 1 Chemical Biology Centre and Department of Chemistry Imperial College London United Kingdom 2 Division of Molecular


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  lambda bacteriophage epigenetic switch L Finzi Physics Department emory University 400 dowman Dr Atlanta GA 30322 USA


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  topoisomerase II activity H Seidel 1 T Klose 2 H Lilie 2 C G Hübner 1 1 Institute of Physics Ratzeburger Allee 160 23538 Lübeck Germany 2 Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology Kurt Mothes Str 3 06120 Halle Germany One essential element


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: DNA
entity:
  human MEF2D gene W Zhou 1 L Ying 2 1 Molecular Medicine National Heart and Lung Institute Imperial College London London SW7 2AZ UK 2 Chemical Biology


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  OmpF channel E Hajjar 1 A Kumar 1 M Winterhalter 2 P Ruggerone 1 M Ceccarelli 1 1 Department of Physics University of Cagliari Italy 2


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  protein N Maghelli 1 V Krstic 2 N Pavin 2 F Julicher 2 I Tolic Norrelykke 1 1 MPI CBG Dresden Germany 2 MPI PKS Dresden Germany


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  integrin αIIbβ3 M Rocco 1 C Rosano 1 J W Weisel 2 D Horita 3 R R Hantgan 3 1 Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro IST Genova Italy 2


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  redox cofactor L Erokhova 1 P Kügler 2 P Pohl 1 1 Institute of Biophysics Johannes Kepler University Linz Austria 2


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  cation channels Y Sawada 1 M Murase 2 M Sokabe 1 1 Dept Physiol Nagoya Univ Grad Sch Med Nagoya Japan 2


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  Na K ATPase C H Chang 1 T Y Tsong 2 1 Institute of Physics National Chiao Tung university Physics Division National Center for Theoretical Sciences Hsinchu Taiwan 2 Institute of Physics Academy of Sciences Taipei 115 Taiwan Na K ATPase


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: CELL_TYPE
entity:
  permeabilized skeletal muscle fibres D S Ushakov D Ibanez Garcia T G West P M W French M A Ferenczi Imperial College London UK


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  extracellular matrix molecule hyaluronic acid modulates L type voltage dependent Ca2 channels E Dvoretskova 1 G Kochlamazashvili 2 O Bukalo 2 C Henneberger 3 D Rusakov 3 M Schachner 2 A Dityatev 1 1 Italian Institute of Technology Genova Italy 2


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  colicin translocon C L Johnson 1 A Solovyova 1 P Callow 2 S A Holt 3 L A Clifton 3 K Weiss 4 J H Lakey 1 1


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  human 3 phosphoglycerate kinase P Lallemand 1 J Rouhana 1 L Chaloin 1 B Roy 2 S Arold 3 T Barman 1 C Lionne 1 1 CPBS UMR 5236 4 bd Henri IV


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  Green Fluorescent Protein G Jung Biophysical Chemistry Saarland University 66123 Saarbruecken Germany Biotechnological design of the Green Fluorescent Protein GFP


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  J Strömqvist 1 S Johansson 1 Y Ohsugi 3 K Andersson 2 L Xu 1 M Kinjo 3 P Höglund 2 J Widengren 1 1 Experimental biomolecular Physics KTH Stockholm Sweden 2


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: GGP
entity:
  Alzheimer s disease Some diabetes drugs appear to decrease the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer s


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: GGP
entity:
  human 3 phosphoglycerate kinase P Lallemand 1 J Rouhana 1 L Chaloin 1 B Roy 2 S Arold 3 T Barman 1 C Lionne 1 1


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: ORG
entity:
  Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Kharkov Ukraine


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: ORG
entity:
  Physics Department University of Genoa Italy 2 Biochemical Sciences Department University of Florence Italy Short


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: ORG
entity:
  Molski Adam Mickiewicz University Laboratory for Dynamics of Physicochemical Processes Poznan Poland RNAzymes


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: ORG
entity:
  Department of Physics Faculty of Science Messina University Italy 2 Department of Physics Faculty of Science Perugia University Italy Important


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: ORG
entity:
  Chemistry University of Oxford Oxford U K 2 Department of Electronics Computer Science and Systems University of Bologna Bologna Italy Potassium


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: ORG
entity:
  Institute of Physics National Chiao Tung university Physics Division National Center for Theoretical Sciences Hsinchu


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: ORG
entity:
  Department of Physics University of Warwick U K 2 Department of Chemistry University of Warwick U K Information


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: ORG
entity:
  Biotechnology Jagiellonian University 2 Department of Pharmacodynamics Medical College Jagiellonian University


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: LAW
entity:
  A Isvoran 1 E Quiniou 2 C Craescu 2 L Mouawad 2 1 West University of Timisoara Department of Chemistry Pestalozzi


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  A Martino D Crane I M Feavers B Bolgiano Division of Bacteriology National Institute for Biological Standards and Control Potters


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  E Del Favero 1 G Di Fede 2 F Tagliavini 2 M Salmona 3 L Cantù 1 1 University of Milan Segrate Italy 2 Carlo


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  L D Alfonso 1 M Collini 1 M Caccia 1 G Tallarida 2 S Caprioli 2 G Chirico 1 1 Dipartimento di Fisica Università di Milano Bicocca Italy 2 Laboratorio


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  1 D Magatti 1 B Cardinali 2 A Profumo 2 M Rocco 2 1 Dipartimento di Fisica e Matematica Università dell Insubria


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  mutant protein Boutahar N 1 Reynaud E 1 Nasser Y 1 Camdessanché JP 1 Antoine JC 1 1 University Hospital Saint Etienne France Dysimmune sensory neuronopathies


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CELL_LINE
entity:
  NIH Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network grant 1U54NS065712 01 Feely SME 1 Saade D 1 Shy ME 1 1 Carver College of Medicine University of Iowa Iowa City IA USA


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CELL_LINE
entity:
  NIH Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network grant 1U54NS065712 01 Fisgun A 1 Luan X 1 Hoke A 1 1 Johns Hopkins University Baltimore MD USA Molecular mechanisms that underlie slow distal axonal degeneration seen in chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy CIPN are unclear However several identified molecular targets


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CELL_LINE
entity:
  MMN Krarup C 1 2 Moldovan M 1 2 Alvarez S 1 Ciano C 3 Pisciotta C 3 Pareyson D 3 1 University of Copenhagen Copenhagen Denmark 2 Rigshospitalet Copenhagen Denmark 3 Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico C Besta INCB Milan Italy Mutations


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  RDCRN INC Contact Registry Martinez C 1 Hubsch A 2 Watson DJ 3 Shebl A 4 Wallenhorst C 1 Simon TL 3 1 Institute


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  CMT Painous C 1 López Pérez MA 2 Illa I 1 3 Querol L 1 3 1 Neuromuscular Diseases Unit Neurology Department Hospital de la Santa Creu


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: DNA
entity:
  MPZ missense mutations Poitras T 1 Chandrasekhar A 1 Singh V 1 Martinez J 1 Zochodne DW 1 1 Neuroscience Mental Health Institute and Division


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: PROTEIN
entity:
  Antinuclear Antibody 1 1280 reference 1 40 SS A 148 reference 20 U SS B 79 reference 20 U and Rheumatoid Factor 24 reference 14 IU mL titers


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CELL_LINE
entity:
  São Paulo Ribeirão Preto Brazil 2 Neurogenetics Department of Neurosciences and Behaviour Sciences University of São Paulo Ribeirão Preto Brazil


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: DNA
entity:
  Topa A 1 Spina E 1 Iodice R 1 Tozza S 1 Ruggiero L 1 Dubbioso R 1 Esposito M 1 Santoro L 1 Manganelli F 1 1 University of Naples Federico II Naples Italy


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CELL_LINE
entity:
  Paediatric CMT Best Practice Guidelines Consortium 1 Royal Children s Hospital Melbourne Melbourne Victoria Australia 2 Murdoch Childrens Research Institute Melbourne Victoria Australia 3 University of Melbourne Melbourne Victoria Australia 4 University of Sydney New South Wales Australia 5 Sydney Children s Hospitals Network Randwick and Westmead New South Wales Australia Charcot Marie Tooth disease CMT


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: GGP
entity:
  Kagiava A 1 Karaiskos C 1 Richter J 2 Tryfonos C 2 Lapathitis G 1 Sargiannidou I 1 Christodoulou C 2


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Spain 3 Department of Cell Biology Physiology and Immunology Institute of Neurosciences Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Department of Neurology Reference Center for Rare Peripheral Neuropathies University Hospital of Limoges Limoges France Prolonged


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: FAC
entity:
  1 Hilmarsen HT 1 Svendsen M 1 Høyer H 1 1 Section of Medical Genetics Department of Laboratory Medicine Telemark Hospital


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Department of Neurology University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine Iowa City IA USA 3 Department of Neurogenetics


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  University of Colorado Hospital Aurora CO USA 2 University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Iowa City IA USA


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Massachusetts General Hospital Boston MA USA 2 University of Massachusetts Medical School Worcester USA 3 University Hospital


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Department of Rehabilitation and Medicine University of Occupational and Environmental Health Kitakyushu Japan 3 Division of Plastic


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Hayes JM 1 O Brien PD 1 Backus C 1 Feldman EL 1 1 Department of Neurology University of Michigan Ann Arbor


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  National Neuroscience Institute Singapore Singapore 2 Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine Nanyang Technological University


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine National University Singapore Singapore 4 Tan Tock Seng Hospital Singapore


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia PA USA 2 Columbia University School of Medicine New York NY USA Heterozygous


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Department of Neurology National Referral Center for Rare Neuromuscular Diseases Pitié Salpêtrière Hospital


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  The Department of Neurology Peking Union Medical College Hospital Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Department of Neurology University of Michigan Ann Arbor USA 2 Department of Internal Medicine Division on Metabolism Endocrinology and Diabetes University of Michigan


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Neurology Clinics Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics and Cyprus School of Molecular Medicine


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Hunter James Kelly Research Institute University at Buffalo Buffalo USA 5 Department of Biochemistry University at Buffalo Buffalo USA 6 Neurology Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences University


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  the Netherlands 2 Academic Medical Center University of Amsterdam Department of Clinical Rheumatology and Immunology Amsterdam


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Neuroscience University of Padua Padua Italy 2 Hematology and Clinical Immunology Unit Department of Medicine University of Padua Padua Italy 3


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: ORG
entity:
  Mount Sinai Medical Center Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Northwestern University Medical Center University of Utah Medical Center


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  Alonso Jiménez A 1 2 Belvis Nieto R 3 Diaz Manera J 1 2 Illa I 1 2 Querol L 1 2 1 Neuromuscular Diseases


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  El Soury M 1 Muratori L 1 2 Tos P 4 Battiston B 3 Geuna S 1 2 Gambarotta G 1 1 Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences University of Turin Italy


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  Gundapaneni B 1 Sultan MB 2 Keohane DJ 2 Schwartz J 2 1 inVentiv Health Inc Burlington MA USA 2 Pfizer Inc New York NY USA Transthyretin


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: DISEASE
entity:
  peripheral nerve sheath tumors Jacobsen B 1 Parry G 2 Allen J 2 Walk D 2 Muley S 1 Ortega E 1 1 Barrow Neurological Institute Phoenix AZ


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  Moschella F 3 Geuna S 1 2 Raimondo S 1 2 1 Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences University of Turin Orbassano TO Italy 2 Neuroscience Institute of the Cavalieri Ottolenghi Foundation


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  D 1 Stojkovic T 2 Leonard Louis S 2 Reilly MM 3 Laurà M 3 Parman Y 4 Battaloglu E 4 Tazir M 5 Bellatache M 5 Bonello Palot N 6 Sacconi S 7 Guimarães Costa R 2 Attarian S 6 Latour P 8 Megarbane A 2 Schenone A 9 Ursino G 9 Sabatelli M 10 Luigetti


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  Psimaras D 3 Kuntzer T 4 Taieb G 5 Créange A 6 Delmont E 7 Camdessanché JP 1 Antoine JC 1 1 University


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
type: CHEMICAL
entity:
  Kovalova E 1 2 Nekvapilova E 1 2 Belobradkova J 6 Olsovsky J 7 Weber P 8 Dusek L 9 Jarkovsky J 9 Bednarik J 1 2 Despite


# url

id: cord-255221-v4r2ek6a
domain: www.who.int
url:
  http://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-jointmission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf


id: cord-335213-0cji7tzq
domain: www.epicentro.iss.it
url:
  http://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Bollettino-sorveglianzaintegrata-COVID-19_30-marzo-2020.pdf


id: cord-343123-s7fzex7v
domain: www.ecdc.europa.eu
url:
  http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/download-todays-data-geographic-distribution-COVID-19-cases-worldwide


# bib

id: cord-000441-5rm1za8z
author: Curtale, Filippo
date: 2010-03-11
txt: ./txt/cord-000441-5rm1za8z.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-000441-5rm1za8z.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3161360/
doi: 10.1186/1471-2334-10-62
summary:
  Pockets of low vaccine coverage individuals (Roma/Sinti communities, high school students) facilitated the reintroduction of serotypes not endemic in Italy and facilitated the measles infection to spread. Two cases among the Italian ethnic population, who developed symptoms on 19 and 20 July, reported contact with Roma/Sinti patients with measles in a hospital waiting area, on 4 and 10 July They confirmed that pockets of low vaccination coverage exist in some areas of the Lazio region, particularly among Roma/Sinti communities and adolescents Thanks to relatively high immunisation rates amongst new born children (90,7%) [10] and the work done by the local health authorities, conducting contact investigation of cases'', vaccination of susceptible school and household contacts, and implementing isolation measures, the outbreaks did not affect the whole region and, in the city of Rome, was mainly limited to a few peripheral districts (Figure 2 ).

title:
  Description of two measles outbreaks in the Lazio Region, Italy (2006-2007). Importance of pockets of low vaccine coverage in sustaining the infection

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: Despite the launch of the national plan for measles elimination, in Italy, immunization coverage remains suboptimal and outbreaks continue to occur. Two measles outbreaks, occurred in Lazio region during 2006-2007, were investigated to identify sources of infection, transmission routes, and assess operational implications for elimination of the disease. METHODS: Data were obtained from several sources, the routine infectious diseases surveillance system, field epidemiological investigations, and molecular genotyping of virus by the national reference laboratory. RESULTS: Overall 449 cases were reported, sustained by two different stereotypes overlapping for few months. Serotype D4 was likely imported from Romania by a Roma/Sinti family and subsequently spread to the rest of the population. Serotype B3 was responsible for the second outbreak which started in a secondary school. Pockets of low vaccine coverage individuals (Roma/Sinti communities, high school students) facilitated the reintroduction of serotypes not endemic in Italy and facilitated the measles infection to spread. CONCLUSIONS: Communities with low vaccine coverage represent a more serious public health threat than do sporadic susceptible individuals. The successful elimination of measles will require additional efforts to immunize low vaccine coverage population groups, including hard-to-reach individuals, adolescents, and young adults. An enhanced surveillance systems, which includes viral genotyping to document chains of transmission, is an essential tool for evaluating strategy to control and eliminate measles


id: cord-003775-1axsebya
title: Hypsugopoxvirus: A Novel Poxvirus Isolated from Hypsugo savii in Italy
author: Lelli, Davide
date: 2019-06-19
txt: ./txt/cord-003775-1axsebya.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-003775-1axsebya.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6631891/
doi: 10.3390/v11060568
summary:
  Herein, we report the isolation, nearly complete genome sequencing, and annotation of a novel poxvirus detected from an insectivorous bat (Hypsugo savii) in Northern Italy. In this study, we report the isolation, nearly complete genomic sequencing, and annotation of a novel poxvirus detected from an insectivorous bat (Hypsugo savii) in Northern Italy. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that HYPV belongs to the Chordopoxvirinae subfamily, revealing the highest similarity (85%) with Eptesipoxvirus (EPTV) detected from the microbat Eptesicus fuscus in WA, USA in 2011, which is associated with bat necrosuppurative osteomyelitis in multiple joints. For the nearly complete viral genome sequencing, BLAST analysis revealed the highest nucleotide identity (85%) to the Eptesipoxvirus (EPTV) strain "Washington", a member of the Chordopoxvirinae subfamily identified in microbats in the USA ( Table 2 ). To conclude, a new poxvirus, HYPV, was detected in bats in Europe and its viral ecology and disease associations should be investigated further.

abstract:
  Interest in bat-related viruses has increased considerably during the last decade, leading to the discovery of a rising number of new viruses in several bat species. Poxviridae are a large, diverse family of DNA viruses that can infect a wide range of vertebrates and invertebrates. To date, only a few documented detections of poxviruses have been described in bat populations on three different continents (America, Africa, and Australia). These viruses are phylogenetically dissimilar and have diverse clinical impacts on their hosts. Herein, we report the isolation, nearly complete genome sequencing, and annotation of a novel poxvirus detected from an insectivorous bat (Hypsugo savii) in Northern Italy. The virus is tentatively named Hypsugopoxvirus (HYPV) after the bat species from which it was isolated. The nearly complete genome size is 166,600 nt and it encodes 161 genes. Genome analyses suggest that HYPV belongs to the Chordopoxvirinae subfamily, with the highest nucleotide identity (85%) to Eptesipoxvirus (EPTV) detected from a microbat Eptesicus fuscus in WA, USA, in 2011. To date, HYPV represents the first poxvirus detected in bats in Europe; thus, its viral ecology and disease associations should be investigated further.


id: cord-004534-jqm1hxps
title: Abstract
author: nan
date: 2009-06-09
txt: ./txt/cord-004534-jqm1hxps.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-004534-jqm1hxps.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7079852/
doi: 10.1007/s00249-009-0478-1
abstract: nan
summary:
  HIV-1 to efficiently complete a replication cycle has to integrate its genome into the host cellular DNA.After HIV-1 enters target cells,neosynthesized viral DNA forms along with other proteins the pre-integration complex (PIC).PICs are then transported into the nucleus where integration,catalyzed by the viral integrase,takes place.HIV-1 viral particles engineered to incorporate integrase fused to EGFP have proven effective to study PICs within nuclei of infected cells.In this study we report the live imaging analysis of nuclear PIC dynamics obtained by time-lapse microscopy.Intranuclear trajectories of IN-EGFP-labeled PIC were collected in three dimensions and examined by both mean squared displacement (MSD) and cage diameter (CD) analysis.In CD the maximum distances measured between two positions occupied by a PIC in a time window of 2 minutes were calculated while in our MSD analysis 5-minute long trajectory segments were considered.Remarkably,MSD revealed the presence of an underlying active transport mechanism.To test the possible role of actin filaments,PIC nuclear trafficking was analyzed in cells treated with latrunculin B (actin polymerization inhibitor).Preliminary results suggest that the disruption of actin function impairs the active nuclear movement of PICs. Second harmonic generation microscopy reveals sarcomere contractile dynamics of cardiomyocytes N.


id: cord-021449-jrhqh493
title: BUFFALO HUSBANDRY | Mediterranean Region
author: Borghese, A.
date: 2004-11-28
txt: ./txt/cord-021449-jrhqh493.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-021449-jrhqh493.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7149762/
doi: 10.1016/b0-12-227235-8/00051-1
abstract: nan
summary:
  High milk-producing river buffaloes are as susceptible to metabolic disorders as dairy cows. In Egypt, Iran and Azerbaijan also, there is a preference for buffalo dairy products compared to cows'' milk products. The number of calves produced per cow per year varies from 0.5 in Egypt to 0.9 in Azerbaijan and Syria, with average of 0.7. In Mediterranean countries, all herds have their own bull except in the areas with very small herds (2±3 breedable buffaloes) in Romania, Bulgaria, Egypt and Turkey, where there are groups of bulls for breeding at village level. Of®cial milk recording for the productivity of buffaloes is performed in Egypt, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, the United Kingdom, Azerbaijan and Iran. The fat content of the milk throughout the lactation is over 8% in Italy, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iraq, around 7% in Bulgaria, Romania and Egypt, and less than 7% in Iran.


id: cord-023049-fio7cjj5
title: 2017 Peripheral Nerve Society Meeting July 8–12, 2017 Sitges, Barcelona, Spain
author: nan
date: 2017-06-22
txt: ./txt/cord-023049-fio7cjj5.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-023049-fio7cjj5.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7166380/
doi: 10.1111/jns.12225
abstract: nan
summary:
  Clinical efficacy (Medical Research Council sum score, 10-m walk, modified Inflammatory Neuropathy Cause and Treatment score, Overall Neuropathy Limitations Scale, Romberg test) and patient-reported outcomes (36-item Short Form Health Survey , Life Quality Index [LQI] ) were assessed at baseline and at regular intervals until the final visit (10-14 months after switching). To explore the issue of early biomarkers in FAP, we performed skin biopsy and compared IENF density with parameters of nerve conduction studies (NCS) and quantitative sensory testing (QST) on 36 subjects (23 men, aged 55.1 ± 11.1 years) with genetic confirmation of TTR-A97S: 17 patients and 19 carriers. Results: The Gly112Ser mutation causing CMT1C is a mild form of CMT, as patients walked on time, had less weakness than those with Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease type 1A (CMT1A), had a Charcot Marie Tooth neuropathy score (CMTNS) indicative of mild disease, and had faster ulnar and median motor nerve conduction velocities compared to those with CMT1A.


id: cord-024151-ccrxoya9
title: Philosophy and Pandemic in the Postdigital Era: Foucault, Agamben, Žižek
author: Peters, Michael A.
date: 2020-04-29
txt: ./txt/cord-024151-ccrxoya9.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-024151-ccrxoya9.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7190280/
doi: 10.1007/s42438-020-00117-4
abstract: nan
summary:
  The emphasis of the two trillion dollar ''Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act'' (CARES Act) (The Senate of the United States 2020) is to keep American workers paid and employed, to provide assistance to workers'' families and businesses, and to support the health care system, with an accent on public education and innovation prioritizing zoonotic animal drugs. Western panic buying of toilet rolls based on a viral rumor creates the problem of shortage, as I observed many times in New Zealand supermarkets at the beginning of the lockdown when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made public announcements that there are no shortages of any supermarket item. When Žižek suggested ''that the coronavirus epidemics may give a new boost of life to Communism'' he has in mind what the World Health Organization is saying ''We should mobilize, coordinate, and so on.


id: cord-024564-ff5ex004
title: Epidemic Surveillance of Covid-19: Considering Uncertainty and Under-Ascertainment
author: Ricoca Peixoto, Vasco
date: 2020-04-09
txt: ./txt/cord-024564-ff5ex004.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-024564-ff5ex004.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7206356/
doi: 10.1159/000507587
summary:
  Addressing under-ascertainment of cases is relevant in most surveillance systems, especially in pandemics of new diseases with a large spectrum of clinical presentations as it may influence timings of policy implementation and public risk perception. From this perspective, this article presents and discusses early evidence on under-ascertainment of COVID-19 and its motifs, options for surveillance, and reflections around their importance to tailor public health measures. In the case of COVID-19, systematically addressing and estimating under-ascertainment of cases is essential to tailor timely public health measures, and communicating these findings is of the utmost importance for policy making and public perception. One document of the European Centre of Disease Control (ECDC) [10] reports that "the detection of CO-VID-19 cases and/or deaths outside of known chains of transmission is a strong signal that social distancing mea-sures should be considered." However, with restrictive testing strategies, these signals may be missed.

abstract:
  Epidemic surveillance is a fundamental part of public health practice. Addressing under-ascertainment of cases is relevant in most surveillance systems, especially in pandemics of new diseases with a large spectrum of clinical presentations as it may influence timings of policy implementation and public risk perception. From this perspective, this article presents and discusses early evidence on under-ascertainment of COVID-19 and its motifs, options for surveillance, and reflections around their importance to tailor public health measures. In the case of COVID-19, systematically addressing and estimating under-ascertainment of cases is essential to tailor timely public health measures, and communicating these findings is of the utmost importance for policy making and public perception.


id: cord-025811-i8gy4dhj
author: Loconsole, Daniela
date: 2020-06-01
txt: ./txt/cord-025811-i8gy4dhj.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-025811-i8gy4dhj.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7266126/
doi: 10.1186/s12941-020-00366-y
summary:
  In our country, recent studies on the molecular epidemiology of KPC-KP from invasive infections showed an expansion of strains belonging to sequence types (STs) 512 and 258 of the hyperepidemic clonal complex (CC) 258 [7, 17] , which was detected for the first time in Italy in 2008 [18] . In this study, we present the results of molecular characterization of CR-KP strains isolated from hospitalized patients with BSIs detected during the 3-year period from 2014 to 2016 in three large provinces of the Puglia region in Southern Italy. During the study period, almost all of the CR-KP strains isolated from the patients with BSIs in the Puglia region (Southern Italy) carried the bla KPC gene (96%), confirming that the production of the KPC-type carbapenemase was the most common carbapenem-resistance mechanism, as previously reported in Italy [7, 9] and Southern Italy [28] .

title:
  Emerging high-risk ST101 and ST307 carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae clones from bloodstream infections in Southern Italy

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: Carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CR-KP) is an urgent public health issue in Italy. This pattern of resistance is due mainly to dissemination of carbapenemase genes. Molecular characterization of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CR-KP) strains was performed over a three-year period. In-depth analysis was performed on a subset of emerging CR-KP ST101 and ST307 clones. METHODS: A prospective study was performed on 691 patients with CR-KP bloodstream infections hospitalized in 19 hospitals located in three large provinces in Southern Italy. Carbapenemase genes were identified via genotyping methods. Multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) and Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) were carried out on ST101 and ST307 isolates. RESULTS: Among the CR-KP isolates, bla(KPC) was found in 95.6%, bla(VIM) was found in 3.5%, bla(NDM) was found in 0.1% and bla(OXA-48) was found in 0.1%. The bla(KPC-3) variant was identified in all 104 characterized KPC-KP isolates. MLST of 231 representative isolates revealed ST512 in 45.5%, ST101 in 20.3% and ST307 in 18.2% of the isolates. cgMLST of ST307 and ST101 isolates revealed presence of more than one beta-lactam resistance gene. Amino acid substitution in the chromosomal colistin-resistance gene pmrB was found in two ST101 isolates. CONCLUSIONS: ST512 is widespread in Southern Italy, but ST101 and ST307 are emerging since they were found in a significant proportion of cases. Aggressive infection control measures and a continuous monitoring of these high-risk clones are necessary to avoid rapid spread of CR-KP, especially in hospital settings.


id: cord-027758-vgr6ht3a
author: Wang, Tianbing
date: 2020-05-28
txt: ./txt/cord-027758-vgr6ht3a.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-027758-vgr6ht3a.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7313816/
doi: 10.1093/pcmedi/pbaa018
summary:
  OBJECTIVE: To analyse the impact and repercussions of the surge in healthcare demand in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, assess the potential effectiveness of various infection/disease control measures, and make projections on the best approach to exit from the current lockdown. The model captures the effectiveness of various disease suppression measures in three modifiable factors: (a) the per capita contact rate (β) that can be lowered by means of social distancing, (b) infection probability upon contacting infectious individuals that can be lowered by wearing facemasks, personal hygiene, etc., and (c) the population of infectious individuals in contact with the susceptible population, which can be lowered by quarantine. Analysing the different lockdown exit strategies showed that a lockdown exit strategy with a combination of social separation/general facemask use may work, but this needs to be supported by intense monitoring which would allow re-introduction/tightening of the control measures if the number of new infected subjects increases again.

title:
  A four-compartment model for the COVID-19 infection—implications on infection kinetics, control measures, and lockdown exit strategies

abstract:
  OBJECTIVE: To analyse the impact and repercussions of the surge in healthcare demand in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, assess the potential effectiveness of various infection/disease control measures, and make projections on the best approach to exit from the current lockdown. DESIGN: A four-compartment model was constructed for SARS-CoV-2 infection based on the Wuhan data and validated with data collected in Italy, the UK, and the US. The model captures the effectiveness of various disease suppression measures in three modifiable factors: (a) the per capita contact rate (β) that can be lowered by means of social distancing, (b) infection probability upon contacting infectious individuals that can be lowered by wearing facemasks, personal hygiene, etc., and (c) the population of infectious individuals in contact with the susceptible population, which can be lowered by quarantine. The model was used to make projections on the best approach to exit from the current lockdown. RESULTS: The model was applied to evaluate the epidemiological data and hospital burden in Italy, the UK, and the US. The control measures were identified as the key drivers for the observed epidemiological data through sensitivity analyses. Analysing the different lockdown exit strategies showed that a lockdown exit strategy with a combination of social separation/general facemask use may work, but this needs to be supported by intense monitoring which would allow re-introduction/tightening of the control measures if the number of new infected subjects increases again. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Governments should act early in a swift and decisive manner for containment policies. Any lockdown exit will need to be monitored closely, with regards to the potential of lockdown reimplementation. This mathematical model provides a framework for major pandemics in the future.


id: cord-031072-uit0nm20
title: How to restructure Euro area sovereign debt in the era of Covid-19
author: Arnold, Theresa
date: 2020-08-12
txt: ./txt/cord-031072-uit0nm20.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-031072-uit0nm20.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7454476/
doi: 10.1093/cmlj/kmaa015
abstract: nan
summary:
  In contrast to Italian creditors, the foreign-law holdout creditors in the Greek restructuring in 2012 had the rights to declare cross defaults, accelerate the debt and sue for recovery in English, Swiss or Japanese courts under the explicit consents to jurisdiction and waivers of immunities from suit and execution in the contracts. Theresa Arnold, Mitu Gulati and Ugo Panizza • Euro area sovereign debt in the era of The CACs in the Italian foreign-law bonds, such as the one issued in October 2019, are buttressed with all sorts of potent investor protections including acceleration clauses, cross default provisions, waivers of immunity and consents to jurisdiction. If faced with a debt crisis situation and the need to protect against holdouts, Italy will likely wish to retroactively add the two enhancements mentioned above-the option of using single-shot CACs and the disenfranchisement of the ECB-to all of its already-issued and outstanding local-law-governed debt.


id: cord-031936-46mossbr
title: Italy: toward a growth-friendly fiscal reform
author: Andrle, Michal
date: 2020-09-16
txt: ./txt/cord-031936-46mossbr.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-031936-46mossbr.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7492235/
doi: 10.1007/s40888-020-00198-1
summary:
  This paper seeks to contribute to the discussion by (1) assessing spending patterns to identify areas for savings; (2) evaluating the pension system; (3) analyzing the scope for revenue rebalancing; and (4) putting forward a package of spending cuts and tax rebalancing that is growth friendly and inclusive, could have limited near-term output costs, and would achieve a notable reduction in public debt over the medium term. The second part of this paper finds that: (1) despite past reforms, there remain generous parts of the system where Italy is an outlier, pointing to areas of potential savings; and (2) pension projections rest on optimistic assumptions of (a) employment, specifically that Italy will go from having among the highest to very low unemployment rates; and (b) Italy will maintain much higher real GDP growth rates for decades to come than has been its experience and policy settings.

abstract:
  Published in late 2017, the Italian medium-term fiscal plan aims to achieve structural balance by 2020, although concrete, high-quality measures to meet the target are yet to be specified. This paper seeks to contribute to the discussion by (1) assessing spending patterns to identify areas for savings; (2) evaluating the pension system; (3) analyzing the scope for revenue rebalancing; and (4) putting forward a package of spending cuts and tax rebalancing that is growth friendly and inclusive, could have limited near-term output costs, and would achieve a notable reduction in public debt over the medium term. Such a package could help the authorities balance the need to bring down public debt and, thus, reduce vulnerabilities while supporting the economic recovery.


id: cord-145890-ab4o0xol
title: Modelling and predicting the spatio-temporal spread of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Italy
author: Giuliani, Diego
date: 2020-03-14
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.06664v2.pdf
doi: nan
abstract:
  Official freely available data about the number of infected at the finest possible level of spatial areal aggregation (Italian provinces) are used to model the spatio-temporal distribution of COVID-19 infections at local level. Data time horizon ranges from 26 February 20020, which is the date when the first case not directly connected with China has been discovered in northern Italy, to 18 March 2020. An endemic-epidemic multivariate time-series mixed-effects generalized linear model for areal disease counts has been implemented to understand and predict spatio-temporal diffusion of the phenomenon. Previous literature has shown that these class of models provide reliable predictions of infectious diseases in time and space. Three subcomponents characterize the estimated model. The first is related to the evolution of the disease over time; the second is characterized by transmission of the illness among inhabitants of the same province; the third remarks the effects of spatial neighbourhood and try to capture the contagion effects of nearby areas. Focusing on the aggregated time-series of the daily counts in Italy, the contribution of any of the three subcomponents do not dominate on the others and our predictions are excellent for the whole country, with an error of 3 per thousand compared to the late available data. At local level, instead, interesting distinct patterns emerge. In particular, the provinces first concerned by containment measures are those that are not affected by the effects of spatial neighbours. On the other hand, for the provinces the are currently strongly affected by contagions, the component accounting for the spatial interaction with surrounding areas is prevalent. Moreover, the proposed model provides good forecasts of the number of infections at local level while controlling for delayed reporting.


id: cord-166918-hop33fxg
title: On the Evolution of Covid-19 in Italy: a Follow up Note
author: Dattoli, Giuseppe
date: 2020-03-27
txt: ./txt/cord-166918-hop33fxg.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-166918-hop33fxg.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.12667v1.pdf
doi: nan
summary:
  We used a model based on the logistic and Hubbert functions, the analysis we exploited has shown limited usefulness in terms of predictions and failed in fixing fundamental indications like the point of inflection of the disease growth. A) The logistic function [2, 3, 4] (LF ) (Fig. 1) describing the evolution of a given population N (τ ) of N 0 individuals at τ = 0 (in the present case infected people) in an environment with carrying capacity K and growth rate r, is specified by Before considering a more elaborated point of view, we consider the data from "Regione Lombardia" only, where we have reported the relevant logistic curve (Fig. 6 ). A final element of discussion comes from Fig. 14 where we have reported the worldwide and Italian evolution of the Covid cases/day 2 , a kind of bi-logistic pattern is evident, which supports the ideas put forward in this and in the previous note.

abstract:
  In a previous note we made an analysis of the spreading of the COVID disease in Italy. We used a model based on the logistic and Hubbert functions, the analysis we exploited has shown limited usefulness in terms of predictions and failed in fixing fundamental indications like the point of inflection of the disease growth. In this note we elaborate on the previous model, using multi-logistic models and attempt a more realistic analysis.


id: cord-186031-b1f9wtfn
title: Analysis of online misinformation during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemics in Italy
author: Caldarelli, Guido
date: 2020-10-05
txt: ./txt/cord-186031-b1f9wtfn.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-186031-b1f9wtfn.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2010.01913v1.pdf
doi: nan
summary:
  When analysing the emerging 4 communities, we find that they correspond to 1 Right wing parties and media (in steel blue) 2 Center left wing (dark red) 3 5 Stars Movement (M5S ), in dark orange 4 Institutional accounts (in sky blue) Details about the political situation in Italy during the period of data collection can be found in the Supplementary Material, Section 1.2: ''Italian political situation during the Covid-19 pandemics''. In line with previous results on the validated network of verified users, the table clearly shows how the vast majority of the news coming from sources considered scarce or non reputable are tweeted and retweeted by the center-right and right wing communities; 98% of the domains tagged as NR are shared by them.

abstract:
  During the Covid-19 pandemics, we also experience another dangerous pandemics based on misinformation. Narratives disconnected from fact-checking on the origin and cure of the disease intertwined with pre-existing political fights. We collect a database on Twitter posts and analyse the topology of the networks of retweeters (users broadcasting again the same elementary piece of information, or tweet) and validate its structure with methods of statistical physics of networks. Furthermore, by using commonly available fact checking software, we assess the reputation of the pieces of news exchanged. By using a combination of theoretical and practical weapons, we are able to track down the flow of misinformation in a snapshot of the Twitter ecosystem. Thanks to the presence of verified users, we can also assign a polarization to the network nodes (users) and see the impact of low-quality information producers and spreaders in the Twitter ecosystem.


id: cord-186095-zvvaq8p9
title: Human Mobility in Response to COVID-19 in France, Italy and UK
author: Galeazzi, Alessandro
date: 2020-05-13
txt: ./txt/cord-186095-zvvaq8p9.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-186095-zvvaq8p9.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.06341v1.pdf
doi: nan
summary:
  We perform a massive analysis on aggregated and de-identified data provided by Facebook through its Disease Prevention movement maps [25] to compare the * a.galeazzi002@unibs.it † antonio.scala.phys@gmail.com ‡ w.quattrociocchi@unive.it effects of lockdown measures applied in France, Italy and UK in response to COVID-19. Hence, the situation in terms of number of WCCs and the size of the LWCC reflects the different underlying structure of the three countries: France with a huge hub in Paris that is star-connected via long-range links to the local city-centered areas, Italy with mobility distributed mostly over the center-northern region, and UK that appears as an extension of London, whose mobility network remains pervasive even after the lockdown. The top row of Figure 3 shows the results of the percolation process in terms of node persistence, carried out by removing edges in increasing weight order for France, Italy and UK.

abstract:
  The policies implemented to hinder the COVID-19 outbreak represent one of the largest critical events in history. The understanding of this process is fundamental for crafting and tailoring post-disaster relief. In this work we perform a massive data analysis, through geolocalized data from 13M Facebook users, on how such a stress affected mobility patterns in France, Italy and UK. We find that the general reduction of the overall efficiency in the network of movements is accompanied by geographical fragmentation with a massive reduction of long-range connections. The impact, however, differs among nations according to their initial mobility structure. Indeed, we find that the mobility network after the lockdown is more concentrated in the case of France and UK and more distributed in Italy. Such a process can be approximated through percolation to quantify the substantial impact of the lockdown.


id: cord-217139-d9q7zkog
title: Future of COVID-19 in Italy: A mathematical perspective
author: Kumar, Sumit
date: 2020-04-18
txt: ./txt/cord-217139-d9q7zkog.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-217139-d9q7zkog.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.08588v1.pdf
doi: nan
summary:
  Moreover, to make our predictions more realistic, we have trained and validated our model with COVID-19 data of some the highly affected regions of Italy. Our proposed model aims to predict the future scenario of the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy by analyzing its present state in the country. Figure 5 shows various scenarios of the epidemic in Italy in case disease transmission rate would have been timely controlled. From figure 5 , we see that as disease transmission rate, β is reduced from 0.7 to 0.4, it not only decrease the active number of infections from 45000 to 9000, but also the overall lifespan of pandemic reduced from July 31 to April 20, 2020. All the remaining parameter values are considered to be same as given in Table 1 In figure 6 , we study the case of Lambardia region of Italy. Sub-figures (9a) and (10a) exhibit the authenticity of our proposed model with the officially reported COVID-19 cases in these regions.

abstract:
  We have proposed an SEIR compartmental mathematical model. The prime objective of this study is to analyze and forecast the pandemic in Italy for the upcoming months. The basic reproduction number has been calculated. Based on the current situation in Italy, in this paper, we will estimate the possible time for the end of the pandemic in the country. The impact of lockdown and rapid isolation on the spread of the pandemic are also discussed. Further, we have studied four of the most pandemic affected regions in Italy. Using the proposed model, a prediction has been made about the duration of pandemic in these regions. The variation in the basic reproduction number corresponding to the sensitive parameters of the model is also examined.


id: cord-221131-44n5pojb
title: Some numerical observations about the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy
author: Zullo, Federico
date: 2020-03-25
txt: ./txt/cord-221131-44n5pojb.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-221131-44n5pojb.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.11363v2.pdf
doi: nan
summary:
  Since the start of the epidemic in China, a certain number of studies appeared in the mathematical community about this subject: the description of the spatial or temporal diffusion of the infected in given regions [4] , [8] [10] , the transmission dynamics of the infection [6] , the economic and financial consequences of the epidemic [1] , the effect of atmospheric indicators on the spread of the virus [5] , are only a fraction of the topics under investigation in these days. The reasonable assumption that the same fraction (with respect to the total) of infected, susceptible and recovered individuals are known, gives the possibility, in this case, to compare the measured data with the properties that are scale-independent. The second hypothesis is fundamental since we are going to look at scale-independent quantities: even in the case the measured number of infected and recovered individuals are different from the actual values, it is possible to estimate these quantities.

abstract:
  We give some numerical observations on the total number of infected by the SARS-CoV-2 in Italy. The analysis is based on a tanh formula involving two parameters. A polynomial correlation between the parameters gives an upper bound for the time of the peak of new infected. A numerical indicator of the temporal variability of the upper bound is introduced. The result and the possibility to extend the analysis to other countries are discussed in the conclusions.


id: cord-252854-gl094y6c
title: COVID-19 and Older Adults. Lessons Learned from the Italian Epicenter
author: Cesari, Matteo
date: 2020-03-01
txt: ./txt/cord-252854-gl094y6c.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-252854-gl094y6c.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32550954/
doi: 10.5770/cgj.23.445
summary:
  On March 13th, 2020, The World Health Organization effectively established that Europe is the new the COVID-19 pandemic world epicenter, as cases in Italy and other European nations soared. The clinical presentation in older adults with severe illness, in the experience from geriatricians in Lombardy, is described as quite sudden; patients can develop severe hypoxemia with the need of ventilation support in few hours. Specifically, the numbers in Italy have climbed, with over 80,000 cases and 8,000 deaths as of March 26th, 2020, placing Italy now as the country with the highest mortality rate (1) Importantly, older adults are particularly vulnerable to get severe illness and complications from this disease, and they also have a higher mortality rate than any other age group. 2. Clinical presentation in older adults with severe illness is quite sudden; patients can develop severe hypoxemia and need ventilation support in very few hours.

abstract:
  On March 13th, 2020, The World Health Organization effectively established that Europe is the new the COVID-19 pandemic world epicenter, as cases in Italy and other European nations soared. The numbers in Italy have climbed with over 80,000 cases as of March 25th, 2020 and with over 8000 deaths, placing Italy now as the country with the highest mortality rate. Importantly, older adults are particularly vulnerable to get severe illness, complications, and to have a higher mortality rate than any other age group. The clinical presentation in older adults with severe illness, in the experience from geriatricians in Lombardy, is described as quite sudden; patients can develop severe hypoxemia with the need of ventilation support in few hours. Geriatric syndromes are not a common form of presentation for COVID-19 in severe illness. It is suggested that stratification by frailty level may help to detect the most vulnerable, and decisions about healthcare resource prioritization should not be taken based only on age itself or previous diagnosis, such as having dementia.


id: cord-253367-n6c07x9q
title: Hazard Prevention, Death and Dignity During COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy
author: Ussai, Silvia
date: 2020-09-18
txt: ./txt/cord-253367-n6c07x9q.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-253367-n6c07x9q.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00509
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00509
summary:
  This, in contrast with Ebola or Marburg diseases, where dead bodies are known to be associated with contagion; (2) the option for decedents with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 to be buried or cremated; (3) respect of customs, with family''s chance to view the body after it has been prepared for burials, using standard precautions at all times including hand hygiene; (4) body wrapping in cloth and deceased transfer as soon as possible to the mortuary area. 648 (2) , establishing urgent measures to contain the transmission of COVID-19 and prevent biological hazards, including very restrictive interventions on public Holy Masses and funerals. 648 (2) , establishing urgent measures to contain the transmission of COVID-19 and prevent biological hazards, including very restrictive interventions on public Holy Masses and funerals. During the emergency phase, Italy banned burial procedures based (i) on the recent acknowledgment about the virus environmental stability (4) as well as (ii) its national civil contingency plan.

abstract:
  On 9 March 2020, Italy passed the Prime Minister's Decree n. 648, establishing urgent measures to contain the transmission of COVID-19 and prevent biological hazards, including very restrictive interventions on public Holy Masses and funerals. Italy banned burial procedures based (i) on the recent acknowledgment about the virus environmental stability as well as (ii) its national civil contingency plan. Hence, only the cremation process is admitted for COVID-19 deaths. Viewing of the body is permitted only for mourners, which are allowed to perform the prayer at the closing of the coffin and the prayer at the tomb (cf. Rite of Succession, first part n. 3 and n. 5). The dead cannot be buried in their personal clothes; however, priests have been authorized to put the family clothes on top of the corpse, as if they were dressed. Burying personal items is also illegal. The dignity of the dead, their cultural and religious traditions, and their families should be always respected and protected. Among all the threats, COVID-19 epidemic in Italy revealed the fragility of human beings under enforced isolation and, for the first time, the painful deprivation of families to accompany their loved ones to the last farewell. Ethics poses new challenges in times of epidemics.


id: cord-253402-6sgeraws
title: COVID-19 and Italy: what next?
author: Remuzzi, Andrea
date: 2020-03-13
txt: ./txt/cord-253402-6sgeraws.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-253402-6sgeraws.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673620306279
doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(20)30627-9
summary:
  There is now grave concern regarding the Italian national health system''s capacity to effectively respond to the needs of patients who are infected and require intensive care for SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia. At present, our national health system''s capacity to effectively respond to the needs of those who are already infected and require admission to an intensive care unit for ARDS, largely due to SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia, is a matter of grave concern. Given that the mortality of patients who are critically ill with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia is high and that the survival time of non-survivors is 1-2 weeks, the number of people infected in Italy will probably impose a major strain on critical care facilities in our hospitals, some of which do not have adequate resources or staff to deal with this emergency. We predict that if the exponential trend continues for the next few days, more than 2500 hospital beds for patients in intensive care units will be needed in only 1 week to treat ARDS caused by SARS-CoV-2-pneumonia in Italy.

abstract:
  The spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has already taken on pandemic proportions, affecting over 100 countries in a matter of weeks. A global response to prepare health systems worldwide is imperative. Although containment measures in China have reduced new cases by more than 90%, this reduction is not the case elsewhere, and Italy has been particularly affected. There is now grave concern regarding the Italian national health system's capacity to effectively respond to the needs of patients who are infected and require intensive care for SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia. The percentage of patients in intensive care reported daily in Italy between March 1 and March 11, 2020, has consistently been between 9% and 11% of patients who are actively infected. The number of patients infected since Feb 21 in Italy closely follows an exponential trend. If this trend continues for 1 more week, there will be 30 000 infected patients. Intensive care units will then be at maximum capacity; up to 4000 hospital beds will be needed by mid-April, 2020. Our analysis might help political leaders and health authorities to allocate enough resources, including personnel, beds, and intensive care facilities, to manage the situation in the next few days and weeks. If the Italian outbreak follows a similar trend as in Hubei province, China, the number of newly infected patients could start to decrease within 3–4 days, departing from the exponential trend. However, this cannot currently be predicted because of differences between social distancing measures and the capacity to quickly build dedicated facilities in China.


id: cord-253736-cd4qnp2m
title: Increased Risk of COVID-19-Related Deaths among General Practitioners in Italy
author: Modenese, Alberto
date: 2020-06-03
txt: ./txt/cord-253736-cd4qnp2m.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-253736-cd4qnp2m.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32503304/
doi: 10.3390/healthcare8020155
summary:
  Especially at the beginning of the epidemic, GPs might have had scant information on the specific safety procedures for the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 transmission (e.g., there was limited knowledge on the possibility of contagions deriving from asymptomatic patients) and, moreover, the availability of personal protective equipment was insufficient. Such studies will allow the identification of specific occupational hazards and possible increased risk of infection and mortality among various categories of HCWs. Considering the currently available Italian data, the trend in deaths suggests that the work-related contagion of GPs was more critical during the first weeks of the epidemic in Italy, with a slight decrease in more recent days, even if the proportion is still very high for GPs. The relatively high number of death cases among GPs deserves some examination.

abstract:
  To date, data on COVID-19-related death cases among physicians from different medical specialties are incomplete and scattered. In Italy, available data highlight that general practitioners (GPs) are, apparently, the most heavily affected group. Indeed, they currently represent 44.1% of the total COVID-19 related death cases occurred among physicians, whereas they constitute about 15% of the total number of doctors. This high proportion is most likely the consequence of a work-related contagion happening especially during the first weeks of the epidemic, and persisting also in the following weeks, after the national lockdown. There are various reasons for these higher contagion rates: GPs perform a lot of medical examinations daily, usually in close contact with patients. Especially at the beginning of the epidemic, GPs might have had scant information on the specific safety procedures for the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 transmission (e.g., there was limited knowledge on the possibility of contagions deriving from asymptomatic patients) and, moreover, the availability of personal protective equipment was insufficient. Furthermore, the risk of infection is highly increased by the virus’ characteristics, like its survival for several hours/days on different surfaces and its persistence in the air after an aerosolization process, with possibilities to be transmitted over distances longer than two meters. Following these observations, and considering the high cost in term of GPs’ lives, the COVID-19 pandemic will probably revolutionize the approach to patients in general practice. Clear and effective guidelines are absolutely and urgently needed for the refinement of adequate measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections among GPs.


id: cord-255221-v4r2ek6a
title: Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in Italy: Analysis of Risk Factors and Proposed Remedial Measures
author: Di Lorenzo, Giuseppe
date: 2020-04-09
txt: ./txt/cord-255221-v4r2ek6a.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-255221-v4r2ek6a.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2020.00140
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2020.00140
abstract: nan
summary:
  Until March 28, 2020, there were ∼90,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease in Italy, with 26,000 in-patients, 3,800 patients in intensive care units (ICUs), 40,000 positive in home isolation, and 10,000 deaths, according to the Italian Civil Protection bulletin 1 . Italy currently has the highest COVID-19 mortality rate worldwide, even compared to the People''s Republic of China where the number of COVID-19 deaths totaled over 3,000 cases, including potential re-infections. The Lombardy region has a higher number of intensive care and resuscitation beds compared to southern Italy; unfortunately, these places are fast running out of hospital beds and facing challenges in the provision of primary care for conditions other than COVID-19, necessitating the transfer of numerous patients to other regions 4 .


id: cord-256166-4pvk3fqn
author: Indini, Alice
date: 2020-04-06
txt: ./txt/cord-256166-4pvk3fqn.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-256166-4pvk3fqn.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/pii/S0959804920301659
doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2020.03.024
summary:
  Results show that the following measures for oncologic patients have been promptly implemented through the whole country: use of protective devices, triage of patients accessing the hospital, delay of non-urgent visits, and use of telemedicine. Such emergency has led Italian oncologists to join forces, with the aim to find a way not to compromise the continuum of care of patients and to preserve safe everyday clinical Here we present the results of this survey, providing an overview of COVID-19 epidemic in Italy and assessing potential interventions to overcome this critical situation. Answers to the questions in Section 2 clearly show that, even if by the time of the survey COVID-19 represented an emergency mainly in the North of Italy, diagnostic measures for all patients accessing oncologic services were immediately activated in the whole country ( Table 3) . After the very first reports of COVID-19 in Italy, measures to reduce hospital accesses for oncologic patients were taken almost throughout the country.

title:
  Reorganization of Medical Oncology Departments during COVID-19 Pandemic: a Nationwide Italian Survey

abstract:
  Abstract The novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARSCoV-2) pandemic is a global health problem, which started to affect China by the end of year 2019. In Europe, Italy has faced this novel disease entity (named COVID-19) first and severely. COVID-19 represents a significant hurdle for public health services and a potential harm for patients with cancer. The Collegio Italiano dei Primari Oncologi Medici (CIPOMO) is an Italian association of head physicians in oncology departments, which promotes working and research activities in oncology on a national basis. In the midst of the epidemic in Italy, the CIPOMO promoted a national survey aiming to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on clinical activity of oncologists and the implementation of containment measures of COVID-19 diffusion. Overall, 122 head physicians participated in this survey, with a homogeneous distribution on the national territory. Results show that the following measures for oncologic patients have been promptly implemented through the whole country: use of protective devices, triage of patients accessing the hospital, delay of non-urgent visits, and use of telemedicine. Results of this survey suggest that Italian oncology departments have promptly set a proactive approach to the actual emergency. Oncologists need to preserve the continuum of care of patients, as the benefit of ensuring a well-delivered anti-cancer treatment plan outweighs the risk of COVID-19 infection. International cooperation is an important starting point, as heavily affected nations can serve as an example to find out ways to safely preserve health activity during pandemic.


id: cord-256326-3ebcuzd6
author: Liotta, Giuseppe
date: 2020-05-21
txt: ./txt/cord-256326-3ebcuzd6.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-256326-3ebcuzd6.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32437377/
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0233329
summary:
  We analyzed several variables to test this hypothesis, such as the percentage of infected patients aged >80 years, available nursing home beds, COVID-19 incidence rate, and the number of days from when the number of positive tests exceeded 50 (epidemic maturity). While there is a very clear association between the case fatality rate and age demographics (Italy has the second oldest population worldwide and has the highest ageing index in Europe [4] with a value of 168.9), we wanted to test the hypothesis that the supposed closeness between younger and older generations in Italian families may have played a major role in the pandemic spread. Additionally, we explored the relationship between the proportion of infected patients aged >80 years and social connectedness indicators, such as the percentage of family comprising one members and household size [5] .

title:
  Is social connectedness a risk factor for the spreading of COVID-19 among older adults? The Italian paradox

abstract:
  Italy was one of the first European countries affected by the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with over 105,000 infected people and close to 13,000 deaths, until March 31(st). The pandemic has hit especially hard because of the country's demographic structure, with a high percentage of older adults. The authors explore the possibility, recently aired in some studies, of extensive intergenerational contact as a possible determinant of the severity of the pandemic among the older Italian adults. We analyzed several variables to test this hypothesis, such as the percentage of infected patients aged >80 years, available nursing home beds, COVID-19 incidence rate, and the number of days from when the number of positive tests exceeded 50 (epidemic maturity). We also included in the analysis mean household size and percentage of households comprising one person, in the region. Paradoxically, the results are opposite of what was previously reported. The pandemic was more severe in regions with higher family fragmentation and increased availability of residential health facilities.


id: cord-256843-05m50voc
title: Modelling the epidemiological trend and behavior of COVID-19 in Italy
author: Rovetta, Alessandro
date: 2020-03-23
txt: ./txt/cord-256843-05m50voc.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-256843-05m50voc.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.19.20038968
doi: 10.1101/2020.03.19.20038968
summary:
  After the reconstruction of the real data on COVID-19 in Italy in the period March 2020, 1-14, through the above methods, the best estimates obtained for the Italian epidemic parameters are 1/σ = (3±1) days, 1/γ = (15±3) days, R0 = 3.51 ± 5%, I 0 = 3350 ± 20%. Thus, thanks to the results obtained from the application of the S.E.I.R. model we can foresee three possible scenarios: If, in Italy, the real next-days trend of the total infected number will be lower than that shown in figure 1, we can assume the following events set out in order of probability: the containment measures adopted 10 days ago are taking effect; Sars-Cov-2 has undergone a significant anti-evolutionary mutation. We assume the following events set out in order of probability: the containment measures adopted 10 days ago are not taking effect and Sars-Cov-2 has undergone a significant evolutionary mutation; the S.E.I.R model is no-more representative of the COVID-19 Italian case and we should utilize the S.E.I.R.S. model.

abstract:
  As of March 16, 2020, over 185,000 across the world, Italy became the red hotspot for the COVID-19 pandemic after China. With over 35,000 cases and 2900 deaths reported in the month of March in Italy, it is necessary to stimulate epidemic trend to understand the behavior of COVID-19 in Italy. By S.E.I.R. simulation, we estimated the most representative epidemic parameters occurred from March 1 to 14, 2020, thus being able to evaluate the consistency of the containment rules and identify possible Sars-Cov-2 local mutations. Our estimations are based on some assumptions and limitations exited.


id: cord-257263-906epvo1
title: Changes in the spatial distribution of COVID-19 incidence in Italy using GIS-based maps
author: Martellucci, Cecilia Acuti
date: 2020-07-18
txt: ./txt/cord-257263-906epvo1.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-257263-906epvo1.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12941-020-00373-z
doi: 10.1186/s12941-020-00373-z
abstract: nan
summary:
  Although the epidemic of COVID-19 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) started in Italy on January 31, 2020, no reports on the use of GIS-based maps have been published to analyze the distinct differences in incidence rates across its regions and provinces during the last months. For these reasons, we have developed epidemiological maps of incidence rates using official populations, by regions (1st administrative level of the country) and provinces (2nd administrative level), for COVID-19 in Italy using GIS. Surveillance cases data of the cumulative number at March 15, April 18, and June 8, 2020, officially reported by the Italian health authorities were used to estimate the cumulated incidence rates on those dates using reference population data on SARS-CoV-2 confirmed infections (cases/100,000 pop) and to develop the maps by regions and provinces, using the GIS software Kosmo ® 3.1, as performed in previous related studies [6, 7] .


id: cord-257859-9hmrt96h
title: Molecular evidence of kobuviruses in free-ranging red foxes (Vulpes vulpes)
author: Di Martino, Barbara
date: 2014-01-23
txt: ./txt/cord-257859-9hmrt96h.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-257859-9hmrt96h.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24452667/
doi: 10.1007/s00705-014-1975-9
summary:
  Based on analysis of partial RdRp and full-length VP1 genes, all of the strains shared the highest identity with canine kobuviruses (CaKVs) recently detected in the US, the UK and Italy. Here we report the detection of kobu-like viruses in faecal samples obtained from Italian red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) that are genetically very similar to CaKVs. Between September 2009 and May 2013, individual rectal swabs were collected from 34 red foxes in northern Italy (Valle d''Aosta and Piemonte regions) submitted to the National Reference Center for Wild Animal Diseases (CeRMAS). Based on inspection of the tree (Fig. 1) , all of the fox kobuvirus sequences formed a tight cluster with the CaKVs recently identified in the UK and in the US [5, 12, 14] , sharing a common root with murine kobuvirus and human AiVs. Historical evidence shows that foxes are susceptible to viral diseases of domestic carnivores, including infections with canine distemper virus [15, 24] , CPV-2 [24] , canine adenoviruses [3, 24] , CCoV [28] , and canine herpesvirus [24] .

abstract:
  Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) are susceptible to viral diseases of domestic carnivores. In this study, by screening rectal swabs collected from 34 red foxes in Italy, we identified kobuvirus RNA in five samples. Based on analysis of partial RdRp and full-length VP1 genes, all of the strains shared the highest identity with canine kobuviruses (CaKVs) recently detected in the US, the UK and Italy. These findings provide the first evidence of the circulation of these novel viruses in foxes.


id: cord-259618-kl0aq0ut
title: The fight against COVID-19: a report from the Italian trenches
author: De Leo, Diego
date: 2020-04-20
txt: ./txt/cord-259618-kl0aq0ut.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-259618-kl0aq0ut.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1017/s1041610220000630
doi: 10.1017/s1041610220000630
abstract: nan
summary:
  On the other hand, in the present situation, caregivers of people with dementia are also exposed to extra stress: limited opportunities to offer the usual level of care; food and cleaning management more problematic; worries and concerns for the possibility of contaminating an older adult that would not survive the disease; and, in a situation like the Italian one, the many "badanti" (carers from Eastern Europe) without a regular contract (Rugolotto et al., 2017) , now impeded to reach the home of the older adults they take care of because they are intercepted by the police at check points. Unfortunately, this elementary strategy to guarantee that health professionals were sufficiently protected toward the virus was not applied with due care, and up to date the number of doctors who died from the infection during their professional activity is unbearable (109 victims, at the time of writing).


id: cord-261517-j9kw1a9x
title: How the Italian NHS Is Fighting Against the COVID-19 Emergency
author: Boccia, Stefania
date: 2020-05-08
txt: ./txt/cord-261517-j9kw1a9x.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-261517-j9kw1a9x.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00167
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00167
abstract: nan
summary:
  After the first declaration of emergency of January 31st, a Decree (February 23rd) isolated cities with COVID-19 clusters within the northern Italian regions (Lombardy and Veneto) ( Table 1) . As a consequence, the new Decrees extended restrictions from the Region of Lombardy to all of northern Italy and, by March 11th, to the entire country (Figure 1) . Suspension to the entire productive chain (unless "essential", e.g. food production and distribution) in the Country FIGURE 1 | Number of new cases, deaths and total cases due to COVID-19 in Italy, from 21st February to 22nd April 2020. The approaches taken by the Italian health system to the COVID-19 emergency have varied among the most severely affected regions fall into three broad types (9). Critical care utilization for the COVID-19 Outbreak in Lombardy, Italy: early experience and forecast during an emergency response


id: cord-263544-6ueqx53v
author: Mauri, Eleonora
date: 2020-06-01
txt: ./txt/cord-263544-6ueqx53v.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-263544-6ueqx53v.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.36185/2532-1900-008
doi: 10.36185/2532-1900-008
summary:
  The Italian Association of Myology developed a survey to estimate the impact of these changes on patients affected by neuromuscular disorders and on specialized neuromuscular centers during the acute phase of COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: We developed an electronic survey that was sent to neuromuscular centers affiliated with the Italian Association of Myology, assessing changes in pharmacological therapies provision, outpatient clinical and instrumental services, support services (physiotherapy, nursing care, psychological support) and clinical trials. Services provided by neuromuscular centers, such as rehabilitation, home care nursing, psychological support and prenatal diagnosis, faced a reduction in 57% of centers, showing higher reduction rates in geographical areas with higher numbers of SARS-CoV-2 cases (aggregate services reduction in 66% of Northern NMD centers, 43% of Central centers and 44% of Southern centers) (Fig. 1) . Home nursing care service was not provided in 67% of centers, with a higher reduction rate in Northern Italy regions, where only 20% of expected patients obtained regular assistance.

title:
  Estimating the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on services provided by Italian Neuromuscular Centers: an Italian Association of Myology survey of the acute phase

abstract:
  INTRODUCTION: Since February 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy has forced the health care system to undergo profound rearrangements in its services and facilities, especially in the worst-hit areas in Northern Italy. In this setting, inpatient and outpatient services had to rethink and reorganize their activities to meet the needs of patients during the “lockdown”. The Italian Association of Myology developed a survey to estimate the impact of these changes on patients affected by neuromuscular disorders and on specialized neuromuscular centers during the acute phase of COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: We developed an electronic survey that was sent to neuromuscular centers affiliated with the Italian Association of Myology, assessing changes in pharmacological therapies provision, outpatient clinical and instrumental services, support services (physiotherapy, nursing care, psychological support) and clinical trials. RESULTS: 40% of surveyed neuromuscular centers reported a reduction in outpatient visit and examinations (44.5% of centers in Northern regions; 25% of centers in Central regions; 50% of centers in Southern regions). Twenty-two% of centers postponed in-hospital administration of therapies for neuromuscular diseases (23.4% in Northern regions; 13.0% in Central regions; 20% in Southern regions). Diagnostic and support services (physiotherapy, nursing care, psychological support) were suspended in 57% of centers (66/43/44% in Northern, Central and Southern centers respectively) Overall, the most affected services were rehabilitative services and on-site outpatient visits, which were suspended in 93% of centers. Strategies adopted by neuromuscular centers to overcome these changes included maintaining urgent on-site visits, addressing patients to available services and promoting remote contact and telemedicine. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a significant disruption of clinical and support services for patients with neuromuscular diseases. Despite the efforts to provide telemedicine consults to patients, this option could be promoted and improved further. A close collaboration between the different neuromuscular centers and service providers as well as further implementation of telehealth platforms are necessary to ensure quality care to NMD patients in the near future and in case of recurrent pandemic waves.


id: cord-265628-47dvjaa9
title: Administrative boundaries and urban areas in Italy: A perspective from scaling laws
author: nan
date: 2020-08-13
txt: ./txt/cord-265628-47dvjaa9.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-265628-47dvjaa9.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204619310448
doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.103906
summary:
  Relying on open data for population, settlements and road networks, we showed the extent to which scaling relations hold for different boundaries for urban areas, and how they compare to each other. Area-population data for administrative boundaries can be reconciled with scaling relations valid for both the world''s cities data and with those obtained from natural cities, provided an effective area is adopted in place of polygon planimetric area of municipalities. Starting from the highest ranking, one can select all of the adjacent (surrounding) municipalities and try and find a candidate polygon to be merged with the central one, based on two requirements: (i) the aggregate areas and populations of the candidate mergers have a representative point in the (P A , ) plane which is closer to the scaling law than both the starting points, and (ii) the two candidates for the merger are connected by an urban area, as obtained by the method natural cities.

abstract:
  Delineating boundaries of urban areas is no easy task, due to the inherent complexity of the problem, heterogeneity of relevant data and little consensus on how to properly measure the results. Any such delineation must eventually be cast onto administrative boundaries, an essential requirement for real-world applications. In the effort of relating administrative and alternative boundaries, we investigated in Italy the validity of general scaling laws, such as the area-population relation, and proposed a practical application. Relying on open data for population, settlements and road networks, we showed the extent to which scaling relations hold for different boundaries for urban areas, and how they compare to each other. We considered, beside Italian municipalities, urban areas based on the idea of “natural cities”, obtained using head/tail breaks of areas related to human mobility as an explicit indicator of existence of a city. Area-population data for administrative boundaries can be reconciled with scaling relations valid for both the world’s cities data and with those obtained from natural cities, provided an effective area is adopted in place of polygon planimetric area of municipalities. We eventually proposed an aggregation of administrative units using the empirical scaling relation as an objective function for accepting or rejecting pairwise fusion of boundaries. We suggest considering such a method, along with expert considerations, as an additional tool for real-world urban planning as seen from the very general perspective of seemingly abstract scaling laws.


id: cord-265785-mcru4j6g
title: The Outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy: Fighting the Pandemic
author: Indolfi, Ciro
date: 2020-04-01
txt: ./txt/cord-265785-mcru4j6g.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-265785-mcru4j6g.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaccas.2020.03.012
doi: 10.1016/j.jaccas.2020.03.012
abstract: nan
summary:
  The Outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy has caused a never-seen-before disaster in terms of hospitalizations and deaths. Italy was the first European nation to be affected by COVID-19 with 143,626 confirmed total cases and 18,279 deaths to date (1) . Italy was not prepared for COVID-19, currently a planetary health emergency with 1, 436, 198 cases and 85,522 deaths worldwide (2) . On February 21, 2019, the first Italian patient with COVID-19 was diagnosed, a 38-year-old man hospitalized at Codogno Hospital, Lodi, in northern Italy. Also, in northern Italy, on February 21, 2020, another outbreak of viruses was discovered in Vò Euganeo (Padua) and, in the Veneto region, the first death was reported, a 78-year-old man in a hospital in Padua. Social containment, early and rapid throughout a nation, is the most effective measure for controlling the spread of COVID-19; this social containment perhaps was delayed in Italy ( Figure 3) .


id: cord-267034-s3hf4bo5
author: Palladino, Raffaele
date: 2020-08-05
txt: ./txt/cord-267034-s3hf4bo5.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-267034-s3hf4bo5.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17165644
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17165644
summary:
  Second, we evaluated the effect of an early lockdown on the trend of new cases, creating a counterfactual scenario where the intervention was implemented one week in advance. For this reason, we estimated the number of deaths and hospital admissions for COVID-19 that would have occurred if the lockdown had been implemented one week earlier than it was actually enforced. In the present analysis we used data on the daily number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalized patients, and deaths recorded in Italy from February 24th, the first day national data were made available, to May 3rd, the last day of implementation of the national lockdown. The late implementation of the lockdown in Italy was responsible for a substantial proportion of hospital admissions and deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The late implementation of the lockdown in Italy was responsible for a substantial proportion of hospital admissions and deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

title:
  Excess Deaths and Hospital Admissions for COVID-19 Due to a Late Implementation of the Lockdown in Italy

abstract:
  In Italy, the COVID-19 epidemic curve started to flatten when the health system had already exceeded its capacity, raising concerns that the lockdown was indeed delayed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the health effects of late implementation of the lockdown in Italy. Using national data on the daily number of COVID-19 cases, we first estimated the effect of the lockdown, employing an interrupted time series analysis. Second, we evaluated the effect of an early lockdown on the trend of new cases, creating a counterfactual scenario where the intervention was implemented one week in advance. We then predicted the corresponding number of intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, non-ICU admissions, and deaths. Finally, we compared results under the actual and counterfactual scenarios. An early implementation of the lockdown would have avoided about 126,000 COVID-19 cases, 54,700 non-ICU admissions, 15,600 ICU admissions, and 12,800 deaths, corresponding to 60% (95%CI: 55% to 64%), 52% (95%CI: 46% to 57%), 48% (95%CI: 42% to 53%), and 44% (95%CI: 38% to 50%) reduction, respectively. We found that the late implementation of the lockdown in Italy was responsible for a substantial proportion of hospital admissions and deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.


id: cord-267664-vahd59z8
title: COVID-19 in Italy: Ageism and Decision-Making in a Pandemic
author: Cesari, Matteo
date: 2020-04-01
txt: ./txt/cord-267664-vahd59z8.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-267664-vahd59z8.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2020.03.025
doi: 10.1016/j.jamda.2020.03.025
abstract: nan
summary:
  Not surprisingly, the usual, despicable age criterion started to be implicitly adopted in the decisional algorithm for the allocation of scarce resources to the mounting number of patients. It is noteworthy that during the early crisis, the Società Italiana di Anestesia, Analgesia, Rianimazione e Terapia Intensiva (SIAARTI; Italian Society of Anesthesia, Analgesia, and Intensive Care) released clinical ethics recommendations for the allocation of treatment in exceptional resource-limited situations. Of course, the patient''s age… If we want to fight such an ageistic approach and replace the age criterion for the allocation of resources, we must have and propose a parameter more robust than age but equally easy-to-obtain, that can be used for critical and rapid decision-making. In settings where rationing of resources becomes a necessity and such preparation has not been made, medical staff or oversight organizations should implement ad hoc guidelines that incorporate key prognostic factors beyond age -most notably frailty, comorbidity, and functional status. Clinical ethics recommendations for the allocation of intensive care treatments, in exceptional, resource-limited circumstances


id: cord-271627-mapfi8f5
author: Chintalapudi, Nalini
date: 2020-04-13
txt: ./txt/cord-271627-mapfi8f5.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-271627-mapfi8f5.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmii.2020.04.004
doi: 10.1016/j.jmii.2020.04.004
summary:
  title: COVID-19 virus outbreak forecasting of registered and recovered cases after sixty day lockdown in Italy: A data driven model approach METHODS: COVID-19 infected patient data has extracted from the Italian Health Ministry website includes registered and recovered cases from mid February to end March. The forecasting of infected patients could be reach the value of 182,757, and recovered cases could be registered value of 81,635 at end of May. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the importance of country lockdown and self isolation in control the disease transmissibility among Italian population through data driven model analysis. Therefore, we developed a data driven model to forecast COVID-19 outbreak daily registered cases and recovered cases, also estimated the chance of low infected patient cases for next 60 days of Italy quarantine. Based on the ARIMA model accuracy evolution of COVID-19 Italian epidemic data on mentioned time period, we considered mean absolute prediction error (MAPE) parameter.

title:
  COVID-19 virus outbreak forecasting of registered and recovered cases after sixty day lockdown in Italy: A data driven model approach

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: Till 31 March 2020, 105,792 COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Italy including 15,726 deaths which explains how worst the epidemic has affected the country. After the announcement of lockdown in Italy on 9 March 2020, situation was becoming stable since last days of March. In view of this, it is important to forecast the COVID-19 evaluation of Italy condition and the possible effects, if this lock down could continue for another 60 days. METHODS: COVID-19 infected patient data has extracted from the Italian Health Ministry website includes registered and recovered cases from mid February to end March. Adoption of seasonal ARIMA forecasting package with R statistical model was done. RESULTS: Predictions were done with 93.75% of accuracy for registered case models and 84.4% of accuracy for recovered case models. The forecasting of infected patients could be reach the value of 182,757, and recovered cases could be registered value of 81,635 at end of May. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the importance of country lockdown and self isolation in control the disease transmissibility among Italian population through data driven model analysis. Our findings suggest that nearly 35% decrement of registered cases and 66% growth of recovered cases will be possible.


id: cord-272190-boo25au0
author: Borrelli, Enrico
date: 2020-04-14
txt: ./txt/cord-272190-boo25au0.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-272190-boo25au0.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-020-0880-6
doi: 10.1038/s41433-020-0880-6
abstract: nan
summary:
  title: Taking the right measures to control COVID-19 in ophthalmology: the experience of a tertiary eye care referral center in Italy To date, more than 7500 health workers have been affected by COVID-19 in Italy, and among them more than 50 medical doctors have died from this infection. In order to achieve continuity of care and to diminish the risk of contamination for both healthcare workers and patients, we adopted a series of measures. First, patients were screened by telephone for: (i) complaints of fever or upper respiratory symptoms; (ii) domicile in one of the hot zones; (iii) contact with suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19. Otherwise, patients were asked to attend the visit with no more than one accompanying person in order to reduce the risk of exposure of uninfected people to potential subjects with COVID-19 disease. In order to reduce gathering of people, patients in outpatient departments were asked to come into the visiting room without accompanying person.

title:
  Taking the right measures to control COVID-19 in ophthalmology: the experience of a tertiary eye care referral center in Italy


id: cord-273181-fsrdu4tq
title: COVID-19 outbreak in Italy: estimation of reproduction numbers over two months toward the Phase 2
author: Allieta, M.
date: 2020-05-18
txt: ./txt/cord-273181-fsrdu4tq.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-273181-fsrdu4tq.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.12.20076794
doi: 10.1101/2020.05.12.20076794
summary:
  Our estimates suggest basic reproduction number averaged over all the regions of 3.29, confirming that epidemiological figures of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Italy are higher than those observed at the early stage of Wuhan (China) outbreak. As it is widely known, Table S2 shows that COVID-19 epidemic affected (and is affecting) harder the northern Italian regions, with N=16859 and NA=89384 on April 24th, i.e. more than 80% of the cases of the country (with 54,7% of the Italian resident population), if we aggregate epidemiological and demographic data of the northern regions (Lombardia, Piemonte, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Valle D''Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige) plus Marche and Toscana regions. . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.12.20076794 doi: medRxiv preprint Caption: ( + ) Date of epidemic onset February 24 th ; (*) the original incidence data related to Trento and Bolzano were merged into a single region called Trentino-Alto Adige resulting in a geographical disaggregation of Italy into 20 regions.

abstract:
  After two months from the first case in COVID-19 outbreak, Italy counts more than 190,000 confirmed positive cases. From the beginning of April 2020, the nationwide lockdown started to show early effects by reducing the total cumulative incidence reached by the epidemic wave. This allows the government to program the measures to loosen lockdown restrictions for the so called "Phase 2". Here we provided the reproduction number estimation both in space and in time from February 24th to April 24th, 2020 across two months into the epidemic. Our estimates suggest basic reproduction number averaged over all the regions of 3.29, confirming that epidemiological figures of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Italy are higher than those observed at the early stage of Wuhan (China) outbreak. Based on the SARS-CoV-2 transmission dynamics reported here, we gave a quantitative evaluation of the efficiency of the government measures to low the reproduction number under the unity (control regime). We estimated that among the worst hit regions in Italy, Lombardy reached the control regime on March 22nd followed by Emilia-Romagna (March 23th), Veneto (March 25th) and Piemonte (March 26th). Overall, we found that the mean value of time to reach the control regime in all the country is about 31 days from the February 24th and about 14 days from the first day of nationwide lockdown (March 12th). Finally, we highlighted the interplay between the reproduction number and two demographic indices in order to probe the "state of activity" of the epidemic for each Italian region in the control regime. We believe that this approach can provide a tool in the management of "Phase 2", potentially helping in challenging decision to continue, ease or tighten up restrictions.


id: cord-274778-wds40e6i
author: Tejedor, Santiago
date: 2020-08-31
txt: ./txt/cord-274778-wds40e6i.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-274778-wds40e6i.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32878092/
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17176330
summary:
  title: Information on the COVID-19 Pandemic in Daily Newspapers'' Front Pages: Case Study of Spain and Italy The study analyzes 72 front pages of El País and El Mundo in Spain and Italy''s Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica, collecting 710 news items and 3456 data evidences employing a mixed method (both qualitative and quantitative) based on content analysis and hemerographic analysis. Based on the trust placed on the printed media-as the most credible and rigorous media-this research analyzes a total of 72 front pages of the main daily newspapers in Spain and Italy (36 each) . The research, based on previous studies [33] , analyzes a total of 710 news items extracted from 72 front pages of the four main daily newspapers of Spain and Italy (36 per country). Nonetheless, while in Spain it occupies 62% of the front page; in Italy COVID-19 related pieces cover a striking 80% of the information (see Figure 9 ).

title:
  Information on the COVID-19 Pandemic in Daily Newspapers’ Front Pages: Case Study of Spain and Italy

abstract:
  Spain and Italy are amongst the European countries where the COVID-19 pandemic has produced its major impact and where lockdown measures have been the harshest. This research aims at understanding how the corona crisis has been represented in Spanish and Italian media, focusing on reference newspapers. The study analyzes 72 front pages of El País and El Mundo in Spain and Italy’s Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica, collecting 710 news items and 3456 data evidences employing a mixed method (both qualitative and quantitative) based on content analysis and hemerographic analysis. Results show a predominance of informative journalistic genres (especially brief and news), while the visual framing emerging from the photographic choice, tend to foster humanization through an emotional representation of the pandemic. Politicians are the most represented actors, showing a high degree of politicization of the crisis.


id: cord-275926-rj23z7po
title: Neurosurgical practice during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: a worldwide survey
author: Fontanella, Marco M.
date: 2020-05-05
txt: ./txt/cord-275926-rj23z7po.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-275926-rj23z7po.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878875020309141?v=s5
doi: 10.1016/j.wneu.2020.04.204
summary:
  3. Institutional plans for the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak: any special measures adopted for SARS-CoV-2 positive neurosurgical patients were investigated, i.e. their screening rate and method, any changes in surgical indications, planning and activity for oncologic procedures, non-emergency surgeries, and subarachnoid hemorrhages (SAHs). The same correlation was found with regards to the medical perception of disease activity (Q2) in different countries, and only few respondents (3%) claimed their country was not facing the outbreak during the time period studied: among them, neurosurgeons from Germany were probably the most "wrong", since their country had between 10 4 to 10 5 SARS-CoV2 patients during the study period (Fig. 4A) . 5 India and Pakistan have been reported to be the world''s best respondents to the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, 22-24 thus reflecting high rates of neurosurgical activity reorganizations.

abstract:
  Abstract Background and Objective The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has consistently changed medical practice throughout specialties, regardless of their contribution in facing the disease itself. We surveyed neurosurgeons worldwide to investigate the situation they are experiencing. Design and participants A 17-question, web-based survey was administered to neurosurgeons worldwide through the WFNS and the Neurosurgery Cocktail from March 28 to April 5, 2020 by web link or e-mail invitation. Questions were divided into three subgroups: general information, health system organization, and institutional plans for the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Collected data was initially elaborated using Survey Monkey® software. Country specific data were extracted from the WHO website. Statistical analysis was performed using R version 3.6.3. Results Of the 446 respondents, most were from Italy (20%), India (19%), and Pakistan (5%). Surgical activity was significantly reduced in most centers (79%) and dedicated in-hospital routes were created for SARS-CoV-2 patients (58%). Patient screening was performed only when there were symptoms (57%) and not routinely before surgery (18%). The preferred methods included a nasopharyngeal swab and chest x-ray. Health professionals were rarely screened (20%) and sometimes, even if SARS-CoV-2 positive, were asked to work if asymptomatic (26%). Surgical planning was changed in most institutions (92%), while indications were modified for non-urgent procedures (59%) and remained unchanged for subarachnoid hemorrhages (85%). Conclusions Most neurosurgeons worldwide reported work reorganization and practices that respond to current international guidelines. Differences in practice might be related to the perception of the pandemic and significant differences in the health systems. Sharing data and experiences will be of paramount importance to address the present moment and challenges in the near future.


id: cord-275978-pezm1tnw
author: Riccardo, Flavia
date: 2020-04-11
url: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.08.20056861
doi: 10.1101/2020.04.08.20056861
title:
  Epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 cases in Italy and estimates of the reproductive numbers one month into the epidemic

abstract:
  Background In February 2020, a locally-acquired COVID-19 case was detected in Lombardia, Italy. This was the first signal of ongoing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the country. The outbreak rapidly escalated to a national level epidemic, amid the WHO declaration of a pandemic. Methods We analysed data from the national case-based integrated surveillance system of all RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19 infections as of March 24th 2020, collected from all Italian regions and autonomous provinces. Here we provide a descriptive epidemiological summary on the first 62,843 COVID-19 cases in Italy as well as estimates of the basic and net reproductive numbers by region. Findings Of the 62,843 cases of COVID-19 analysed, 71.6% were reported from three Regions (Lombardia, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna). All cases reported after February 20th were locally acquired. Estimates of R0 varied between 2.5 (95%CI: 2.18-2.83) in Toscana and 3 (95%CI: 2.68-3.33) in Lazio, with epidemic doubling time of 3.2 days (95%CI: 2.3-5.2) and 2.9 days (95%CI: 2.2-4.3), respectively. The net reproduction number showed a decreasing trend starting around February 20-25, 2020 in northern regions. Notably, 5,760 cases were reported among health care workers. Of the 5,541 reported COVID-19 associated deaths, 49% occurred in people aged 80 years or above with an overall crude CFR of 8.8%. Male sex and age were independent risk factors for COVID-19 death. Interpretation The COVID-19 infection in Italy emerged with a clustering onset similar to the one described in Wuhan, China and likewise showed worse outcomes in older males with comorbidities. Initial R0 at 2.96 in Lombardia, explains the high case-load and rapid geographical spread observed. Overall Rt in Italian regions is currently decreasing albeit with large diversities across the country, supporting the importance of combined non-pharmacological control measures.


id: cord-277395-72zu3mna
title: Buffalo: Mediterranean Region
author: Borghese, A.
date: 2016-10-24
txt: ./txt/cord-277395-72zu3mna.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-277395-72zu3mna.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780081005965212328
doi: 10.1016/b978-0-08-100596-5.21232-8
summary:
  Because of the strong market demand for buffalo cheese, the number of buffaloes has increased in Italy and there is a preference for buffalo dairy products compared to cows'' milk products in a few countries. In Mediterranean countries, all herds have their own bull except in the areas with very small herds (2-3 breedable buffaloes) in Romania, Bulgaria, Egypt and Turkey, where there are groups of bulls for breeding at village level. Official milk recording for the productivity of buffaloes is performed in Egypt, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, the United Kingdom, Azerbaijan and Iran. The most common housing system is that referred to as ''traditional,'' consisting of keeping buffaloes indoors at night and confined in fenced areas during the day (Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Syria); in the favorable season they are allowed to graze during the day (Romania, Turkey and on some farms in Italy). The fat content of the milk throughout the lactation is over 8% in Italy, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iraq, around 7% in Bulgaria, Romania and Egypt, and less than 7% in Iran.

abstract:
  The buffaloes reared in the Mediterranean region are the Asian buffalo or water buffalo, that is, Bubalus bubalis. This species includes two types: (1) the river type, with 50 chromosomes, with an adult male weighing between 450 and 1000 kg and with an annual milk production of 1000–3000 kg; and (2) the swamp type, with 48 chromosomes, with an adult male weighing between 325 and 450 kg and with an annual milk production of up to 600 kg. The river buffalo is reared mainly for milk, whereas the swamp buffalo is reared mainly for draught. Only 3% of the world buffalo population is reared in the Mediterranean region. Significant numbers of buffaloes are at present found only in Italy, Romania, Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iraq and Iran. In all these countries, buffaloes represent only a very small portion of total livestock, except in Egypt, where buffaloes are more numerous than cattle. Because of the strong market demand for buffalo cheese, the number of buffaloes has increased in Italy and there is a preference for buffalo dairy products compared to cows' milk products in a few countries. Major morphological differences between the buffalo populations of different countries include (1) the variable size, ranging between a minimum of 280 and 300 kg liveweight for adult females and males, respectively, in Egypt to a maximum of 900 and 1000 kg in Iraq, the most frequent weights being 600 and 800 kg; (2) the shape of the horns; and (3) the coat color, from dark gray and dark brown to black, showing white spots in some cases.


id: cord-278993-w5aa0elj
author: Tonetti, Tommaso
date: 2020-10-12
txt: ./txt/cord-278993-w5aa0elj.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-278993-w5aa0elj.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33044646/
doi: 10.1186/s13613-020-00750-z
summary:
  We retrospectively studied consecutive critically ill patients with confirmed Covid-19 who were referred to the hospitals of the Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna regions during the first 2 weeks of the Italian outbreak (February 24March 8, 2020) . The present study describes how the Italian health-care system of three northern Italian regions responded to the increasing need for clinical resources for critically ill patients during the first 14 days of the Covid-19 outbreak through the 28.7% increase in ICU beds and the increasing use of non-invasive respiratory support outside the ICU. Our data show that, compared to patients admitted to the ICU, patients receiving respiratory support outside the ICU were significantly older, had more comorbidities and had a higher PaO 2 /FiO 2 ratio and a lower PaCO 2 .

title:
  Use of critical care resources during the first 2 weeks (February 24–March 8, 2020) of the Covid-19 outbreak in Italy

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: A Covid-19 outbreak developed in Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna (Italy) at the end of February 2020. Fear of an imminent saturation of available ICU beds generated the notion that rationing of intensive care resources could have been necessary. RESULTS: In order to evaluate the impact of Covid-19 on the ICU capacity to manage critically ill patients, we performed a retrospective analysis of the first 2 weeks of the outbreak (February 24–March 8). Data were collected from regional registries and from a case report form sent to participating sites. ICU beds increased from 1545 to 1989 (28.7%), and patients receiving respiratory support outside the ICU increased from 4 (0.6%) to 260 (37.0%). Patients receiving respiratory support outside the ICU were significantly older [65 vs. 77 years], had more cerebrovascular (5.8 vs. 13.1%) and renal (5.3 vs. 10.0%) comorbidities and less obesity (31.4 vs. 15.5%) than patients admitted to the ICU. PaO(2)/FiO(2) ratio, respiratory rate and arterial pH were higher [165 vs. 244; 20 vs. 24 breath/min; 7.40 vs. 7.46] and PaCO(2) and base excess were lower [34 vs. 42 mmHg; 0.60 vs. 1.30] in patients receiving respiratory support outside the ICU than in patients admitted to the ICU, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Increase in ICU beds and use of out-of-ICU respiratory support allowed effective management of the first 14 days of the Covid-19 outbreak, avoiding resource rationing.


id: cord-279036-fwmb0rr7
title: COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspective From Italian Pediatric Emergency Physicians
author: Monzani, Alice
date: 2020-06-22
txt: ./txt/cord-279036-fwmb0rr7.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-279036-fwmb0rr7.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2020.198
doi: 10.1017/dmp.2020.198
summary:
  METHODS: We developed a structured interview to collect the lived experience of the staff of the pediatric emergency department (PED) of a tertiary referral university hospital in Northern Italy. We developed a structured interview to collect the lived experience of pediatric health-care providers of the Maggiore della Carità University Hospital (Novara, Italy), the second largest third level referral hospital of the Piedmont Region, one of the most COVID-19 affected regions in northwest Italy. The open-ended questions, draft according to the suggestions and interests of Canadian pediatric emergency physicians, were collected at the end of March 2020, when 101,739 confirmed cases were reported in Italy, with 11,591 deaths, whereas Canada was not already critically involved in the COVID-19 outbreak. Exploring for the first time the perception of pediatric emergency physicians in one of the most affected countries, this study represents a unique attempt to provide hints to those pediatricians not already critically involved in facing the COVID-19 pandemic across the world.

abstract:
  OBJECTIVES: To document the lived experience of Italian pediatric emergency physicians during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. METHODS: We developed a structured interview to collect the lived experience of the staff of the pediatric emergency department (PED) of a tertiary referral university hospital in Northern Italy. The open-ended questions were draft according to the suggestions of Canadian colleagues and administered by 1 interviewer, who was part of the PED staff, at the end of March 2020. All the PED staff was interviewed, on a voluntary basis, using purposive sampling. RESULTS: Most respondents declared to be afraid of becoming infected and of infecting their families. The number of patients seen in the PED has decreased, and the cases tend to be more severe. A shift in the clinical approach to the ill child has occurred, the physical examination is problem-oriented, aiming to avoid un-necessary maneuvers and to minimize the number of practitioners involved. The most challenging aspects reported are: (1) performing a physical examination in personal protective equipment (PPE), (2) being updated with rapidly evolving guidelines, and (3) staying focused on the possible COVID-19 clinical presentation without failing in differential diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: During the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems that pediatric emergency physicians are radically changing their clinical practice, aiming at prioritizing essential interventions and maneuvers and self-protection.


id: cord-279451-ax7n2ss5
author: Semeraro, Federico
date: 2020-04-20
txt: ./txt/cord-279451-ax7n2ss5.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-279451-ax7n2ss5.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/pii/S0300957220301556
doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2020.04.018
abstract: nan
summary:
  title: New Early Warning Score: off-label approach for Covid-19 outbreak patient deterioration in the community In Italy, the first "wave" hit Lombardia on February 20, 2020, with such a high proportion of patients to impact substantially both admission to emergency department and intensive care treatment, and arising new concerns 2 . Accordingly with this new approach, a research project was started on voluntary bases by a multidisciplinary teams (e.g. healthcare professionals, software developers, engineers, social manager etc.) with the aim to develop a web app based system to monitor deterioration of patients directly at home. This NEWS "off-label" approach in community setting with "homemade" measurements could facilitate self-calculation of the score, thus helping pre evaluation by healthcare professionals and recognising deterioration of patients at risk especially in conditions of overwhelming requests as during a pandemic. We invited all the international health system researchers to allocate time and resources on this innovative approach for potential "off label" application of NEWS in Covid-19 patients.

title:
  New Early Warning Score: off-label approach for Covid-19 outbreak patient deterioration in the community


id: cord-280031-0w6wn7u8
title: Italian Physical Therapists’ Response to the Novel COVID-19 Emergency
author: Pedersini, Paolo
date: 2020-04-13
txt: ./txt/cord-280031-0w6wn7u8.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-280031-0w6wn7u8.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32280973/
doi: 10.1093/ptj/pzaa060
abstract: nan
summary:
  This epidemiological transition in Italy is continuously updated with characteristics of patients with Covid-19 who have died, including: average age (78 years old), sex (70% men), pathologies before hospitalization (Patients with 0 pre-existing pathologies 2%; In fact, in the acute phases of the pathology, the respiratory physical therapists support the work of intensive care physicians, pulmonologists and nurses by: providing qualified care in the different modalities of non-invasive mechanical ventilation (NIV); monitoring and addressing respiratory fatigue; preventing the complications of prolonged immobility; prone positioning to improve gas exchange in severily ill subjects; participating in the weaning from invasive mechanical ventilation protocols; and assisting in the recovery of the patient''s autonomy in activities of daily life, which is often compromised by long periods of sedation and prolonged hospitalization. Rapid Response to COVID-19: Health Informatics Support for Outbreak Management in an Academic Health System


id: cord-282268-f7mbdfr6
author: Cartenì, Armando
date: 2020-06-24
txt: ./txt/cord-282268-f7mbdfr6.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-282268-f7mbdfr6.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/pii/S0048969720340110
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140489
summary:
  By contrast, the hypothesis discussed in this research is that the time period (days) in which a new positive case of coronavirus is identified and certified, which could be called a sort of a positivity detection time, is longer than the incubation time because of possible delays between contagion and detection caused, for example, by the significant percentage of tests that prove false negative to COVID-19, or by the fraction of people who, although infected, are asymptomatic and/or initially show only mild symptoms, and therefore do not resort to health care. Estimates were made through a multiple linear regression model linking the number of certified daily cases (day-to-day) to socio-economic indices (e.g. number of residents; population density), environmental variables (e.g. temperature, PM pollution), health care indicators (e.g. number of swabs taken daily) and mobility habits (e.g. number people who performed trips several days before).

title:
  How mobility habits influenced the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic: Results from the Italian case study

abstract:
  Abstract Starting from December 2019 the world has faced an unprecedented health crisis caused by the new Coronavirus (COVID-19) due to the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen. Within this topic, the aim of the paper was to quantify the effect of mobility habits in the spread of the Coronavirus in Italy through a multiple linear regression model. Estimation results showed that mobility habits represent one of the variables that explains the number of COVID-19 infections jointly with the number of tests/day and some environmental variables (i.e. PM pollution and temperature). Nevertheless, a proximity variable to the first outbreak was also significant, meaning that the areas close to the outbreak had a higher risk of contagion, especially in the initial stage of infection (time-decay phenomena). Furthermore, the number of daily new cases was related to the trips performed three weeks before. This threshold of 21 days could be considered as a sort of positivity detection time, meaning that the mobility restrictions quarantine commonly set at 14 days, defined only according to incubation-based epidemiological considerations, is underestimated (possible delays between contagion and detection) as a containment policy and may not always contribute to effectively slowing down the spread of virus worldwide. This result is original and, if confirmed in other studies, will lay the groundwork for more effective containment of COVID-19 in countries that are still in the health emergency, as well as for possible future returns of the virus.


id: cord-284573-w0sk622m
title: What Went Wrong: Corona and the World after the Full Stop
author: Caduff, Carlo
date: 2020-07-21
txt: ./txt/cord-284573-w0sk622m.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-284573-w0sk622m.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32692890/
doi: 10.1111/maq.12599
summary:
  Published by a group of experts without peer review on an institutional website, the report compared Covid-19 with the great pandemic of 1918, which killed over 50 million people worldwide and suggested, without any evidence, that SARS-CoV-2 was "a virus with comparable lethality to H1N1 influenza in 1918." 1 Most frightening in all this was not so much the lethality of the SARS-CoV-2 virus but the license to rush forward with predictions, abandon basic standards of science, and make dramatic claims to scare people. This extreme and unprecedented blanket approach systematically imposed on entire populations was driven by a number of factors that variously prevailed in different countries across the world: a growing sense of panic, constant media sensationalism, deep authoritarian longings, increasing political pressure to contain the spread of the virus, disturbing accounts of overwhelmed hospitals unable to cope with the surge of patients, misleading mortality calculations, and, most importantly, a trust in the power of mathematical disease modeling.

abstract:
  This article examines the global response to the Covid‐19 pandemic. It argues that we urgently need to look beyond the virus if we want to understand the real seriousness of what is happening today. How did we end up in a space of thinking, acting, and feeling that has normalized extremes and is based on the assumption that biological life is an absolute value separate from politics? The author suggests that today's fear is fueled by mathematical disease modeling, neoliberal health policies, nervous media reporting, and authoritarian longings.


id: cord-284786-pua14ogz
title: The Effects of Air Pollution on COVID-19 Related Mortality in Northern Italy
author: Coker, Eric S.
date: 2020-08-04
txt: ./txt/cord-284786-pua14ogz.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-284786-pua14ogz.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32836855/
doi: 10.1007/s10640-020-00486-1
summary:
  In this paper, we empirically investigate the ecologic association between long-term concentrations of area-level fine particulate matter (PM(2.5)) and excess deaths in the first quarter of 2020 in municipalities of Northern Italy. We estimate a negative binomial model of excessive deaths on historical PM 2.5 concentrations and a series of control variables that may plausibly affect both PM 2.5 concentration and mortality, including population density; the spatial concentration of the industrial manufacturing sites; climatic conditions observed during the first quarter of 2020; and the demographic composition of the municipal population among others. Among the covariates, PM is the concentration of fine particulate matter in municipality i and is the associated parameter, which we expect positive and statistically different from zero; X is a vector of control variables that adjusts for the potential confounding effects and includes the (log of) total population as the offset while is a normally-distributed error term.

abstract:
  Long-term exposure to ambient air pollutant concentrations is known to cause chronic lung inflammation, a condition that may promote increased severity of COVID-19 syndrome caused by the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). In this paper, we empirically investigate the ecologic association between long-term concentrations of area-level fine particulate matter (PM(2.5)) and excess deaths in the first quarter of 2020 in municipalities of Northern Italy. The study accounts for potentially spatial confounding factors related to urbanization that may have influenced the spreading of SARS-CoV-2 and related COVID-19 mortality. Our epidemiological analysis uses geographical information (e.g., municipalities) and negative binomial regression to assess whether both ambient PM(2.5) concentration and excess mortality have a similar spatial distribution. Our analysis suggests a positive association of ambient PM(2.5) concentration on excess mortality in Northern Italy related to the COVID-19 epidemic. Our estimates suggest that a one-unit increase in PM(2.5) concentration (µg/m(3)) is associated with a 9% (95% confidence interval: 6–12%) increase in COVID-19 related mortality.


id: cord-285187-1h5tjs0r
title: An accelerated shift in the use of remote systems in epilepsy due to the COVID-19 pandemic
author: Kuchenbuch, Mathieu
date: 2020-08-31
txt: ./txt/cord-285187-1h5tjs0r.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-285187-1h5tjs0r.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1525505020305552
doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2020.107376
summary:
  PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to describe epileptologists'' opinion on the increased use of remote systems implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic across clinics, education, and scientific meetings activities. Interestingly, before the COVID-19 pandemic, remote systems were significantly more frequently used in China for clinical activity compared with France or Italy. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the acute use of remote systems in clinics, education, and scientific meetings in the field of epilepsy and to explore the users'' satisfaction and the perspectives of future use. We conducted a cross-sectional, electronic survey of epileptologists, neurologists, and pediatric neurologists mainly involved in the epilepsy field to determine the use of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic (supplementary data). Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of respondents who had experienced remote working systems was higher in China than in the two other countries (91.6% versus 61.7% for France and 25% for Italy, p = 10 −4 ).

abstract:
  PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to describe epileptologists' opinion on the increased use of remote systems implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic across clinics, education, and scientific meetings activities. METHODS: Between April and May 2020, we conducted a cross-sectional, electronic survey on remote systems use before and during the COVID-19 pandemic through the European reference center for rare and complex epilepsies (EpiCARE) network, the International and the French Leagues Against Epilepsy, and the International and the French Child Neurology Associations. After descriptive statistical analysis, we compared the results of France, China, and Italy. RESULTS: One hundred and seventy-two respondents from 35 countries completed the survey. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 63.4% had experienced remote systems for clinical care. During the pandemic, the use of remote clinics, either institutional or personal, significantly increased (p < 10(−4)). Eighty-three percent used remote systems with video, either institutional (75%) or personal (25%). During the pandemic, 84.6% of respondents involved in academic activities transformed their courses to online teaching. From February to July 2020, few scientific meetings relevant to epileptologists and routinely attended was adapted to virtual meeting (median: 1 [25th–75th percentile: 0–2]). Responders were quite satisfied with remote systems in all three activity domains. Interestingly, before the COVID-19 pandemic, remote systems were significantly more frequently used in China for clinical activity compared with France or Italy. This difference became less marked during the pandemic. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered how academic epileptologists carry out their core missions of clinical care, medical education, and scientific discovery and dissemination. Close attention to the impact of these changes is merited.


id: cord-285232-0p27ez9i
author: Boriani, Giuseppe
date: 2020-09-05
txt: ./txt/cord-285232-0p27ez9i.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-285232-0p27ez9i.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32889687/
doi: 10.1007/s11739-020-02487-w
summary:
  The questionnaire consisted of 18 questions: five of them focused on the characteristics of the participating centre (i.e. involvement of the centres and of the physicians in the management of suspected and confirmed patients with COVID-19, volume of annual CIEDs implantations and ablation procedures); seven of them focused on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the number of CIED implantations and ablation procedures performed in both elective and emergency settings, and on the number of cases of acute pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF) in emergency setting; two of them focused on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the management of remote monitoring (RM) of CIEDs; the remaining four were focused on the possible organizational strategies for post-COVID-19 recovery phase. Based on the reported procedure volumes, we estimated that, during the two months March-April 2020 in the 84 centres that participated in the survey, globally about 2200 fewer CIEDs had been implanted and about 960 fewer ablations had been performed (in both elective and emergency settings) compared to the same period of the previous year.

title:
  Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the clinical activities related to arrhythmias and electrophysiology in Italy: results of a survey promoted by AIAC (Italian Association of Arrhythmology and Cardiac Pacing)

abstract:
  COVID-19 outbreak had a major impact on the organization of care in Italy, and a survey to evaluate provision of for arrhythmia during COVID-19 outbreak (March–April 2020) was launched. A total of 104 physicians from 84 Italian arrhythmia centres took part in the survey. The vast majority of participating centres (95.2%) reported a significant reduction in the number of elective pacemaker implantations during the outbreak period compared to the corresponding two months of year 2019 (50.0% of centres reported a reduction of > 50%). Similarly, 92.9% of participating centres reported a significant reduction in the number of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantations for primary prevention, and 72.6% a significant reduction of ICD implantations for secondary prevention (> 50% in 65.5 and 44.0% of the centres, respectively). The majority of participating centres (77.4%) reported a significant reduction in the number of elective ablations (> 50% in 65.5% of the centres). Also the interventional procedures performed in an emergency setting, as well as acute management of atrial fibrillation had a marked reduction, thus leading to the conclusion that the impact of COVID-19 was disrupting the entire organization of health care, with a massive impact on the activities and procedures related to arrhythmia management in Italy. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s11739-020-02487-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


id: cord-286305-2bwlxlfo
author: Ciufolini, Ignazio
date: 2020-04-15
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32309108/
doi: 10.1140/epjp/s13360-020-00383-y
title:
  Mathematical prediction of the time evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy by a Gauss error function and Monte Carlo simulations

abstract:
  In this paper are presented mathematical predictions on the evolution in time of the number of positive cases in Italy of the COVID-19 pandemic based on official data and on the use of a function of the type of a Gauss error function, with four parameters, as a cumulative distribution function. We have analyzed the available data for China and Italy. The evolution in time of the number of cumulative diagnosed positive cases of COVID-19 in China very well approximates a distribution of the type of the error function, that is, the integral of a normal, Gaussian distribution. We have then used such a function to study the potential evolution in time of the number of positive cases in Italy by performing a number of fits of the official data so far available. We then found a statistical prediction for the day in which the peak of the number of daily positive cases in Italy occurs, corresponding to the flex of the fit, that is, to the change in sign of its second derivative (i.e., the change from acceleration to deceleration), as well as of the day in which a substantial attenuation of such number of daily cases is reached. We have also analyzed the predictions of the cumulative number of fatalities in both China and Italy, obtaining consistent results. We have then performed 150 Monte Carlo simulations to have a more robust prediction of the day of the above-mentioned peak and of the day of the substantial decrease in the number of daily positive cases and fatalities. Although official data have been used, those predictions are obtained with a heuristic approach since they are based on a statistical approach and do not take into account either a number of relevant issues (such as number of daily nasopharyngeal swabs, medical, social distancing, virological and epidemiological) or models of contamination diffusion.


id: cord-286958-e1ey31eo
author: Patel, Urvish
date: 2020-08-15
url: https://doi.org/10.7189/jogh.10.020506
doi: 10.7189/jogh.10.020506
title:
  Early epidemiological indicators, outcomes, and interventions of COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), a pandemic that brought the whole world to a standstill, has led to financial and health care burden. We aimed to evaluate epidemiological characteristics, needs of resources, outcomes, and global burden of the disease. METHODS: Systematic review was performed searching PubMed from December 1, 2019, to March 25, 2020, for full-text observational studies that described epidemiological characteristics, following MOOSE protocol. Global data were collected from the JHU-Corona Virus Resource Center, WHO-COVID-2019 situation reports, KFF.org, and Worldometers.info until March 31, 2020. The prevalence percentages were calculated. The global data were plotted in excel to calculate case fatality rate (CFR), predicted CFR, COVID-19 specific mortality rate, and doubling time for cases and deaths. CFR was predicted using Pearson correlation, regression models, and coefficient of determination. RESULTS: From 21 studies of 2747 patients, 8.4% of patients died, 20.4% recovered, 15.4% were admitted to ICU and 14.9% required ventilation. COVID-19 was more prevalent in patients with hypertension (19.3%), smoking (11.3%), diabetes mellitus (10%), and cardiovascular diseases (7.4%). Common complications were pneumonia (82%), cardiac complications (26.4%), acute respiratory distress syndrome (15.7%), secondary infection (11.2%), and septic shock (4.3%). Though CFR and COVID-19 specific death rates are dynamic, they were consistently high for Italy, Spain, and Iran. Polynomial growth models were best fit for all countries for predicting CFR. Though many interventions have been implemented, stern measures like nationwide lockdown and school closure occurred after very high infection rates (>10cases per 100 000population) prevailed. Given the trend of government measures and decline of new cases in China and South Korea, most countries will reach the peak between April 1-20, if interventions are followed. CONCLUSIONS: A collective approach undertaken by a responsible government, wise strategy implementation and a receptive population may help contain the spread of COVID-19 outbreak. Close monitoring of predictive models of such indicators in the highly affected countries would help to evaluate the potential fatality if the second wave of pandemic occurs. The future studies should be focused on identifying accurate indicators to mitigate the effect of underestimation or overestimation of COVID-19 burden.


id: cord-287101-k3zq75zc
title: Geographic reconstruction of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Lombardy (Italy) during the early phase
author: Micheli, V.
date: 2020-07-24
url: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.23.20159871
doi: 10.1101/2020.07.23.20159871
abstract:
  The circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in Italy has been dominated by two large clusters of outbreaks in Northern part of the peninsula, source of alarming and prolonged infections in Lombardy region, in Codogno and Bergamo areas especially. The aim of the study was to expand understanding on the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in the affected Lombardy areas. To this purpose, twenty full length genomes were collected from patients addressing to several Lombard hospitals from February 20th to April 4th, 2020. The obtained genome assemblies, available on the GISAD database and performed at the Referral Center for COVID-19 diagnosis, identified 2 main monophyletic clades, containing 9 and 52 isolates, respectively. The molecular clock analysis estimated a clusters divergence approximately one month before the first patient identification, supporting the hypothesis that different SARS-CoV-2 strains spread all over the world at different time, but their presence became evident only in late February along with Italian epidemic emergence. Therefore, the epidemiological reconstruction carried out by this work highlights multiple inputs of the virus into its initial circulation in Lombardy Region. However, a phylogenetic reconstruction robustness will be improved when other genomic sequences will be available, in order to guarantee a complete epidemiological surveillance.


id: cord-287176-1hm0ua2s
title: Covid-19 pandemic and pediatric healthcare policy in Italy: time for a change
author: Solarino, Biagio
date: 2020-08-06
txt: ./txt/cord-287176-1hm0ua2s.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-287176-1hm0ua2s.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32922713/
doi: 10.4081/pr.2020.8823
summary:
  For a number of reasons COVID-19 pandemic is polite with children; however, the fear of this unknown disease drove to develop dedicated pathways in the Pediatric Emergency Departments for the suspected and diagnosed cases of COVID-19, together with their relatives. For a number of reasons COVID-19 pandemic is polite with children; however, the fear of this unknown disease drove to develop dedicated pathways in the Pediatric Emergency Departments for the suspected and diagnosed cases of COVID-19, together with their relatives. With the double aim of reducing the circulation of patients in the hospital area, but also to spare human resources to throw into the COVID activities, all outpatient practices were virtually abolished (or at least sharply reduced): programmed admission were postponed, and elective surgery was limited to very selected cases requiring urgent oncologic treatment, trauma or emergency. 8 Monitoring pediatric EDs before COVID pandemic had clearly documented frequent overcrowding, resulting from inappropriate accesses for children deserving only primary care treatment.

abstract:
  The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic forced the Italian Government to act extreme measures that put the entire country under lockdown. The citizens experimented a radical transformation of their lives while the healthcare system started building a novel COVID-system that quickly dissolved the former organization, included pediatric healthcare network. For a number of reasons COVID-19 pandemic is polite with children; however, the fear of this unknown disease drove to develop dedicated pathways in the Pediatric Emergency Departments for the suspected and diagnosed cases of COVID-19, together with their relatives. The combination of conflicting feelings resulted in an unexpected scenario: the number of accesses to the pediatric Hospital or Unit(s) sharply dropped to less than half. How do we explain this phenomenon? The authors believe that our health care system may learn a lesson from the catastrophe of COVID, if we will be able to redesign our way of providing our cares to children. Nothing should be taken for granted, because this might be a real “time for a change”.


id: cord-288836-bygcyxpz
author: Manes, Gianpiero
date: 2020-06-19
txt: ./txt/cord-288836-bygcyxpz.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-288836-bygcyxpz.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32605868/
doi: 10.1016/j.dld.2020.05.042
abstract: nan
summary:
  We conducted a survey among the Directors of EDs in high-risk areas of Northern Italy with the aim of investigating the barriers and strategies to safely resume elective endoscopy activity in Phase Two of the lockdown. The first section focused on the organizational characteristics of EDs before and after the outbreak, in order to assess the impact of the pandemic on EDs. The second section explored the availability of specialist staff and personal protective equipment (PPE) in the EDs at the start of Phase Two. In the third section, the Directors of EDs were asked to foresee the endoscopy workload they would realistically estimate as achievable, according to local resources, in Phase Two (from May to July 2020), and to indicate strategies to optimize endoscopic activity in this reference period.

title:
  Planning Phase Two for Endoscopic Units in Northern Italy after the COVID-19 lockdown: an exit strategy with a lot of critical issues and a few opportunities


id: cord-292474-dmgd99d6
author: Berardi, Giammauro
date: 2020-06-04
txt: ./txt/cord-292474-dmgd99d6.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-292474-dmgd99d6.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13304-020-00825-3
doi: 10.1007/s13304-020-00825-3
summary:
  As the Italian National Institute for the Infectious Diseases, we have hospitalized the first Italian COVID-19 patients and since then, our general surgery department had to face this reality [16] . Pancreatic resections, total gastrectomies, major hepatectomies, and multivisceral resections as well as liver and kidney transplantations were considered as the high-risk surgical procedures because of the increased likelihood of postoperative ICU admission. On January 31, 2020 (Day 0), the first two COVID-19-positive patients in Italy were admitted to the department of infectious diseases of our hospital with mild fever and atypical pneumonia requiring no invasive treatment. Considering only the transplantations and the operations performed for cancer, patients in the second period had fewer comorbidities, lower ASA score, CCI, and RCRI, being overall at lower risk of postoperative ICU admission (Table 3) . As an institutional policy, our transplant center remained opened and we decided to continue with our standard surgical oncology activity, improving selection of patients to limit the need for postoperative intensive care management.

title:
  Continuing our work: transplant surgery and surgical oncology in a tertiary referral COVID-19 center

abstract:
  COVID-19 is rapidly spreading worldwide. Healthcare systems are struggling to properly allocate resources while ensuring cure for diseases outside of the infection. The aim of this study was to demonstrate how surgical activity was affected by the virus outbreak and show the changes in practice in a tertiary referral COVID-19 center. The official bulletins of the Italian National Institute for the Infectious Diseases “L. Spallanzani” were reviewed to retrieve the number of daily COVID-19 patients. Records of consecutive oncological and transplant procedures performed during the outbreak were reviewed. Patients with a high probability of postoperative intensive care unit (ICU) admission were considered as high risk and defined by an ASA score ≥ III and/or a Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) ≥ 6 and/or a Revised Cardiac Risk Index for Preoperative Risk (RCRI) ≥ 3. 72 patients were operated, including 12 (16.6%) liver and kidney transplantations. Patients had few comorbidities (26.3%), low ASA score (1.9 ± 0.5), CCI (3.7 ± 1.3), and RCRI (1.2 ± 0.6) and had overall a low risk of postoperative ICU admission. Few patients had liver cirrhosis (12.5%) or received preoperative systemic therapy (16.6%). 36 (50%) high-risk surgical procedures were performed, including major hepatectomies, pancreaticoduodenectomies, total gastrectomies, multivisceral resections, and transplantations. Despite this, only 15 patients (20.8%) were admitted to the ICU. Only oncologic cases and transplantations were performed during the COVID-19 outbreak. Careful selection of patients allowed to perform major cancer surgeries and transplantations without further stressing hospital resources, meanwhile minimizing collateral damage to patients.


id: cord-292711-c5np5bar
title: Anosmia and Ageusia: Common Findings in COVID‐19 Patients
author: Vaira, Luigi A.
date: 2020-04-15
txt: ./txt/cord-292711-c5np5bar.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-292711-c5np5bar.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32237238/
doi: 10.1002/lary.28692
summary:
  In a not negligible number of patients affected by COVID‐19 (coronavirus disease 2019), especially if paucisymptomatic, anosmia and ageusia can represent the first or only symptomatology present. Europe and America currently represent the new front where the battle against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is being fought. In the centers that are facing this emergency, a significant number of patients presenting anosmia and ageusia associated with fever (> 37.5 C) as onset symptoms are being detected. Anosmia has already been reported in the course of SARS 2 and other coronavirus 3,4 infections; however, it represents a rare occurrence. In a non-negligible number of patients, especially if paucisymptomatic, ageusia and anosmia can represent the first or the only symptomatology manifestation. It will be important, when feasible, to obtain olfactory and gustatory testing data on patients with confirmed COVID-19 testing to provide quantitative data on the incidence and severity of these sensory losses.

abstract:
  In a not negligible number of patients affected by COVID‐19 (coronavirus disease 2019), especially if paucisymptomatic, anosmia and ageusia can represent the first or only symptomatology present. Laryngoscope, 2020


id: cord-293630-zc8huo1j
author: Capone, Alessandro
date: 2020-08-05
url: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.07.077
doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.07.077
title:
  Simultaneous circulation of COVID-19 and flu in Italy: potential combined effects on the risk of death?

abstract:
  Based on data updated to May 20, 2020, in Italy the total recorded number of patients who died due to COVID-19-related reasons is 31,851. Demographic and clinical characteristics of died patients (including the number of comorbidities) are extremely relevant, especially to define those with a higher risk of mortality. Health authority recommends flu vaccination in a number of categories at risk of serious medical complications: subjects over 65, patients with diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, COPD, renal failure, cancer, immunodeficiencies, chronic hepatopathies and chronic inflammatory bowel diseases. The peak of the seasonal flu certainly preceded the pandemic one; however, it would seem clear that for a while the two viruses have been circulating simultaneously in Italy. Hence, after its peak, Influenza-like Illness-related (ILI) deaths started to grow again. While some of the excess mortality reported in the ILI group may be attributable to COVID-19, a question arises: do we have to consider this observation as a result of a random sequence of events or a potential relationship between the two viruses play a role? A cooperation mechanism intended at establishing an absolute advantage over the host could also be assumed. This system often takes place to boost their reproductive probabilities. A characterization of patients died due to virus-related reasons can be done by cross-linking data stored in different warehouses of the same geographical area and developing electronic health records. It would be of great relevance to identify patients at a very high risk of mortality as a result of an overlapping or combination of risk factors reported separately in patients died from COVID-19 or influenza. The description of the subgroup of patients at higher risk of mortality will be crucial for the prioritization and implementation of future public health prevention and treatment programmes.


id: cord-295622-znmpheia
author: Simione, Luca
date: 2020-09-04
url: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02166
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02166
title:
  Differences Between Health Workers and General Population in Risk Perception, Behaviors, and Psychological Distress Related to COVID-19 Spread in Italy

abstract:
  In this study, we investigated the perception of risk and the worries about COVID-19 infection in both healthcare workers and the general population in Italy. We studied the difference in risk perception in these two groups and how this related to demographic variables and psychological factors such as stress, anxiety, and death anxiety. To this aim, we administered an online questionnaire about COVID-19 together with other questionnaires assessing the psychological condition of participants. First, we found that the exposition to infection risk, due to living area or job, increased the perceived stress and anxiety (i.e., medical staff in North Italy was more stressed and anxious with respect to both medical- and non-medical participants from Center and South Italy). Then, we conducted hierarchical logistic regression models on our data to assess the response odds ratio relatively to each regressor on each dependent variable. We found that health workers reported higher risk perception, level of worry, and knowledge as related to COVID-19 infection compared to the general population. Psychological state, sex, and living area were less related to these factors. Instead, judgments about behaviors and containment rules were more linked to demographics, such as sex. We discussed these results in the light of risk factors for psychological distress and possible interventions to meet the psychological needs of healthcare workers.


id: cord-297051-g5sfh4nf
title: Palliative care in the time of COVID-19
author: Mercadante, Sebastiano
date: 2020-05-04
txt: ./txt/cord-297051-g5sfh4nf.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-297051-g5sfh4nf.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32376263/
doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.04.025
summary:
  After covid-19 crisis in Italy, serious restrictions have been introduced for relatives, with limitations or prohibitions on hospital visits. Family members of patients admitted to the acute palliative care unit and hospice were screened for a period of 2 weeks. Family members of patients admitted to the acute palliative care unit and hospice were screened for a period of 2 weeks. Before this crisis, in the acute supportive/palliative care unit, family members were allowed to stay "eight days a week" alongside their loved ones, as it occurs in the hospice, possibly even at night. In the first two weeks after the restrictions enacted by the Health Minister, we have patients and family members been discouraged to do this, drastically changing our way of operating according to the philosophy of palliative care. We interviewed the family members of a consecutive sample of patients who were admitted to our acute palliative care unit (8 beds) and hospice (10 beds) in a period of two weeks.

abstract:
  After covid-19 crisis in Italy, serious restrictions have been introduced for relatives, with limitations or prohibitions on hospital visits. To partially overcome these issues “WhatsApp” has been adopted to get family members to participate in clinical rounds. Family members of patients admitted to the acute palliative care unit and hospice were screened for a period of 2 weeks. Four formal questions were posed: 1) Are you happy to virtually attend the clinical round? 2) Are you happy with the information gained in this occasion? 3) Do you think that your loved one was happy to see you during the clinical rounds? 4) This technology may substitute your presence during the clinical rounds? The scores were 0 = no, 1 = a little bit, 2 = much, 3 = very much. Relatives were free to comment about these points. Sixteen of 25 screened family members were interviewed. Most family members had a good impression, providing scores of 2 or 3 for the first three items. However, the real presence bedside (forth question) was considered irreplaceable. They perceived that their loved one, when admitted to hospice, had to say good-bye before dying.


id: cord-297256-i9468t8v
title: Geriatric Medicine in Italy in the Time of Covid-19
author: Cesari, Matteo
date: 2020-04-03
txt: ./txt/cord-297256-i9468t8v.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-297256-i9468t8v.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32346679/
doi: 10.1007/s12603-020-1354-z
abstract: nan
summary:
  In fact, although current data indicate that persons aged 70 years and older contribute to about the 85% of the death events in Italy, it cannot be overlooked the fact that Japan has substantially smaller figures despite being the oldest country in the world. To keep the healthcare machine running and support the colleagues overwhelmed in the management of COVID patients, there have been pediatricians working with older patients, or surgeons taking care of internal medicine issues... Geriatric medicine has produced substantial evidence showing that frail older persons require adaptations in the clinical approach, and that the environment plays a critical role for the wellbeing of the aging individual (5,6). Many older persons (with their chronic conditions and care needs) remained isolated after the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. The same human interaction between the patient and his/her physician is lost behind the burdening personal protective equipment in COVID-19 facilities.


id: cord-299102-4bwtg6xz
title: Impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on urological practice in emergency departments in Italy
author: Novara, Giacomo
date: 2020-05-30
txt: ./txt/cord-299102-4bwtg6xz.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-299102-4bwtg6xz.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32407585/
doi: 10.1111/bju.15107
summary:
  Although several reports are available in the literature on recommendations for reorganization of the clinical and surgical activities [3-7], to our knowledge, no data is available on the effective impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the outcomes of other medical conditions. For this reason, we aimed to evaluate the urological component of emergency department activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, assessing the requests for urgent urological consultations in a network of academic and nonacademic hospitals in Italy. To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urgent outpatient urological practice, we evaluated the urological consultations performed in emergency departments in a specific week, after the national lockdown of the country starting on 9 March 2020. In the present report evaluating urological consultations in emergency departments during one week of the COVID-19 pandemic, we found a substantial decrease in the number of urgent consultations.

abstract:
  The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease it causes, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), are causing a rapid and tragic health emergency worldwide [1,2]. Italy was the first European country to experience a virus outbreak, starting on Feb, 21st 2020. It resulted in national quarantine, and the official lockdown of the country's non-essential businesses and services began on Mar, 9th 2020. Although several reports are available in the literature on recommendations for reorganization of the clinical and surgical activities [3-7], to our knowledge, no data is available on the effective impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the outcomes of other medical conditions.


id: cord-299810-e57pwgnx
author: Martelloni, Gabriele
date: 2020-07-01
txt: ./txt/cord-299810-e57pwgnx.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-299810-e57pwgnx.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chaos.2020.110064
doi: 10.1016/j.chaos.2020.110064
summary:
  Finally we study the behavior of the ratio infected over swabs for Italy, Germany and USA, and we show as studying this parameter we recover the generalized Logistic model used in [1] for these three countries. The parameters r 0 represents the rates of growth of epidemic, K is the carrying capacity for the classical logistic model, α is a constant in order to have a power low initial growth before LD, β is the exponent of the second term of equation 1 that represents the influence of asymptomatic; δ,a correction of the quadratic term of logistic, and γ are the constant parameters considering the influence of the government measures 1 , K f is a proportionality constant between deaths and total number of infected, while t d and t r are the delays of deaths and recoveries respect to infected respectively; the constant A represents the contribution of asymptomatic people as introduced in [1] and finally t 0 is the time of LD start.

title:
  Modelling the downhill of the Sars-Cov-2 in Italy and a universal forecast of the epidemic in the world

abstract:
  In a previous article [1] we have described the temporal evolution of the Sars-Cov-2 in Italy in the time window February 24-April 1. As we can see in [1] a generalized logistic equation captures both the peaks of the total infected and the deaths. In this article our goal is to study the missing peak, i.e. the currently infected one (or total currently positive). After the April 7 the large increase in the number of swabs meant that the logistical behavior of the infected curve no longer worked. So we decided to generalize the model, introducing new parameters. Moreover, we adopt a similar approach used in [1] (for the estimation of deaths) in order to evaluate the recoveries. In this way, introducing a simple conservation law, we define a model with 4 populations: total infected, currently positives, recoveries and deaths. Therefore, we propose an alternative method to a classical SIRD model for the evaluation of the Sars-Cov-2 epidemic. However, the method is general and thus applicable to other diseases. Finally we study the behavior of the ratio infected over swabs for Italy, Germany and USA, and we show as studying this parameter we recover the generalized Logistic model used in [1] for these three countries. We think that this trend could be useful for a future epidemic of this coronavirus.


id: cord-301348-h21rnyww
author: Gherghina, Ștefan Cristian
date: 2020-09-15
txt: ./txt/cord-301348-h21rnyww.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-301348-h21rnyww.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32942766/
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17186729
summary:
  Figure 6 shows the results of criteria graph for the ARDL model that takes into account the number of new cases and new deaths in China, both for the BET stock index return and for the Romanian Government bond (10Y). Figure 7 shows the results of criteria graph for the ARDL model that takes into account the number of new cases and new deaths in Italy, both for the BET stock index return and for the Romanian Government bond (10Y). However, both models shows that the number of new deaths in China due to COVID-19 has no influence on the BET index return, respectively, on the Romania 10-year bond yield, neither in the short-term, nor in the long-term. However, the short-run results show a negative impact of new deaths cases of COVID-19 from Italy on the BET index return, in line with Okorie and Lin [58] which underlined a transitory contagion effect in the stock markets due to novel coronavirus.

title:
  Stock Market Reactions to COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak: Quantitative Evidence from ARDL Bounds Tests and Granger Causality Analysis

abstract:
  This paper examines the linkages in financial markets during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak. For this purpose, daily stock market returns were used over the period of December 31, 2019–April 20, 2020 for the following economies: USA, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, UK, China, and Romania. The study applied the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to explore whether the Romanian stock market is impacted by the crisis generated by novel coronavirus. Granger causality was employed to investigate the causalities among COVID-19 and stock market returns, as well as between pandemic measures and several commodities. The outcomes of the ARDL approach failed to find evidence towards the impact of Chinese COVID-19 records on the Romanian financial market, neither in the short-term, nor in the long-term. On the other hand, our quantitative approach reveals a negative effect of the new deaths’ cases from Italy on the 10-year Romanian bond yield both in the short-run and long-run. The econometric research provide evidence that Romanian 10-year government bond is more sensitive to the news related to COVID-19 than the index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Granger causality analysis reveals causal associations between selected stock market returns and Philadelphia Gold/Silver Index.


id: cord-303030-8unrcb1f
title: Social distancing versus early detection and contacts tracing in epidemic management
author: Gaeta, Giuseppe
date: 2020-07-16
txt: ./txt/cord-303030-8unrcb1f.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-303030-8unrcb1f.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.14102v3.pdf
doi: 10.1016/j.chaos.2020.110074
summary:
  In this paper we discuss the different effects of these ingredients on the epidemic dynamics; the discussion is conducted with the help of two simple models, i.e. the classical SIR model and the recently introduced variant A-SIR (arXiv:2003.08720) which takes into account the presence of a large set of asymptomatic infectives. In the SIR model [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] , a population of constant size (this means the analysis is valid over a relatively short time-span, or we should consider new births and also deaths not due to the epidemic) is subdivided in three classes: Susceptibles, Infected (and by this also Infectives), and Removed. Acting on α or on β to get the same γ will produce different timescales for the dynamics; see Fig. 1 , in which we have used values of the parameters resulting from our fit of early data for the Northern Italy COVID-19 epidemic [7] .

abstract:
  Different countries – and sometimes different regions within the same countries – have adopted different strategies in trying to contain the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic; these mix in variable parts social confinement, early detection and contact tracing. In this paper we discuss the different effects of these ingredients on the epidemic dynamics; the discussion is conducted with the help of two simple models, i.e. the classical SIR model and the recently introduced variant A-SIR (arXiv:2003.08720) which takes into account the presence of a large set of asymptomatic infectives.


id: cord-303690-8h58rmwk
author: Michelozzi, Paola
date: 2020-05-14
txt: ./txt/cord-303690-8h58rmwk.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-303690-8h58rmwk.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32431289/
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.es.2020.25.19.2000620
summary:
  title: Mortality impacts of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak by sex and age: rapid mortality surveillance system, Italy, 1 February to 18 April 2020 Data from the rapid mortality surveillance system in 19 major Italian cities were used to carry out a timely assessment of the health impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. Since 2004, Italy has had a rapid mortality surveillance system (SiSMG) for real-time monitoring of daily deaths in major Italian cities and allows routine evaluation of the health impact of extreme events and influenza epidemics [3, 4] . Briefly, SiSMG is based on an ad hoc daily flow of mortality data (resident population by age and sex) from local Municipal Registry Offices to the Department of Epidemiology, Lazio Regional Health Authority -ASL Roma 1 (DEPLAZIO) which manages the system on behalf of the Ministry of Health [5, 6] . Figure 2 shows excess mortality by sex and age groups among cities in the north and in the centre and south of Italy caused by the COVID-19 outbreak up until 3 April 2020.

title:
  Mortality impacts of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak by sex and age: rapid mortality surveillance system, Italy, 1 February to 18 April 2020

abstract:
  Data from the rapid mortality surveillance system in 19 major Italian cities were used to carry out a timely assessment of the health impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. By 18 April, a + 45% excess in mortality was observed, with a higher impact in the north of the country (+ 76%). The excess was greatest among men, with an increasing trend by age. Surveillance data can be used to evaluate the lockdown and re-opening phases.


id: cord-304266-49e723rj
title: Investigating the Determinants of High Case-Fatality Rate for Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Italy
author: Barone-Adesi, Francesco
date: 2020-04-16
txt: ./txt/cord-304266-49e723rj.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-304266-49e723rj.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32295661/
doi: 10.1017/dmp.2020.106
summary:
  T he epidemiologic features of the recent pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been shown to relevantly vary among countries, 1 with substantial differences in terms of incidence, mortality, and case-fatality rate (CFR), a parameter whose crude estimation is obtained by dividing the number of deaths by the total number of cases. In particular, a substantially higher CFR for COVID-19 was reported for Italy compared with other countries, and several authors put forward different hypotheses to explain it. [2] [3] [4] Using data from China and Italy, 1 paper suggested that this phenomenon could be due to mainly 3 different factors 2 : (1) a diverse age distribution; (2) a different definition of COVID-19-related deaths; and (3) a countryspecific strategy in testing. On the other hand, we think that the Italian testing strategy could explain an important part of the observed difference in CFRs. The majority of patients who are currently tested in Italy have severe clinical symptoms that usually require hospitalization.

abstract:
  Case-Fatality Rate (CFR) for COVID-19 in Italy is apparently much higher than in other countries. Using data from Italy and other countries we evaluated the role of different determinants of this phenomenon. We found that the Italian testing strategy could explain an important part of the observed difference in CFR. In particular, the majority of patients that are currently tested in Italy have severe clinical symptoms that usually require hospitalization and this translates to a large CFR. We are confident that, once modifications in the testing strategy leading to higher population coverage are consistently adopted in Italy, CFR will realign with the values reported worldwide.


id: cord-305632-xbji6g5x
author: Uccelli, Matteo
date: 2020-10-31
url: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-020-05085-z
doi: 10.1007/s11695-020-05085-z
title:
  COVID-19 and Obesity: Is Bariatric Surgery Protective? Retrospective Analysis on 2145 Patients Undergone Bariatric-Metabolic Surgery from High Volume Center in Italy (Lombardy)

abstract:
  INTRODUCTION: On February 20, 2020, a severe case of pneumonia due to SARS-CoV-2 was diagnosed in northern Italy (Lombardy). Some studies have identified obesity as a risk factor for severe disease in patients with COVID-19. The purpose of this study was to investigate the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection and its severity in patients who have undergone bariatric surgery. MATERIAL AND METHODS: During the lockdown period (until May 2020), we contacted operated patients by phone and social networks (e.g., Facebook) to maintain constant contact with them; in addition, we gave the patients a dedicated phone number at which to call us for emergencies. We produced telemedicine and educational videos for obese and bariatric patients, and we submitted a questionnaire to patients who had undergone bariatric surgery in the past. RESULTS: A total of 2145 patients (313 male; 1832 female) replied to the questionnaire. Mean presurgical BMI: 44.5 ± 6.8 kg/m(2). Mean age: 44.0 ± 10.0 year. Mean BMI after surgery: 29.3 ± 5.5 kg/m(2) (p < 0.05). From February to May 2020, 8.4% of patients reported that they suffered from at least one symptom among those identified as related to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Thirteen patients (0.6%) tested positive for COVID-19. Six patients (0.3%) were admitted to the COVID Department, and 2 patients (0.1%) were admitted to the ICU. CONCLUSIONS: Although the reported rates of symptoms and fever were high, only 0.6% of patients tested positive for COVID-19. Among more than 2000 patients who underwent bariatric surgery analyzed in this study, only 0.1% needed ICU admission. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11695-020-05085-z.


id: cord-306060-wtdzad90
title: Estimation of COVID-19 outbreak size in Italy based on international case exportations
author: Tuite, Ashleigh
date: 2020-03-06
txt: ./txt/cord-306060-wtdzad90.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-306060-wtdzad90.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.02.20030049
doi: 10.1101/2020.03.02.20030049
summary:
  During the interval between February 25-29, 2020, we identified 46 cases of COVID-19 reported in 21 countries in Europe, Africa, North America, and South America which were either in individuals with recent travel from Italy, or who had presumed infection by a traveler from Italy 2. In summary, we suggest that the numerous COVID-19 case exportations from Italy in recent days suggest an epidemic that is larger than official case counts suggest, and which is approximately on a par with that currently occurring in South Korea, which reports 3526 cases (and fewer deaths) as of February 29, 2020. To estimate the time at risk of COVID-19 exposure for travelers departing Italy, we obtained data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) for the proportion of international travelers that are non-residents of Italy (63%) 4 and the average length of stay of tourists to Italy (3.4 days) 5 , and assumed the Italian epidemic began one month prior to February 29, 2020 6 .

abstract:
  Italy is currently experiencing an epidemic of COVID-19 which emerged in the Lombardy region . During the interval between February 25-29, 2020, we identified 46 cases of COVID-19 reported in 21 countries in Europe, Africa, North America, and South America which were either in individuals with recent travel from Italy, or who had presumed infection by a traveler from Italy 2. In six cases, in four of the affected countries (Switzerland, France, Austria, Croatia), land travel was a likely route of introduction, or was documented to have been the route of introduction. We used air travel volume between Italian cities and cities in other countries as an index of connectedness, using data available from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for February 2015 (2.61 million total departing international air passengers from Italy). We used the methods of Fraser et al. to estimate the size of the underlying epidemic in Italy necessary in order for these cases to be observed with a reasonable probability. To estimate the time at risk of COVID-19 exposure for travelers departing Italy, we obtained data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) for the proportion of international travelers that are non-residents of Italy (63%) and the average length of stay of tourists to Italy (3.4 days), and assumed the Italian epidemic began one month prior to February 29, 2020. We also performed sensitivity analyses in which we included outbound travel to all countries regardless of reported case importations, inflated travel volumes by 35%, to account for the relative increase in flight numbers from 2015-2019, and excluded cases in bordering countries and which were documented to have been introduced by overland travel. When all cases were considered we estimated a true outbreak size of 3971 cases (95% CI 2907-5297), as compared to a reported case count of 1128 on February 29, 2020, suggesting non-identification of 72% (61-79%) of cases. In sensitivity analyses, outbreak sizes varied from 1552 to 4533 cases (implying non-identification of 27-75% of cases). We recently used similar methods to estimate a much larger epidemic size in Iran, with a far greater degree of under-reporting, based on many fewer exported cases. The reason for this difference relates to the relatively high volume of travel from Italy, relative to Iran. In summary, we suggest that the numerous COVID-19 case exportations from Italy in recent days suggest an epidemic that is larger than official case counts suggest, and which is approximately on a par with that currently occurring in South Korea, which reports 3526 cases (and fewer deaths) as of February 29, 2020.


id: cord-307219-okvvajms
title: First autochthonous dengue outbreak in Italy, August 2020
author: Lazzarini, Luca
date: 2020-09-10
url: https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.es.2020.25.36.2001606
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.es.2020.25.36.2001606
abstract:
  In August 2020, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, five locally acquired cases of dengue virus type 1 were detected in a family cluster in Vicenza Province, North-East Italy where Aedes albopictus mosquitoes are endemic. The primary case was an importation from West Sumatra, Indonesia. This is the first outbreak of autochthonous dengue reported in Italy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, screening of febrile travelers from endemic countries is crucial in areas where competent vectors are present.


id: cord-307846-t8ejmq71
author: Ugolini, Francesca
date: 2020-10-16
url: https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/pii/S1618866720307056
doi: 10.1016/j.ufug.2020.126888
title:
  Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use and perceptions of urban green space: an international exploratory study

abstract:
  Urban green space (UGS) is an essential element in the urban environment, providing multiple ecosystem services as well as beneficial effects on physical and mental health. In a time of societal crisis these effects may be amplified, but ensuring that they are maintained requires effective planning and management – which is a complex challenge given the rapid changes in modern society and the need for continual adaptation. This study aims to identify the drivers that normally attract visitors to UGS, and to assess the effects of social isolation on the usage and perception of UGS during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted an online survey during the period in which restrictive measures were imposed in response to the pandemic (March-May 2020), in Croatia, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia and Spain. Results showed that urban residents normally have a need for accessible UGS, mainly for physical exercise, relaxing and observing nature. The reduction in UGS visitation during the containment period was related to distinct changes in the motivations of those who did visit, with a relative increase in "necessary activities" such as taking the dog out, and a reduction in activities that could be considered non-essential or high-risk such as meeting people or observing nature. Behavioral changes related to proximity were also observed, with an increase in people walking to small urban gardens nearby (e.g. in Italy) or tree-lined streets (e.g. in Spain, Israel), and people traveling by car to green areas outside the city (e.g. in Lithuania). What the respondents missed the most about UGS during the pandemic was "spending time outdoors" and "meeting other people" – highlighting that during the COVID-19 isolation, UGS was important for providing places of solace and respite, and for allowing exercise and relaxation. Respondents expressed the need for urban greenery even when legally mandated access was limited – and many proposed concrete suggestions for improved urban planning that integrates green spaces of different sizes within the fabric of cities and neighborhoods, so that all residents have access to UGS.


id: cord-308328-wfiqbu3m
title: Age-group-targeted testing for COVID-19 as a new prevention strategy
author: Upadhyay, Ranjit Kumar
date: 2020-09-01
url: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11071-020-05879-x
doi: 10.1007/s11071-020-05879-x
abstract:
  Robust testing and tracing are key to fighting the menace of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This outbreak has progressed with tremendous impact on human life, society and economy. In this paper, we propose an age-structured SIQR model to track the progression of the pandemic in India, Italy and USA, taking into account the different age structures of these countries. We have made predictions about the disease dynamics, identified the most infected age groups and analysed the effectiveness of social distancing measures taken in the early stages of infection. The basic reproductive ratio [Formula: see text] has been numerically calculated for each country. We propose a strategy of age-targeted testing, with increased testing in the most proportionally infected age groups. We observe a marked flattening of the infection curve upon simulating increased testing in the 15–40 year age groups in India. Thus, we conclude that social distancing and widespread testing are effective methods of control, with emphasis on testing and identifying the hot spots of highly infected populations. It has also been suggested that a complete lockdown, followed by lockdowns in selected regions, is more effective than the reverse.


id: cord-310841-scg0h40b
author: Atzori, L.
date: 2020-04-15
url: https://doi.org/10.1111/jdv.16473
doi: 10.1111/jdv.16473
title:
  Psoriasis health care in the time of the coronavirus pandemic: insights from dedicated centers in sardinia (Italy)

abstract:
  Psoriasis is a major chronic inflammatory skin disease, affecting about 3% of the population in Italy, whose management require experienced specialists in order to guarantee high‐quality standards of care. The pandemic coronavirus (2019‐nCoV; COVID‐19) has changed the approach to all patients requiring close contact during a visit, including dermatologic consultations. In Italy, true outbreak begun in Lombardy, by February 21, 2020 with exponential contagion, surpassing China in the number of deaths.


id: cord-311190-i630n88t
title: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Internet latency: A large-scale study
author: Candela, Massimo
date: 2020-08-20
txt: ./txt/cord-311190-i630n88t.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-311190-i630n88t.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389128620311622?v=s5
doi: 10.1016/j.comnet.2020.107495
summary:
  The remaining of the paper is organized as follows: in Section 2, we summarize the most significant work concerning the detection and analysis of large anomalies occurred in the Internet; Section 3 describes the data collection phase; in Section 4, the method we followed to compute the performance indexes is explained; the main characteristics of the datasets are illustrated in Section 5, together with a preliminary analysis; Section 6 contains the results on the Italian Internet latency from different perspectives (type of measurements, hour of the day, IPv4 vs IPv6, etc), whereas Section 7 shows the results concerning the above-mentioned countries and the whole of Europe (with less details compared to Italy); Section 8 concludes the paper. We studied the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the latency of the Italian Internet from different perspectives: when both source and target are located in Italy or just one of the two, when considering the time of the day and workweek/weekend, and when taking into account the version of the Internet Protocol.

abstract:
  Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the way of living of billions of people in a very short time frame. In this paper, we evaluate the impact on the Internet latency caused by the increased amount of human activities that are carried out on-line. The study focuses on Italy, which experienced significant restrictions imposed by local authorities, but results about Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, and the whole of Europe are also included. The analysis of a large set of measurements shows that the impact on the network can be significant, especially in terms of increased variability of latency. In Italy we observed that the standard deviation of the average additional delay – the additional time with respect to the minimum delay of the paths in the region – during lockdown is ∼ 3 − 4 times as much as the value before the pandemic. Similarly, in Italy, packet loss is ∼ 2 − 3 times as much as before the pandemic. The impact is not negligible also for the other countries and for the whole of Europe, but with different levels and distinct patterns.


id: cord-311523-erntrh3p
title: Dermatologists and SARS‐CoV‐2: The impact of the pandemic on daily practice
author: Gisondi, P
date: 2020-04-22
url: https://doi.org/10.1111/jdv.16515
doi: 10.1111/jdv.16515
abstract:
  Since the first case of “pneumonia of unknown aetiology” was diagnosed at the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital in China on 30 December 2019, what was recognised thereafter as “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2” (SARS‐CoV‐2) has spread over the four continents, causing the respiratory manifestations of Coronavirus disease‐19 (COVID‐ 19) and satisfying the epidemiological criteria for a label of “pandemic.” The ongoing SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic is having a huge impact on dermatological practice including the marked reduction of face‐to‐face consultations in favour of teledermatology, the uncertainties concerning the outcome of COVID‐19 infection in patients with common inflammatory disorders such as psoriasis or atopic dermatitis receiving immunosuppressive/immunomodulating systemic therapies; the direct involvement of dermatologists in COVID‐19 care for patients assistance and new research needs to be addressed. It is not known yet, if skin lesions and derangement of the skin barrier could make it easier for SARS‐CoV‐2 to transmit via indirect contact; it remains to be defined if specific mucosal or skin lesions are associated with SARS‐CoV‐2 infection, although some unpublished observations indicate the occurrence of a transient varicelliform exanthema during the early phase of the infection. SARS‐CoV‐2 is a new pathogen for humans that is highly contagious, can spread quickly, and is capable of causing enormous health, economic and societal impacts in any setting. The consequences may continue long after the pandemic resolves, and new management modalities for dermatology may originate from the COVID‐19 disaster. Learning from experience may help to cope with future major societal changes.


id: cord-311782-d2t8bzio
author: Fiore, Josè Ramòn
date: 2020-08-13
url: https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.26425
doi: 10.1002/jmv.26425
title:
  Results from a survey in healthy blood donors in South Eastern Italy indicate that we are far away from herd immunity to SARS‐CoV‐2

abstract:
  Here we present results from a survey on anti‐SARS‐CoV‐2 seroprevalence in healthy blood donors from a low incidence COVID‐19 area (Apulia region, South Eastern Italy). Among 904 subjects tested, only in 9 cases (0.99%) antibodies against SARS‐CoV‐2 were demonstrated. All the 9 seropositive patients were negative for the research of viral RNA by RT‐PCR in nasopharyngeal swabs. These data, along with those recently reported from other countries, clearly show that we are very far from herd immunity and that the containment measures are at the moment the only realistic instrument we have to slow the spread of the pandemic. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


id: cord-314466-6j4vuqer
author: Kim, A. S.
date: 2020-06-14
txt: ./txt/cord-314466-6j4vuqer.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-314466-6j4vuqer.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: http://medrxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.06.11.20128991v1?rss=1
doi: 10.1101/2020.06.11.20128991
summary:
  To investigate the universal similarities among the cumulative profiles of confirmed cases and deaths of 19 individual nations in the G20, a transformation algorithm of the time series data sets was developed with open-source software programs. After these statistical phenomena were viewed as identical events occurring at a distinct rate in each country, the reported algorithm of the data transformation using the reduced time revealed a nation-independent, universal profile (especially initial periods of the pandemic spread) from which a nation-specific, predictive estimation could be made and used to assist in immediate public-health policy-making. . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.11.20128991 doi: medRxiv preprint CCC of the E6 Figure 2 (a) shows that not all E6 nations have a similar onset trend after a certain latency period, but most appear to follow Italy''s profile after their CCC numbers exceed approximately no more than 100, denoted here as the default CCC threshold ν c = 100.

title:
  Transformed time series analysis of first-wave COVID-19: universal similarities found in the Group of Twenty (G20) Countries

abstract:
  As of April 30, 2020, the number of cumulative confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases exceeded 3 million worldwide and 1 million in the US with an estimated fatality rate of more than 7 percent. Because the patterns of the occurrence of new confirmed cases and deaths over time are complex and seemingly country-specific, estimating the long-term pandemic spread is challenging. I developed a simple transformation algorithm to investigate the characteristics of the case and death time series per nation, and described the universal similarities observed in the transformed time series of 19 nations in the Group of Twenty (G20). To investigate the universal similarities among the cumulative profiles of confirmed cases and deaths of 19 individual nations in the G20, a transformation algorithm of the time series data sets was developed with open-source software programs. The algorithm was used to extract and analyze statistical information from daily updated COVID-19 pandemic data sets from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Two new parameters for each nation were suggested as factors for time-shifting and time-scaling to define reduced time, which was used to quantify the degree of universal similarities among nations. After the cumulative confirmed case and death profiles of a nation were transformed by using reduced time, most of the 19 nations, with few exceptions, had transformed profiles that closely converged to those of Italy after the onset of cases and deaths. The initial profiles of the cumulative confirmed cases per nation universally showed 3 - 4 week latency periods, during which the total number of cases remained at approximately ten. The latency period of the cumulative number of deaths was approximately half the latency number of cumulative cases, and subsequent uncontrollable increases in human deaths seemed unavoidable because the coronavirus had already widely spread. Immediate governmental actions, including responsive public-health policy-making and enforcement, are observed to be critical to minimize (and possibly stop) further infections and subsequent deaths. In the pandemic spread of infectious viral diseases, such as COVID-19 studied in this work, different nations show dissimilar and seemingly uncorrelated time series profiles of infected cases and deaths. After these statistical phenomena were viewed as identical events occurring at a distinct rate in each country, the reported algorithm of the data transformation using the reduced time revealed a nation-independent, universal profile (especially initial periods of the pandemic spread) from which a nation-specific, predictive estimation could be made and used to assist in immediate public-health policy-making.


id: cord-315641-bzfrd7xj
title: Plastic Surgery in the Age of Coronavirus
author: Abenavoli, Fabio Massimo
date: 2020-06-16
txt: ./txt/cord-315641-bzfrd7xj.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-315641-bzfrd7xj.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1097/gox.0000000000002957
doi: 10.1097/gox.0000000000002957
abstract: nan
summary:
  [24] [25] [26] The ability of the Chinese authorities to build hospital facilities for infected patients within a very short time appeared to be a test of "strength." However, little attention was paid to the conclusions that should have been drawn about how to assist new patients during the emergency situation. Severe acute respiratory distress syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which results in a high percentage of infected patients, has been enormously difficult to manage. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 99 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a descriptive study From SARS to COVID-19: a previously unknown SARS-related coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) of pandemic potential infecting humans-call for a One Health approach 2019-nCoV (Wuhan virus), a novel coronavirus: human-to-human transmission, travel-related cases, and vaccine readiness Isolation, quarantine, social distancing and community containment: pivotal role for old-style public health measures in the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak


id: cord-315970-m5o962yw
title: COVID‐19, internists and resilience: the north‐south Italy outbreak.
author: Di Ciaula, Agostino
date: 2020-06-01
url: https://doi.org/10.1111/eci.13299
doi: 10.1111/eci.13299
abstract:
  According to data from the World Health Organization, Italy has been particularly affected by the ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic. On April 1(st) 2020, Italy gained, at a world level, the highest number of total confirmed cases (n=110,574) and deaths (n=13,155) since the beginning of the outbreak. The number of cases raised exponentially, reaching a total of 227,364 infected subjects and 32,330 deaths on May, 20. The distribution of infected subjects and deaths, however, was not homogeneous, being respectively about 7‐times and 12‐times higher in northern‐ than in southern regions


id: cord-317184-vz829rsy
title: Patterns of the COVID19 epidemic spread around the world: exponential vs power laws
author: Wodarz, Dominik
date: 2020-04-01
url: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.30.20047274
doi: 10.1101/2020.03.30.20047274
abstract:
  We have analyzed the COVID19 epidemic data of more than 174 countries (excluding China) in the period between January 22 and March 28, 2020. We found that some countries (such as the US, the UK, and Canada) follow an exponential epidemic growth, while others (like Italy and several other European countries) show a power law like growth. At the same time, regardless of the best fitting law, most countries can be shown to follow a trajectory similar to that of Italy, but with varying degrees of delay. We found that countries with ``younger" epidemics tend to exhibit more exponential like behavior, while countries that are closer behind Italy tend to follow a power law growth. We hypothesize that there is a universal growth pattern of this infection that starts off as exponential and subsequently becomes more power law like. Although it cannot be excluded that this growth pattern is a consequence of social distancing measures, an alternative explanation is that it is an intrinsic epidemic growth law, dictated by a spatially distributed community structure, where the growth in individual highly mixed communities is exponential but the longer term, local geographical spread (in the absence of global mixing) results in a power-law. This is supported by computer simulations of a metapopulation model that gives rise to predictions about the growth dynamics that are consistent with correlations found in the epidemiological data. Therefore, seeing a deviation from straight exponential growth may not be a consequence of working non-pharmaceutical interventions (except for, perhaps, restricting the air travel). Instead, this is a normal course of raging infection spread. On the practical side, this cautions us against overly optimistic interpretations of the countries epidemic development and emphasizes the need to continue improving the compliance with social distancing behavior recommendations.


id: cord-317700-buzdfgyq
author: Beccuti, G.
date: 2020-06-09
txt: ./txt/cord-317700-buzdfgyq.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-317700-buzdfgyq.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40618-020-01323-4
doi: 10.1007/s40618-020-01323-4
abstract: nan
summary:
  Regarding Addison''s disease, the ESE statement affirms that there is no evidence that patients with adrenal insufficiency are at increased risk of contracting COVID-19, and there are no reported data on the outcomes of COVID-19 infection in adrenal-insufficient individuals. A population-based, retrospective, open cohort study in the United Kingdom from 1995 to 2018 showed that the Addison''s disease cohort, compared with matched controls, had a higher risk of infections of the lower respiratory [adjusted incidence rate ratio (aIRR) 2.11; 95% CI 1.64-2.69], urinary (aIRR 1.51; 95% CI 1.29-1.77), and gastrointestinal (aIRR 3.80; 95% CI 2.99-4.84) tracts, leading to increased use of antimicrobial agents in the primary care setting [6] . Another Swedish population-based, retrospective study from 1964 to 2004 reported increased mortality from infections in patients with autoimmune PAI (standardized mortality ratio 5.9; 95% CI 4.0-8.4) [8] . In Norway, a population-based, retrospective study from 1943 to 2005 reported an increase in mortality from infections associated with Addison''s disease [10% among causes of death (95% CI 5.1-14.9) vs.

title:
  A COVID-19 pneumonia case report of autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 1 in Lombardy, Italy: letter to the editor


id: cord-318080-cmx3q2sc
author: Amoroso, Maria Grazia
date: 2018-06-12
txt: ./txt/cord-318080-cmx3q2sc.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-318080-cmx3q2sc.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1111/zph.12484
doi: 10.1111/zph.12484
summary:
  In this study, we investigated the presence of various human viral pathogens in 14 different species of bats captured in Central and Southern Italy. Upon sequence analysis, we observed a remarkable genetic diversity among the various bat AstV strains detected in Italy. These findings do not confirm the bat species specificity of AstV, proposed by other authors (Fischer et al., 2016 Astrovirus infection is associated with gastro-enteritis in most animal species, and humans AstVs are regarded as a common cause of viral diarrhoea in children (Mendez, Aguirre-Crespo, Zavala, & Arias, 2007; Xiao et al., 2017) . The potential zoonotic risks associated with bats have attracted the attention of researchers, mostly after the discovery of SARS-like and MERS-like CoVs (two coronaviruses highly pathogenic for humans) in European bat species, although the zoonotic risks posed by bat viruses, likely very limited, should be assessed more properly (Kohl & Kurth, 2014) , in large structured studies.

title:
  Detection and phylogenetic characterization of astroviruses in insectivorous bats from Central‐Southern Italy

abstract:
  In recent years, bats have been found to harbour many viruses, raising several questions about their role as reservoirs and potential disseminators of zoonotic viruses. We investigated the presence of six virus families in bats in three regions of Central‐Southern Italy. Astroviruses were identified in seven of 13 bat species. Sequence analysis revealed marked genetic heterogeneity among the astroviruses identified, with nucleotide identity ranging between 60.26% and 87.62%. Astrovirus diversity was not associated with the bat species, the geographic areas or the bat colony, suggesting the circulation of several astrovirus strains in Italian ecosystems. Genetic diversification and interspecies transmission appear common in bat astroviruses and could provide, potentially, the bases for transmission to humans and other mammals. Yet overemphasizing this risk might have detrimental consequences for bat conservation and preservation of the important ecosystem services bats provide.


id: cord-318237-22s13v2y
title: Spreading of canine parvovirus type 2c mutants of Asian origin in southern Italy
author: Mira, Francesco
date: 2019-07-14
txt: ./txt/cord-318237-22s13v2y.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-318237-22s13v2y.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1111/tbed.13283
doi: 10.1111/tbed.13283
summary:
  Although to date CPV‐2 is circulating in all continents, most of the current studies have analysed the amino acid changes accounted in the VP2 gene sequence, with limited information on virus introductions from other countries. The aim of this study was the detection and molecular analysis of CPV strains displaying genetic features of Asian viruses spreading in southern Italy. More recently, a CPV-2c strain displaying genetic signatures typical of Asian viruses was detected in southern Italy (Mira, Purpari, Lorusso, et al., 2018) , thus suggesting the introduction of the virus from other countries, as reported for other canine viruses (Decaro, Campolo, et al., 2007; Martella et al., 2006; .

abstract:
  Canine parvovirus type 2 (CPV‐2) emerged as dog pathogen in the late 1970s, causing severe and often fatal epizootics of gastroenteritis in the canine population worldwide. Although to date CPV‐2 is circulating in all continents, most of the current studies have analysed the amino acid changes accounted in the VP2 gene sequence, with limited information on virus introductions from other countries. The aim of this study was to analyse the genetic features of CPV‐2c strains currently spreading in Italy. Swabs and tissue samples were collected from dogs suspected of CPV infection. The nearly complete genome sequence from the CPV‐positive samples was obtained. The co‐circulation of two different but related CPV‐2c strains, with amino acid changes characteristic of CPV strains of Asian origin (NS1: 60V, 544F, 545F, 630P – NS2: 60V, 151N, 152V ‐ VP2: 5A/G, 267Y, 297A, 324I, 370R), were observed. The phylogenetic analyses inferred from the NS1 and VP2 gene sequences confirmed the relationship with Asian CPV‐2c strains. This study reports the spread of novel CPV‐2c mutants in Italy and supports further studies to evaluate the coexistence of genetically divergent CPV strains in the same geographical environment.


id: cord-318468-7s5znn5c
author: Gallo, Gaetano
date: 2020-08-08
txt: ./txt/cord-318468-7s5znn5c.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-318468-7s5znn5c.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32770466/
doi: 10.1007/s13304-020-00860-0
summary:
  Using data from a cross-sectional worldwide web survey, we aimed to snapshot the current status of proctologic practice in Italy with differences between three macro areas (North, Centre, South). The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of COVID-19 on proctologic practice in Italy, looking for differences between North, South and Central regions. Multivariable models were fitted using a predefined set of covariates which included respondents'' and hospitals'' demographics (i.e. geographical area, age, gender, type of hospital, hospital rearrangement, external facilities for proctologic surgery, use of PPE, pre-operative testing policies for COVID -19) . More than a half of respondents had modified the surgical informed consent for both COVID-19 positive (N = 164 [55%]) and negative patients (N = 177 [59%]), by mentioning the higher risk of infection and SARS-COV-2-related complications.

title:
  Deadlock of proctologic practice in Italy during COVID-19 pandemic: a national report from ProctoLock2020

abstract:
  Proctology is one of the surgical specialties that suffered the most during COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from a cross-sectional worldwide web survey, we aimed to snapshot the current status of proctologic practice in Italy with differences between three macro areas (North, Centre, South). Specialists affiliated to renowned scientific societies with an interest in coloproctology were invited to join a 27-item survey. Predictive power of respondents’ and hospitals’ demographics on the change of status of surgical activities was calculated. The study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT 04392245). Of 299 respondents from Italy, 94 (40%) practiced in the North, 60 (25%) in the Centrer and 82 (35%) in the South and Islands. The majority were men (79%), at consultant level (70%), with a mean age of 46.5 years, practicing in academic hospitals (39%), where a dedicated proctologist was readily available (68%). Southern respondents were more at risk of infection compared to those from the Center (OR, 3.30; 95%CI 1.46; 7.47, P = 0.004), as were males (OR, 2.64; 95%CI 1.09; 6.37, P = 0.031) and those who routinely tested patients prior to surgery (OR, 3.02; 95%CI 1.39; 6.53, P = 0.005). The likelihood of ongoing surgical practice was higher in the South (OR 1.36, 95%CI 0.75; 2.46, P = 0.304) and in centers that were not fully dedicated to COVID-19 care (OR 4.00, 95%CI 1.88; 8.50, P < 0.001). The results of this survey highlight important factors contributing to the deadlock of proctologic practice in Italy and may inform the development of future management strategies. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s13304-020-00860-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


id: cord-319912-fc9tmx96
title: COVID-19 in Italy: An Analysis of Death Registry Data
author: Ciminelli, Gabriele
date: 2020-09-16
txt: ./txt/cord-319912-fc9tmx96.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-319912-fc9tmx96.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32935849/
doi: 10.1093/pubmed/fdaa165
summary:
  In the Veneto region, which embraced mass testing, contact tracing, and at-home care provision, COVID-19-induced mortality was, respectively, three and six times smaller than in neighboring Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy. This result helps to rationalize the serious undercounting of COVID-19 fatalities in official statistics, which do not include deaths in nursing homes. We zoom in on Lombardy, the worst affected region, to test whether COVID-19 had an additional effect on mortality in municipalities with a higher share of people living in nursing homes (see the Online Appendix for details on the estimation). A plausible estimate suggests that true deaths were about 60% higher than what was officially reported during the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy. We use highly granular daily death registry data for thousands of municipalities in Italy''s north to conduct a precise estimation of the true effect of COVID-19 on the mortality rate and compare the real death toll with what is reported in official statistics.

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: There are still many unknowns about COVID-19. We do not know its exact mortality rate nor the speed through which it spreads across communities. This lack of evidence complicates the design of appropriate response policies. METHODS: We source daily death registry data for 4100 municipalities in Italy’s north and match them to Census data. We augment the dataset with municipality-level data on a host of co-factors of COVID-19 mortality, which we exploit in a differences-in-differences regression model to analyze COVID-19-induced mortality. RESULTS: We find that COVID-19 killed more than 0.15% of the local population during the first wave of the epidemic. We also show that official statistics vastly underreport this death toll, by about 60%. Next, we uncover the dramatic effects of the epidemic on nursing home residents in the outbreak epicenter: in municipalities with a high share of the elderly living in nursing homes, COVID-19 mortality was about twice as high as in those with no nursing home intown. CONCLUSIONS: A pro-active approach in managing the epidemic is key to reduce COVID-19 mortality. Authorities should ramp-up testing capacity and increase contact-tracing abilities. Adequate protective equipment should be provided to nursing home residents and staff.


id: cord-320773-zisujjsx
author: Sabat, Iryna
date: 2020-06-22
url: https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/pii/S0168851020301639
doi: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2020.06.009
title:
  United but divided: policy responses and people's perceptions in the EU during the COVID-19 outbreak

abstract:
  To understand the public sentiment toward the measures used by policymakers for COVID-19 containment, a survey among representative samples of the population in seven European countries was carried out in the first two weeks of April 2020. The study addressed people's support for containment policies, worries about COVID-19 consequences, and trust in sources of information. Citizens were overall satisfied with their government's response to the pandemic; however, the extent of approval differed across countries and policy measures. A north-south divide in public opinion was noticeable across the European states. It was particularly pronounced for intrusive policy measures, such as mobile data use for movement tracking, economic concerns, and trust in the information from the national government. Considerable differences in people's attitudes were noticed within countries, especially across individual regions and age groups. The findings suggest that the epidemic acts as a stressor, causing health and economic anxieties even in households that were not directly affected by the virus. At the same time, the burden of stress was unequally distributed across regions and age groups. Based on the data collected, we draw lessons from the containment stage and identify several insights that can facilitate the design of lockdown exit strategies and future containment policies so that a high level of compliance can be expected.


id: cord-320897-cxmw7bfu
author: Megna, Rosario
date: 2020-03-30
url: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.26.20044628
doi: 10.1101/2020.03.26.20044628
title:
  First month of the epidemic caused by COVID-19 in Italy: current status and real-time outbreak development forecast

abstract:
  Background: The first outbreaks of COVID-19 in Italy occurred during the second half of February 2020 in some areas in the North of the country. Due to the high contagiousness of the infection, further spread by asymptomatic people, Italy has become in a few weeks the country with the greatest number of infected people after China. The large number of severe cases among infected people in Italy led to the hospitalization of thousands of patients, with a heavy burden on the National Health Service. Methods: We analyzed data provided daily by Italian Authorities for the period from 24 February 2020 to 26 March 2020. Considering such information, we developed a forecast model in real-time, based on the cumulative logistic distribution. We then produced an estimate of the overall number of potentially infected individuals and epidemic duration at a national and Regional level, for the most affected Regions. Results: We reported the daily distribution of performed swabs and confirmed cases, and the cumulative distribution of confirmed cases, of patients quarantined at home (42%), hospitalized in non-intensive care (31%), recovered or discharged (13%), deceased (10%), and hospitalized in intensive care (4%). The forecast model estimated a number of infected persons for Italy of 115,000 about, and a duration of the epidemic not less than 2 months. Conclusions: Once month after the first outbreaks there seems to be the first signs of a decrease in the number of infections, showing that we could be now facing the descending phase of the epidemic. The forecast obtained thanks to our model could be used by decision-makers to implement coordinative and collaborative efforts in order to control the epidemic.


id: cord-321194-xi4zy5ow
author: Allam, Zaheer
date: 2020-07-24
txt: ./txt/cord-321194-xi4zy5ow.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-321194-xi4zy5ow.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/pii/B9780128243138000036
doi: 10.1016/b978-0-12-824313-8.00003-6
summary:
  The build-up to this global pandemic announcement saw a national wide lockdown declared in Italy on 9th following an uncontrollable and astronomic increase in the number of new cases and deaths in the country (BBC, 2020c) . As the situation escalated, with over 1000 confirmed cases in the country, and over 31 deaths from the virus, the National Basketball Association (NBA), one of the most popular and fancied sporting activity in North America abruptly suspended its season, as of March 11, when a player of the Utah Jazz tested positive for coronavirus, just before their game with Oklahoma City began (Cacciola and Deb, 2020) . While a majority of countries, especially in Europe writhed in desperation from the impacts of COVID-19, China reported a third consecutive day with no local new case of coronavirus (The straits Times, 2020c).

title:
  The Third 50 Days: A Detailed Chronological Timeline and Extensive Review of Literature Documenting the COVID-19 Pandemic From Day 100 to Day 150

abstract:
  This chapter surveys the global unfolding of events during the third 50 days of the COVID-19 pandemic that originated from China. The third 50 days of the unfolding of the events showcased how city-wide lockdowns were started to be considered globally, the moving of the epicenter from China to Europe, and major industries being impacted worldwide. To document this, an extensive review of the literature provides a daily overview of the situation covering health, economic, political, and social perspectives and outlines key events during the unfolding of the pandemic. This chapter surveys, and establishes a chronological timeline of the outbreak from day 50 to day 100, covering issues appertaining to health policy and dwells into socioeconomic measures and impacts during the unfolding of the pandemic.


id: cord-322075-e6whegrf
title: COVID-19 in Italy - Passing through bitter waters
author: Guglielmetti, Lorenzo
date: 2020-05-22
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32444413/
doi: 10.1183/13993003.01812-2020
abstract:
  The COVID-19 epidemic in Italy has shown many shortcomings of the national health care system but it also represents a historic opportunity to reinforce the central health care governance and reduce inequalities across the country


id: cord-322079-87iqc21s
author: Agostiniani, Rino
date: 2020-09-16
txt: ./txt/cord-322079-87iqc21s.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-322079-87iqc21s.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32938482/
doi: 10.1186/s13052-020-00899-0
summary:
  title: Providing pediatric well-care and sick visits in the COVID-19 pandemic era: the recommendations of the Italian pediatric society The Italian Pediatric Society recommend to separate well visits from sick ones, to educate families and to promote hygienic strategies to provide an adequate pediatric assistance in case of a second pandemic wave. Although most pediatric cases are mild, pediatricians should maintain suspicion for SARS-CoV-2 infection in children, visit sick patients and monitor their clinical conditions for the risk of complications, in order to avoid the spread of the infection to other children, schoolmates caregivers, family members and physicians. Regarding healthcare providers, as COVID 19 is not yet over in Italy, the Italian Pediatric Society recommend to use strategies to separate well visits from sick ones. In case of sick children, the Italian Pediatric Society recommends to identify those with signs or symptoms compatible with COVID-19 and:

title:
  Providing pediatric well-care and sick visits in the COVID-19 pandemic era: the recommendations of the Italian pediatric society

abstract:
  Pediatricians have observed a significant decrease in in-person child health visits during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the post lockdown period, the coronavirus trend remains positive in Italy but fears of a second wave have recently grown in Italy due to active hotbeds of contagion. The pandemic may negatively affect the care of pediatric patients and overall children welfare as it may present with severe signs and symptoms or it may complicate. The Italian Pediatric Society recommend to separate well visits from sick ones, to educate families and to promote hygienic strategies to provide an adequate pediatric assistance in case of a second pandemic wave.


id: cord-322348-8opy5z9h
author: Morelli, Mara
date: 2020-10-06
url: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.584645
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.584645
title:
  Parents and Children During the COVID-19 Lockdown: The Influence of Parenting Distress and Parenting Self-Efficacy on Children’s Emotional Well-Being

abstract:
  On March 10, 2020, Italy went into lockdown due to the Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic. The World Health Organization highlighted how the lockdown had negative consequences on psychological well-being, especially for children. The present study aimed to investigate parental correlates of children’s emotion regulation during the COVID-19 lockdown. Within the Social Cognitive Theory framework, a path model in which parenting self-efficacy and parental regulatory emotional self-efficacy mediated the relationship between parents’ psychological distress and both children’s emotional regulation, and children’s lability/negativity, was investigated. A total of 277 parents of children aged from 6 to 13 years completed an online survey that assessed their psychological distress, regulatory emotional self-efficacy, and parenting self-efficacy. Parents reported also children’s emotional regulation and lability/negativity. A structural equation model (SEM) using MPLUS 8.3 was tested. Results showed that the hypothesized model exhibited excellent fit, chi-square (83) = 140.40, p < 0.01, RMSEA = 0.05, CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.96, SRMR = 0.04. The influences of parents’ psychological distress and parents’ regulatory emotional self-efficacy on children’s emotional regulation and lability/negativity were mediated by parenting self-efficacy. The mediation model was invariant across children’s biological sex and age, and geographical residence area (high risk vs. low risk for COVID-19). Results suggested how parents’ beliefs to be competent in managing parental tasks might be a protective factor for their children’s emotional well-being. Implications for intervention programs are discussed.


id: cord-323934-vew4uxu4
author: Mohanty, S. K.
date: 2020-07-07
url: http://medrxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.07.06.20147009v1?rss=1
doi: 10.1101/2020.07.06.20147009
title:
  Impact of COVID-19 Attributable Deaths on Longevity, Premature Mortality and DALY: Estimates of USA, Italy, Sweden and Germany

abstract:
  In a short span of four months, the COVID-19 pandemic has added over 0.4 million deaths worldwide, which are untimely, premature and unwarranted. The USA, Italy, Germany and Sweden are four worst affected countries, accounting to over 40% of COVID-19 attributable deaths on longevity, years of potential life lost (YPLL) and disability adjusted life years (DALY) in USA, Italy, Germay and Sweden. Data from United Nation Population Projection, Statista and Centre for disease control and prevention were used in the analyses. Life expectancy, YPLL and DALY were estimated under four scenarios; no COVID-19 deaths, actual number of COVID-19 deaths as of 22nd May, 2020 and anticipating COVID-19 death share of 6% and 10% , respectively. The COVID-19 attributable deaths have lowered the life expectancy by 0.4 year each in USA and Sweden, o.5 year in Italy and 0.1 year in Germany. The loss of YPLL was 1.5, 0.5, 0.1 and 0.5 million in USA, Italy, Germany and Sweden. Comapression in life expectancy and increase in YPLL and DALY may intensify further if death continues to soar. COVID-19 has a marked impact on mortality. Reduction in longevity, premature mortality and loss of DALY is higher among elderly. Key Words: COVID-19, Mortality, life expectancy, Italy, USA, Germany, Sweden


id: cord-326489-c3ezmshe
title: SARS-CoV-2 Phylogenetic Analysis, Lazio Region, Italy, February–March 2020
author: Bartolini, Barbara
date: 2020-08-17
url: https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2608.201525
doi: 10.3201/eid2608.201525
abstract:
  We report phylogenetic and mutational analysis of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 virus strains from the Lazio region of Italy and provide information about the dynamics of virus spread. Data suggest effective containment of clade V strains, but subsequently, multiple waves of clade G strains were circulating widely in Europe.


id: cord-326644-5war06j2
author: Supino, M.
date: 2020-03-27
txt: ./txt/cord-326644-5war06j2.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-326644-5war06j2.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: http://medrxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.03.25.20042713v1?rss=1
doi: 10.1101/2020.03.25.20042713
summary:
  preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in temporally to superpose one on another, so that for all countries day zero represents the onset of COVID-19 outbreak. preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in While NHS are prepared to receive a certain number of ICU patients distributed during the influenza season, which lasts several months, no NHS can manage an exponentially growing number of COVID-19 patients. preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in Here we show that it is possible to predict the date of saturation of the ICUs in a region early on, by using the temporal information about the number of available ICU beds.

title:
  World governments should protect their population from COVID-19 pandemic using Italy and Lombardy as precursor

abstract:
  The COVID-19 pandemic is spreading worldwide. Italy emerged early on as the country with the largest outbreak outside Asia. The outbreak in Northern Italy demonstrates that it is fundamental to contain the virus' spread at a very early stage of diffusion. At later stages, no containment measure, even if strict, can prevent the saturation of the hospitals and of the intensive care units in any country. Here we show that it is possible to predict when the intensive care units will saturate, within a few days from the first cases of COVID-19 intensive care patients. Using early counts of intensive care patients, we predict the saturation for Lombardy, Italy. Governments should use the Italian precursor to control the outbreak of COVID-19 and prevent the saturation of their intensive care units to protect their population.


id: cord-327589-mr8z65o5
title: Prediction of COVID-19 Spreading Profiles in South Korea, Italy and Iran by Data-Driven Coding
author: Zhan, Choujun
date: 2020-03-10
url: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.08.20032847
doi: 10.1101/2020.03.08.20032847
abstract:
  This work applies a data-driven coding method for prediction of the COVID-19 spreading profile in any given population that shows an initial phase of epidemic progression. Based on the historical data collected for COVID-19 spreading in 367 cities in China and the set of parameters of the augmented Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Removed (SEIR) model obtained for each city, a set of profile codes representing a variety of transmission mechanisms and contact topologies is formed. By comparing the data of an early outbreak of a given population with the complete set of historical profiles, the best fit profiles are selected and the corresponding sets of profile codes are used for prediction of the future progression of the epidemic in that population. Application of the method to the data collected for South Korea, Italy and Iran shows that peaks of infection cases are expected to occur before the end of March 2020, and that the percentage of population infected in each city will be less than 0.01%, 0.05% and 0.02%, for South Korea, Italy and Iran, respectively.


id: cord-327777-pg98zc6o
author: Delogu, Mauro
date: 2020-03-01
txt: ./txt/cord-327777-pg98zc6o.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-327777-pg98zc6o.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32121543/
doi: 10.3390/ani10030407
summary:
  However, the high mutation rates characterizing members of the Coronaviridae family and their potential successful interspecies host jumps—as that likely occurred in the Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) emergence—should be considered in the management of hedgehogs admitted to multi-species wildlife rehabilitation centers, recommending their return back to the original recovery areas. Western European hedgehogs'' ecological and feeding habits, along with their high population densities, notable synanthropic attitudes, frequent contacts with sympatric wild and domestic species, including humans, implicate the possible involvement of E. The wild bird Influenza A virus (IAV) gene pool poses significant risks for both animal and human health because of its ability to colonize a wide variety of animal species (included in the Mammalia, Aves and Reptilia classes) in which IAV can cause variable outcomes of infection, with possible high morbidity and fatality rates [20] .

title:
  Eco-Virological Preliminary Study of Potentially Emerging Pathogens in Hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) Recovered at a Wildlife Treatment and Rehabilitation Center in Northern Italy

abstract:
  SIMPLE SUMMARY: Most of the newly emerging infections arise from animal reservoirs, frequently represented by wildlife species. Western European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) are mammalian hibernators, mainly nocturnal and insectivorous, living in natural open and green spaces as well as artificial, rural and urban, areas. They are generalist predators of macro-invertebrates, but they may also eat meat, bird eggs and on occasion pet food. These ecological and feeding habits, along with their high population densities, notable synanthropic attitudes, frequent contacts with sympatric wild and domestic species, including humans, implicate the possibility of intra- and interspecies interactions accounting for the possible involvement of E. europaeus in the ecology of several potentially emerging pathogens, including coronaviruses. Using PCR-based and virus isolation methods, we found that 58.3% of 24 hedgehogs’ fecal samples were PCR-positive for Erinaceus coronaviruses (EriCoVs). We did not observe any clinical disease related to the EriCoV infection in hedgehogs. However, the high mutation rates characterizing members of the Coronaviridae family and their potential successful interspecies host jumps—as that likely occurred in the Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) emergence—should be considered in the management of hedgehogs admitted to multi-species wildlife rehabilitation centers, recommending their return back to the original recovery areas. ABSTRACT: The Western European Hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) is one of the four hedgehog species belonging to the genus Erinaceus. Among them, E. amurensis is extant in East Asia’s areas only, whereas E. europaeus, E. roumanicus and E. concolor are mainly found in Europe. E. europaeus is endemically distributed from western to central and southern Europe, including Italy. Western European hedgehogs’ ecological and feeding habits, along with their high population densities, notable synanthropic attitudes, frequent contacts with sympatric wild and domestic species, including humans, implicate the possible involvement of E. europaeus in the ecology of potentially emerging viruses, such as coronaviruses, influenza A and influenza D viruses, canine distemper virus, pestiviruses and Aujeszky’s disease virus. We examined 24 E. europaeus individuals found injured in urban and rural areas of Northern Italy. Of the 24 fecal samples collected and tested for the above-mentioned pathogens by both PCR-based and virus isolation methods, 14 were found PCR-positive for betacoronaviruses belonging to lineage C and related to the known Erinaceus coronaviruses (EriCoVs), as determined by partial sequencing of the virus genome. Our findings suggest that hedgehogs could be considered natural reservoirs of CoVs, and also act as chronic shedding carriers of these potentially emerging RNA viruses.


id: cord-327779-lt3t4shi
title: Treatment of COVID-19 Patients in Italy: A Physician’s Experience and Insights
author: Gilad, Vered
date: 2020-07-31
txt: ./txt/cord-327779-lt3t4shi.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-327779-lt3t4shi.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32792048/
doi: 10.5041/rmmj.10419
summary:
  This perspective piece focuses on the main challenges faced by Italian hospital managements: hospital overcrowding; the need for urgent reorganization of the country''s healthcare systems; the lack of data regarding COVID-19 diagnostics, clinical course, and effective treatment; individual and collective consequences of the crisis; and the importance of disease containment measures and early treatment strategies. 9 The main factors associated with stress disorders included supporting the challengingly high number of critically ill patients, scarcity of intensive care beds, unfamiliar treatment strategies, feelings of inadequacy, uncertainty about pandemic duration, the risk of infection and deficiency of personal protective equipment, high-workload shifts, and physical distress related to the need to use heavy protective uniforms. In view of the importance of identifying patients in the early stages of disease, an open letter signed by more than 100,000 Italian doctors was sent to the Italian Ministry of Health, asking for a strengthening of community assistance and the telemedicine infrastructure to allow home surveillance and care of COVID-19 patients.

abstract:
  The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Italy, the first Western country hit by the pandemic, seriously impacted the Italian healthcare system and social and economic environment. This perspective piece focuses on the main challenges faced by Italian hospital managements: hospital overcrowding; the need for urgent reorganization of the country’s healthcare systems; the lack of data regarding COVID-19 diagnostics, clinical course, and effective treatment; individual and collective consequences of the crisis; and the importance of disease containment measures and early treatment strategies.


id: cord-328442-mnlzj1ly
author: Barattucci, Massimiliano
date: 2020-10-02
txt: ./txt/cord-328442-mnlzj1ly.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-328442-mnlzj1ly.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.554561
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.554561
summary:
  However, to date, no study has addressed how these key risk-related aspects (i.e., affect, anxiety, perceived knowledge on risk, and risk dimensions) can act jointly to orient online health information-seeking behavior, and people''s complaints toward GR imposed during the lockdown. Participants (1,031) were involved during the first week of the quarantine (March 11–18) and completed an online survey composed of (i) an adapted version of the Italian Risk Perception Questionnaire; (ii) the Italian Positive (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) Schedule (PANAS-10); (iii) the State Anxiety Scale (STAI-Y1); (iv) ad hoc personal knowledge measure about novel coronavirus; (v) ad hoc item measuring information search behavior regarding the novel coronavirus; (vi) ad hoc measure of the complains regarding GR; and (vii) sociodemographic questions. To investigate the joint impact of cognitive risk dimensions, affect, and anxiety on online searching behavior and compliance toward government restrictions (GR), in the peculiar context of the Italian pandemic emergency, we drew from the HBM to formulate and test a novel explicative model.

title:
  Rethinking the Role of Affect in Risk Judgment: What We Have Learned From COVID-19 During the First Week of Quarantine in Italy

abstract:
  Due to COVID-19 spreading in Italy, on March 11 the Prime Minister of Italy declared a lockdown and imposed severe restrictive measures impacting citizens’ freedom at several levels. People were required to stay at home and go out only to satisfy basic needs. Several risk models have postulated a link among online searching behavior, affect, anxiety, and complaints by individuals toward government restrictions (GR), which emerged as also related to an increased perception of knowledge toward risk. However, to date, no study has addressed how these key risk-related aspects (i.e., affect, anxiety, perceived knowledge on risk, and risk dimensions) can act jointly to orient online health information-seeking behavior, and people’s complaints toward GR imposed during the lockdown. This study investigated the mechanisms underlying online health information-seeking behavior and people’s complaints toward the government’s restrictions during a COVID-19 emergency in the Italian population. Drawing from the health belief model (HBM), which postulates a link between sociodemographic variables, risk, and affect dimensions in emergency, we assumed risk factors as predictors of affect and anxiety, which, in turn, were posited as mediators between risk dimensions, online health information-seeking behavior, and complaints toward GR. Participants (1,031) were involved during the first week of the quarantine (March 11–18) and completed an online survey composed of (i) an adapted version of the Italian Risk Perception Questionnaire; (ii) the Italian Positive (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) Schedule (PANAS-10); (iii) the State Anxiety Scale (STAI-Y1); (iv) ad hoc personal knowledge measure about novel coronavirus; (v) ad hoc item measuring information search behavior regarding the novel coronavirus; (vi) ad hoc measure of the complains regarding GR; and (vii) sociodemographic questions. General linear models and structural equation modeling (SEM) were carried out to test the model. Sociodemographic and cognitive factors predicted the participants’ affect and anxiety, which, in turn, motivated and fully mediated both information search behavior and complaint toward GR. This research can offer useful suggestions for policy-makers during the COVID-19 emergency, and it advanced the knowledge on the risk–emotion link in emergency situations.


id: cord-329268-0zhabgkt
author: Savoia, E.
date: 2020-05-01
txt: ./txt/cord-329268-0zhabgkt.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-329268-0zhabgkt.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: http://medrxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.04.24.20073924v1?rss=1
doi: 10.1101/2020.04.24.20073924
summary:
  This study aimed to understand physicians access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and to information about their use, risk perception and strategies adopted to prevent contracting the infection. This study aimed to understand physicians'' access to PPE, reception of information about their use, ability to perform donning and doffing procedures, risk perception and strategies adopted to prevent contracting the infection. Questions were designed to inform the development of training and policies in response to the crisis and included questions about the physician''s work experience (years of experience, specialty, experience in COVID-19 units and geographic area of work), and questions related to the use of PPE divided in four parts: 1) Access to PPE and strategies to cope with shortage, 2) Information received on the use of PPE, 3) Self-reported ability to perform donning and doffing procedures, and 4) Risk perception of contracting the disease.

title:
  Factors Associated with Access and Use of PPE during COVID-19: A Cross-sectional Study of Italian Physicians

abstract:
  Objectives During the course of the Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, Italy has reported one of the highest number of infections. Nearly ten percent of reported coronavirus infections in Italy occurred in healthcare workers. This study aimed to understand physicians access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and to information about their use, risk perception and strategies adopted to prevent contracting the infection. Methods We undertook a cross-sectional, online self-reported survey implemented between March 31 and April 5 2020 of Italian physicians. Results Responses were received from 529 physicians, only 13% of which reported to have access to PPE every time they need them. Approximately half of the physicians reported that the information received about the use of PPE was either clear (47%) or complete (54%). Risk perception about contracting the infection was influenced by receiving adequate information on the use of PPE. Access to adequate information on the use of PPE was associated with better ability to perform donning and doffing procedures [OR=2.2 95% C.I. 1.7-2.8] and reduced perception of risk [OR=0.5, 95% C.I. 0.4-0.6]. Conclusions Results from this rapid survey indicate that while ramping up supplies on PPE for healthcare workers is certainly of mandatory importance, adequate training and clear instructions are just as important.


id: cord-329457-3b6n8un0
title: Parametric analysis of early data on COVID-19 expansion in selected European countries
author: Spousta, Martin
date: 2020-04-03
txt: ./txt/cord-329457-3b6n8un0.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-329457-3b6n8un0.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.31.20049155
doi: 10.1101/2020.03.31.20049155
summary:
  Several features are observed in the data, namely a high predictability of the expansion of disease in Italy and a convergence of the "pushback" parameter towards a limiting value in all the countries where restrictive measures have been adopted. In this paper we propose a straightforward analytic description of the time dependence of the disease expansion under the restrictive measures and a method allowing to identify trends in the expansion and make predictions. For example, if we observe that the parameter b 2 achieves a limiting value of Italy even in countries where more restrictive measures have been applied, such as mandatory usage of masks in Czechia, then this indicates that the use of these measures does not bring further reduction of the spread of the disease 1 . The analysis of the data indicate several features, namely the high predictability of the expansion of disease in Italy and a convergence of the "pushback" parameter towards a limiting value in all the countries where restrictive measures are applied.

abstract:
  We analyze the early data on COVID-19 expansion in selected European countries using an analytical parametric model. A description of the time dependence of the disease expansion and a method to evaluate trends of the expansion are proposed. Several features are observed in the data, namely a high predictability of the expansion of disease in Italy and a convergence of the “pushback” parameter towards a limiting value in all the countries where restrictive measures have been adopted. Basic predictions for the evolution of the disease expansion are made for selected countries with a stable evolution in the parametric space of the model. The findings presented here should contribute to the understanding of the behavior of the disease expansion and the role of the restrictive measures on the evolution of the expansion.


id: cord-330057-3vucm0s1
author: Franzo, Giovanni
date: 2020-04-29
txt: ./txt/cord-330057-3vucm0s1.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-330057-3vucm0s1.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-64477-4
doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-64477-4
summary:
  In the present study, 361 IBV QX (the most relevant field genotype in Italy) sequences were obtained between 2012 and 2016 from the two main Italian integrated poultry companies. Finally, the different viral population pattern observed in the two companies over the same time period supports the pivotal role of management and control strategies on IBV epidemiology. Almost identical results were obtained including a third "ghost" deme (i.e. an estimated deme for which no sequences were available, representative of other unsampled companies and farms) in the analysis or using the "traditional" coalescent approach. In the particular Italian QX scenario, the serially sampled (i.e. with known collection date) strains were used to infer the migration rate and history between the two integrated poultry companies (i.e. considered as different demes) over time.

title:
  Phylodynamic analysis and evaluation of the balance between anthropic and environmental factors affecting IBV spreading among Italian poultry farms

abstract:
  Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) control is mainly based on wide vaccine administration. Although effective, its efficacy is not absolute, the viral circulation is not prevented and some side effects cannot be denied. Despite this, the determinants of IBV epidemiology and the factors affecting its circulation are still largely unknown and poorly investigated. In the present study, 361 IBV QX (the most relevant field genotype in Italy) sequences were obtained between 2012 and 2016 from the two main Italian integrated poultry companies. Several biostatistical and bioinformatics approaches were used to reconstruct the history of the QX genotype in Italy and to assess the effect of different environmental, climatic and social factors on its spreading patterns. Moreover, two structured coalescent models were considered in order to investigate if an actual compartmentalization occurs between the two integrated poultry companies and the role of a third “ghost” deme, representative of minor industrial poultry companies and the rural sector. The obtained results suggest that the integration of the poultry companies is an effective barrier against IBV spreading, since the strains sampled from the two companies formed two essentially-independent clades. Remarkably, the only exceptions were represented by farms located in the high densely populated poultry area of Northern Italy. The inclusion of a third deme in the model revealed the likely role of other poultry companies and rural farms (particularly concentrated in Northern Italy) as sources of strain introduction into one of the major poultry companies, whose farms are mainly located in the high densely populated poultry area of Northern Italy. Accordingly, when the effect of different environmental and urban parameters on IBV geographic spreading was investigated, no factor seems to contribute to IBV dispersal velocity, being poultry population density the only exception. Finally, the different viral population pattern observed in the two companies over the same time period supports the pivotal role of management and control strategies on IBV epidemiology. Overall, the present study results stress the crucial relevance of human action rather than environmental factors, highlighting the direct benefits that could derive from improved management and organization of the poultry sector on a larger scale.


id: cord-330562-dabjcvno
title: The 2020 coronavirus lockdown and seismic monitoring of anthropic activities in Northern Italy
author: Poli, Piero
date: 2020-06-10
txt: ./txt/cord-330562-dabjcvno.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-330562-dabjcvno.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-66368-0
doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-66368-0
summary:
  We analyse continuous seismic data from many stations in northern and central Italy, and quantify the impact of the lockdown on seismic ambient noise, as a function of time and location. While earlier studies have attempted to characterise high-frequency seismic noise 7, [11] [12] [13] [14] , the current lockdown of industrial activities and reduction in road and train traffic in Italy is an unprecedented opportunity to discriminate it from ambient noise of natural origin. We analyse continuous data from an array of broadband seismic stations, located in the vicinity of known industrial districts in Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany (Fig. 1) ; we identify the spectral signature of the March 2020 lockdown, and take advantage of the lockdown to quantify and evaluate the spectral signature of anthropic activities. We have analysed continuous data from northern Italy, and quantified the effects of the March 2020 coronavirus lockdown on the seismic ambient noise field.

abstract:
  In March/April 2020 the Italian government drastically reduced vehicle traffic and interrupted all non-essential industrial activities over the entire national territory. Italy thus became the first country in the world, with the exception of Hubei, to enact lockdown measures as a consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak and the need to contain it. Italy is also a seismically active area, and as such is monitored by a dense permanent network of seismic stations. We analyse continuous seismic data from many stations in northern and central Italy, and quantify the impact of the lockdown on seismic ambient noise, as a function of time and location. We find that the lockdown reduces ambient noise significantly in the 1–10 Hz frequency range; because natural sources of seismic noise are not affected by the lockdown, the seismic signature of anthropic noise can be characterised with unprecedented clarity, by simply comparing the signal recorded before and after the lockdown. Our results correlate well with independent evaluations of the impact of the lockdown (e.g., cell phone displacements), and we submit that ambient-noise seismology is a useful tool to monitor containment measures such as the coronavirus lockdowns.


id: cord-331069-ioph6vsp
author: Tobías, Aurelio
date: 2020-07-10
txt: ./txt/cord-331069-ioph6vsp.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-331069-ioph6vsp.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720320520
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138539
summary:
  We have analyzed the trends of incident cases, deaths, and intensive care unit admissions (ICU) in both countries before and after their respective national lockdowns using an interrupted time-series design. During the second lockdown, implementing more restrictive measures for mobility, it has been a change in the trend slopes for both countries in daily incident cases and ICUs. This improvement indicates that the efforts overtaken are being successful in flattening the epidemic curve, and reinforcing the belief that we must hold on. We have analyzed the trends of the daily incident diagnosed cases, deaths, and intensive care units (ICU) admissions for SARS-CoV-2 in Italy and Spain before and during their respective national lockdowns, using an interrupted time-series design (Bernal et al., 2017) . The second lockdown, still ongoing, shows how the trends have changed, with a reduction of daily incident cases, deaths, and more significantly in ICUs. These are of similar magnitude in both countries, although Italy carries a week ahead of Spain.

title:
  Evaluation of the lockdowns for the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Italy and Spain after one month follow up

abstract:
  From the end of February, the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Spain has been following the footsteps of that in Italy very closely. We have analyzed the trends of incident cases, deaths, and intensive care unit admissions (ICU) in both countries before and after their respective national lockdowns using an interrupted time-series design. Data was analyzed with quasi-Poisson regression using an interaction model to estimate the change in trends. After the first lockdown, incidence trends were considerably reduced in both countries. However, although the slopes have been flattened for all outcomes, the trends kept rising. During the second lockdown, implementing more restrictive measures for mobility, it has been a change in the trend slopes for both countries in daily incident cases and ICUs. This improvement indicates that the efforts overtaken are being successful in flattening the epidemic curve, and reinforcing the belief that we must hold on.


id: cord-331486-jp4m6ibe
title: Has COVID-19 played an unexpected “stroke” on the chain of survival?
author: Naccarato, Marcello
date: 2020-05-06
txt: ./txt/cord-331486-jp4m6ibe.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-331486-jp4m6ibe.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022510X20302252?v=s5
doi: 10.1016/j.jns.2020.116889
summary:
  In many Italian regions, hospitals have been reorganized to properly manage COVID-19 patients, creating new protected wards for SARS-CoV-2 positive patients both for intensive and sub-intensive care, including reorganizing many Stroke Units [3] . To evaluate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemics on stroke management, this report described the emergency structured pathway adopted by an Italian University Hub Stroke Unit in the cross -border Italy-Slovenia area (which serves 373''803 people) (data from Istituto Nazionale di Statistica-ISTAT official report, 30th September 2017, see http://dati.istat.it/), and compared clinical features and outcomes of admitted patients between 9th March 2020 (start of Italy lockdown) and 9th April 2020 with stroke patients admitted during the same period in 2019. In conclusion, the adopted strategies for stroke management during the COVID-19 emergency have suggested being effective, while suffering a reduced and delayed reporting of symptoms.

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemics required several changes in stroke management and it may have influenced some clinical or functional characteristics. We aimed to evaluate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemics on stroke management during the first month of Italy lockdown. In addition, we described the emergency structured pathway adopted by an Italian University Hub Stroke Unit in the cross-border Italy-Slovenia area. METHODS: We analyzed admitted patients' clinical features and outcomes between 9th March 2020 and 9th April 2020 (first month of lockdown), and compared them with patients admitted during the same period in 2019. RESULTS: Total admissions experienced a reduction of 45% during the lockdown compared to the same period in 2019 (16 vs 29, respectively), as well as a higher prevalence of severe stroke (NIHSS>10) at admission (n = 8, 50% vs n = 8, 28%). A dramatic prevalence of stroke of unknown symptom onset was observed in 2020 (n = 8, 50% vs n = 3, 10%). During lockdown, worse functional and independence outcomes were found, despite the similar proportion of reperfused patients. Similar ‘symptoms alert-to-admission’ and ‘door-to-treatment’ times were observed. During lockdown hospitalization was shorter and fewer patients completed the stroke work-up. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, the adopted strategies for stroke management during the COVID-19 emergency have suggested being effective, while suffering a reduced and delayed reporting of symptoms. Therefore, we recommend raising awareness among the population against possible stroke symptoms onset. Thus, think F.A.S.T. and do not stay-at-home at all costs.


id: cord-332234-6jursf4h
author: Diaferio, Lucia
date: 2020-10-06
txt: ./txt/cord-332234-6jursf4h.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-332234-6jursf4h.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33023616/
doi: 10.1186/s13052-020-00906-4
summary:
  CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to provide a comprehensive review of COVID-19 knowledge and impact among paediatricians in Italy about allergic asthma and upper airway involvement. The questionnaire was conceived and pretested in April 2020, by a working group of experts of the Italian Paediatric Society for Allergy and Immunology (SIAIP) based on their personal clinical experience and on the extensive review of most relevant international literature on COVID-19 infection searched on MEDLINE, EMBASE and SCOPUS. Among these patients, according to the 75% of responders, a maximum rate of 20% were affected by allergic rhino-conjunctivitis and in particular in the North of Italy while in the Centre and in the South there was a higher incidence (P = 0.09). Among these patients, according to the 75% of responders, a maximum rate of 20% were affected by allergic rhino-conjunctivitis and in particular in the North of Italy while in the Centre and in the South there was a higher incidence (P = 0.09).

title:
  Cross-sectional survey on impact of paediatric COVID-19 among Italian paediatricians: report from the SIAIP rhino-sinusitis and conjunctivitis committee

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: There is ample evidence that COVID-19 is significantly less severe in children than in adults and asthma and allergy, the most common chronic disorders in children, are not included in the top 10 comorbidities related to COVID-19 fatalities. Nevertheless, concerns about asthma and allergy are still high.. In order to evaluate the impact of paediatric COVID-19 among Italian paediatricians, we sent a 20-questions anonymous internet-based survey to 250 Italian paediatricians with particular address to allergic symptoms and those affecting the upper airways. METHODS: The questionnaire was conceived and pretested in April 2020, by a working group of experts of the Italian Paediatric Society for Allergy and Immunology (SIAIP), and structured into different sections of 20 categorized and multiple choice questions. The first part included questions about epidemiological data follows by a second part assessing the way to manage a suspected COVID-19 infection and personal experiences about that. The third part concerned questions about patients’ clinical characteristics and clinical manifestations. The survey was emailed once between April and mid-May 2020. RESULTS: A total 99 participants had participated in our survey and provided responses to our electronic questionnaire. The distribution of patients reported per month varies significantly according to the geographical area (P = 0.02). Data confirmed that in the North part of Italy the rate of patients referred is higher than in the rest of Italy. Almost all respondents (98%) reported caring for up to a maximum of 10 infected children and the last 2% more than twenty. Among these patients, according to the 75% of responders, a maximum rate of 20% were affected by allergic rhino-conjunctivitis and in particular in the North of Italy while in the Centre and in the South there was a higher incidence (P = 0.09). Almost the same applies for asthma, 83% of responders declared that up to a maximum of 20% of affected children were asthmatic, from 20 to 40% for the 13,5% of responders and from 40 to 60% for the last 3,5%. As for the allergic conjunctivitis also for asthma, we found a higher incidence in the Centre and in South than in the North (P = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to provide a comprehensive review of COVID-19 knowledge and impact among paediatricians in Italy about allergic asthma and upper airway involvement. From our point of view, it provides important information clearly useful for improving a good practice.


id: cord-332314-nukv34fh
author: Bartoszek, Krzysztof
date: 2020-06-26
txt: ./txt/cord-332314-nukv34fh.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-332314-nukv34fh.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32836808/
doi: 10.1007/s11071-020-05761-w
summary:
  Clearly, the curves presented in Fig. 1 suggest that a more in-depth look at the raw numbers is required and that there is a need to put the data in a correct perspective before trying to fit any epidemiological model to them, especially because the viral dynamics are starting to be inferred from reported case fatalities [5, 18, 24] . Its constantly increasing infected and case fatality count has lead us looking in greater detail into this data, especially as it is used for curve-fitting of epidemiological models (e.g., [13, 15, 21, 31] following brief survey of arXiv) and presented in public media. In this work, we analyzed in depth the two statistics that are commonly reported for the currently ongoing COVID-19 pandemic-the number of confirmed cases and the number of case fatalities for the different regions of Italy.

title:
  Are official confirmed cases and fatalities counts good enough to study the COVID-19 pandemic dynamics? A critical assessment through the case of Italy

abstract:
  As the COVID-19 outbreak is developing the two most frequently reported statistics seem to be the raw confirmed case and case fatalities counts. Focusing on Italy, one of the hardest hit countries, we look at how these two values could be put in perspective to reflect the dynamics of the virus spread. In particular, we find that merely considering the confirmed case counts would be very misleading. The number of daily tests grows, while the daily fraction of confirmed cases to total tests has a change point. It (depending on region) generally increases with strong fluctuations till (around, depending on region) 15–22 March and then decreases linearly after. Combined with the increasing trend of daily performed tests, the raw confirmed case counts are not representative of the situation and are confounded with the sampling effort. This we observe when regressing on time the logged fraction of positive tests and for comparison the logged raw confirmed count. Hence, calibrating model parameters for this virus’s dynamics should not be done based only on confirmed case counts (without rescaling by the number of tests), but take also fatalities and hospitalization count under consideration as variables not prone to be distorted by testing efforts. Furthermore, reporting statistics on the national level does not say much about the dynamics of the disease, which are taking place at the regional level. These findings are based on the official data of total death counts up to 15 April 2020 released by ISTAT and up to 10 May 2020 for the number of cases. In this work, we do not fit models but we rather investigate whether this task is possible at all. This work also informs about a new tool to collect and harmonize official statistics coming from different sources in the form of a package for the R statistical environment and presents the “COVID-19 Data Hub.”


id: cord-333417-edc509xr
author: Bontempi, Elza
date: 2020-06-13
txt: ./txt/cord-333417-edc509xr.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-333417-edc509xr.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32562948/
doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109775
summary:
  title: Commercial exchanges instead of air pollution as possible origin of COVID-19 initial diffusion phase in Italy: more efforts are necessary to address interdisciplinary research In particular, due to several episodes of air pollution observed in the past in China (Wang 30 et al., 2012) and in Northern Italy, especially in the Po valley (Perrino C et al., 2014) , a 31 correlation between airborne particulate matter (PM) concentration and the reported 32 infection cases was proposed by a position paper (Position paper). Based on this work, 33 several newspapers and some research articles (Frontera et al., 2020) , (Sterpetti, 2020) 34 were published reporting the possibility that airborne PM acts as a carrier in COVID-19 35 diffusion (pollution-to human transmission). First data analysis about possible COVID-19 virus airborne diffusion due to 220 air particulate matter (PM): the case of Lombardy (Italy) Environmental Research (2020) 221 186, 109639

title:
  Commercial exchanges instead of air pollution as possible origin of COVID-19 initial diffusion phase in Italy: more efforts are necessary to address interdisciplinary research

abstract:
  This communication aims to advocate a more coordinate activity mainly between medical and environmental scientists to clarify some confusing information related to airborne diffusion mechanisms of COVID-19. In this frame it is suggested that parameters other than environmental pollution (accounting for pollution-to human transmission mechanisms), as for example parameters involving commercial exchanges (accounting for human-to human transmission mechanisms), should be considered to better justify the difference in the initial diffusion of virus in Italy.


id: cord-335213-0cji7tzq
title: Demographic science aids in understanding the spread and fatality rates of COVID-19
author: Dowd, Jennifer Beam
date: 2020-05-05
txt: ./txt/cord-335213-0cji7tzq.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-335213-0cji7tzq.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2004911117
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2004911117
summary:
  We examine the role of age structure in deaths thus far in Italy and South Korea and illustrate how the pandemic could unfold in populations with similar population sizes but different age structures, showing a dramatically higher burden of mortality in countries with older versus younger populations. We examine the role of age structure in deaths thus far in Italy and South Korea and illustrate how the pandemic could unfold in populations with similar population sizes but different age structures, showing a dramatically higher burden of mortality in countries with older versus younger populations. Fig. 1 contains population pyramids to illustrate how population age structure interacts with high COVID-19 mortality rates at older ages to generate large differences across populations in the number of deaths, holding constant assumed rates of infection prevalence (10%) and age−sex-specific CFRs (Italy) (14) .

abstract:
  Governments around the world must rapidly mobilize and make difficult policy decisions to mitigate the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Because deaths have been concentrated at older ages, we highlight the important role of demography, particularly, how the age structure of a population may help explain differences in fatality rates across countries and how transmission unfolds. We examine the role of age structure in deaths thus far in Italy and South Korea and illustrate how the pandemic could unfold in populations with similar population sizes but different age structures, showing a dramatically higher burden of mortality in countries with older versus younger populations. This powerful interaction of demography and current age-specific mortality for COVID-19 suggests that social distancing and other policies to slow transmission should consider the age composition of local and national contexts as well as intergenerational interactions. We also call for countries to provide case and fatality data disaggregated by age and sex to improve real-time targeted forecasting of hospitalization and critical care needs.


id: cord-336714-brurrmi4
author: De Brouwer, Edward
date: 2020-04-04
txt: ./txt/cord-336714-brurrmi4.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-336714-brurrmi4.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.02.20046375
doi: 10.1101/2020.04.02.20046375
summary:
  In this study, we use a Bayesian SEIR epidemiological model to perform a parametric regression over the COVID-19 outbreaks data in China, Italy, Belgium, and Spain, and estimate the effect of the containment measures on the basic reproduction ratio R_0. In this study, we collected the publicly available data regarding cases, recovered and deaths related to the COVID-19 epidemics in China, Italy, Belgium and Spain and we trained a Bayesian SEIR model to perform a parametric regression on these time series. We performed a parametric Bayesian regression (see Methods) on the mainland China COVID-19 epidemic data by training a SEIR model on the cumulative cases time series, with the goal of inferring the change in R 0 = β/γ produced by the increasingly stringent containment measures introduced by the Chinese government, which mainly aim at reducing the frequency of the contacts β −1 between individuals.

title:
  Modeling the COVID-19 outbreaks and the effectiveness of the containment measures adopted across countries

abstract:
  On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak, originally started in China, a global pandemic. Since then, the outbreak has indeed spread across all continents, threatening the public health of numerous countries. Although the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of COVID-19 is relatively low when optimal level of healthcare is granted to the patients, the high percentage of severe cases developing severe pneumonia and thus requiring respiratory support is worryingly high, and could lead to a rapid saturation of Intensive Care Units (ICUs). To overcome this risk, most countries enacted COVID-19 containment measures. In this study, we use a Bayesian SEIR epidemiological model to perform a parametric regression over the COVID-19 outbreaks data in China, Italy, Belgium, and Spain, and estimate the effect of the containment measures on the basic reproduction ratio R_0. We find that the effect of these measures is detectable, but tends to be gradual, and that a progressive strengthening of these measures usually reduces the R_0 below 1, granting a decay of the outbreak. We also discuss the biases and inconsistencies present in the publicly available data on COVID-19 cases, providing an estimate for the actual number of cases in Italy on March 12, 2020. Lastly, despite the data and model's limitations, we argue that the idea of "flattening the curve" to reach herd immunity is likely to be unfeasible.


id: cord-337044-o82dp0ag
author: Marín‐Hernández, Daniela
date: 2020-06-09
txt: ./txt/cord-337044-o82dp0ag.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-337044-o82dp0ag.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32497290/
doi: 10.1002/jmv.26120
summary:
  title: Epidemiological evidence for association between higher influenza vaccine uptake in the elderly and lower COVID‐19 deaths in Italy Epidemiological evidence for association between higher influenza vaccine uptake in the elderly and lower COVID-19 deaths in Italy 1 However, as the virus has now spread throughout the country, regional differences in mortality rate from COVID-19 have been 4 The MDCK cell line is made available to vaccine manufacturers from cell banks that have produced the cell line in accordance with good manufacturing practice guidelines, and has been tested for purity, identity, and for the absence of contaminating viruses as required by Food and Drug Administration, EMMA, and World Health Organization guidelines. We used publicly available data to compute a Pearson productmoment correlation for assessment of the relationship between the percentage of vaccinated adults greater than 65 years old 6 and the percentage of COVID-19 deaths from each region in Italy up to 2 May 2020.

title:
  Epidemiological evidence for association between higher influenza vaccine uptake in the elderly and lower COVID‐19 deaths in Italy

abstract:
  The Italian COVID-19 epidemic may finally be slowing, although the virus has spread from the North in Lombardy throughout the rest of the country. While there have been more than 233,000 confirmed cases, and a mortality rate estimated around 14%, Italy will now navigate an exit from lockdown with continued testing, monitoring, and contact tracing of any new infections. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


id: cord-337663-ow1l18li
title: Scoping review: hotspots for COVID-19 urological research: what is being published and from where?
author: Qu, Liang G.
date: 2020-09-09
txt: ./txt/cord-337663-ow1l18li.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-337663-ow1l18li.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00345-020-03434-2
doi: 10.1007/s00345-020-03434-2
summary:
  This comprehensive review aimed to: identify all up-to-date original publications relating to urology and COVID-19, characterise where publications were from, and outline what topics were investigated. Topics of the study included pathophysiological, administrative, and clinical fields: translational (n = 14), COVID-19-related outcomes (n = 5), urology training (n = 4), telemedicine (n = 7), equipment and safety (n = 2), urology in general (n = 4), uro-oncology (n = 3), urolithiasis (n = 1), and kidney transplantation (n = 8). A registered study in France (NCT04341714) is similarly assessing the efficiency and satisfaction of telemedicine consults, aiming to recruit 400 patients from a neuro-urology clinic. 48 studies were included, investigating pathophysiological, administrative, and clinical outcomes relating to COVID-19 and urology. Clinical fields of COVID-19-related urological research seem to focus on uro-oncology, urolithiasis, and kidney transplant recipients. Nevertheless, our review is the first to provide a comprehensive country-level analysis of current original urological research related to COVID-19.

abstract:
  PURPOSE: Contemporary, original research should be utilised to inform guidelines in urology relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. This comprehensive review aimed to: identify all up-to-date original publications relating to urology and COVID-19, characterise where publications were from, and outline what topics were investigated. METHODS: This review utilised a search strategy that assessed five electronic databases, additional grey literature, and global trial registries. All current published, in-press, and pre-print manuscripts were included. Eligible studies were required to be original research articles of any study design, reporting on COVID-19 or urology, in any of study population, intervention, comparison, or outcomes. Included studies were reported in a narrative synthesis format. Data were summarised according to primary reported outcome topic. A world heatmap was generated to represent where included studies originated from. RESULTS: Of the 6617 search results, 48 studies met final inclusion criteria, including 8 pre-prints and 7 ongoing studies from online registries. These studies originated from ten countries according to first author affiliation. Most studies originated from China (n = 13), followed by Italy (n = 12) and USA (n = 11). Topics of the study included pathophysiological, administrative, and clinical fields: translational (n = 14), COVID-19-related outcomes (n = 5), urology training (n = 4), telemedicine (n = 7), equipment and safety (n = 2), urology in general (n = 4), uro-oncology (n = 3), urolithiasis (n = 1), and kidney transplantation (n = 8). CONCLUSION: This review has outlined available original research relevant to COVID-19 and urology from the international community. This summary may serve as a guide for future research priorities in this area. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00345-020-03434-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


id: cord-339162-l5zxic3y
title: A Frail Health Care System for an Old Population: Lesson form the COVID-19 Outbreak in Italy
author: Volpato, Stefano
date: 2020-04-21
txt: ./txt/cord-339162-l5zxic3y.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-339162-l5zxic3y.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glaa087
doi: 10.1093/gerona/glaa087
abstract: nan
summary:
  Higher mortality rates of older patients are expected as complicated COVID-19 is characterized by severe interstitial pneumonia followed by acute respiratory distress syndrome, thromboembolic events, and eventually multiorgan failure, a cascade of negative events that is obviously more likely in older frail patients, those with elevated multimorbidity and reduced functional reserve. The sudden explosion of the COVID-19 outbreak, with almost 10% of infected patients having respiratory failure and requiring mechanical ventilation has immediately saturated the acute care beds availability of Lombardy and northern Emilia-Romagna, including intensive care units'' (ICU) beds. From this point of view, the Italian tragedy suggests that a prompt population mass testing for detecting asymptomatic infected people along with immediate, widespread, draconian measures of social isolation, along with contract tracing and quarantine, might have more strongly reduced the rate of COVID-19 transmission, with the greatest benefit for frail patients, more prone to a complicated course of the disease.


id: cord-340145-nx746m76
author: Trisolino, Giovanni
date: 2020-10-08
txt: ./txt/cord-340145-nx746m76.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-340145-nx746m76.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33032650/
doi: 10.1186/s13052-020-00911-7
summary:
  The Italian Society of Pediatric Orthopaedics and Traumatology formulated general and specific recommendations to face the COVID-19 outbreak, aiming to provide essential care for children needing orthopaedic treatments during the pandemic and early post-peak period, ensure safety of children, caregivers and healthcare providers and limit the spread of contagion. This exceptional adaptation of the Italian National Health Service was significantly evident also within non-frontline healthcare settings such as Pediatric Orthopaedic Units, where limitation and temporary suspension of most routine care activities was necessary to reduce the risk of infection in patients, families, and healthcare providers and to reallocate healthcare personnel from routine tasks to emergency. The Advisory Board of the SITOP has provided a panel of priority levels in order to safely schedule deferrable surgical treatments, reducing the risk of missing children who require non postponable operations, during the pandemic and post peak period (see Table 2 ).

title:
  Recommendations from the Italian Society of Pediatric Orthopaedics and Traumatology for the management of pediatric orthopaedic patients during the COVID19 pandemic and post-pandemic period in Italy

abstract:
  The rapid spread of the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy has dramatically impacted the National Healthcare System, causing the sudden congestion of hospitals, especially in Northern Italy, thus imposing drastic restriction of almost all routine medical care. This exceptional adaptation of the Italian National Healthcare System has also been felt by non-frontline settings such as Pediatric Orthopaedic Units, where the limitation or temporary suspension of most routine care activities met with a need to maintain continuity of care and avoid secondary issues due to the delay or suspension of the routine clinical practice. The Italian Society of Pediatric Orthopaedics and Traumatology formulated general and specific recommendations to face the COVID-19 outbreak, aiming to provide essential care for children needing orthopaedic treatments during the pandemic and early post-peak period, ensure safety of children, caregivers and healthcare providers and limit the spread of contagion.


id: cord-340511-syy9okhi
title: Air pollutants and risk of death due to COVID-19 in Italy
author: Dettori, Marco
date: 2020-11-11
txt: ./txt/cord-340511-syy9okhi.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-340511-syy9okhi.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33188767/
doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.110459
summary:
  The link between air pollutants and COVID-19 mortality among Italian provinces was studied implementing a linear regression model, whereas the wide set of variables were examined by means of LISA (Local Indicators of Spatial Autocorrelation), relating the spatial component of COVID-19 related data with a mix of environmental variables as explanatory variables. In particular, it has aimed to study the role of air pollutants and a set of environmental variables, selected from recent observations [10, 17] , in relation to the number of deaths per each Italian province affected by COVID-19. The wide set of variables were examined by means of LISA (Local Indicators of Spatial Autocorrelation), relating the spatial component of COVID-19 related data (i.e., cases and deaths per province) with a mix of environmental variables as explanatory variables, such as annual average of PM 2,5 and PM 10 , NO 2 , numbers of trees per 100 inhabitants and urban green areas, number of vehicles and cycle paths, as reported in Table 1 .

abstract:
  The present work aims to study the role of air pollutants in relation to the number of deaths per each Italian province affected by COVID-19. To do that, specific mortality from COVID-19 has been standardised for each Italian province and per age group (10 groups) ranging from 0-9 years to >90 years, based on the 2019 national population figures. The link between air pollutants and COVID-19 mortality among Italian provinces was studied implementing a linear regression model, whereas the wide set of variables were examined by means of LISA (Local Indicators of Spatial Autocorrelation), relating the spatial component of COVID-19 related data with a mix of environmental variables as explanatory variables. As results, in some provinces, namely the Western Po Valley provinces, the SMR (Standardized Mortality Ratio) is much higher than expected, and the presence of PM(10) was independently associated with the case status. Furthermore, the results for LISA on SMR and PM(10) demonstrate clusters of high-high values in the wide Metropolitan area of Milan and the Po Valley area respectively, with a certain level of overlap of the two distributions in the area strictly considered Milan. In conclusion, this research appears to find elements to confirm the existence of a link between pollution and the risk of death due to the disease, in particular, considering land take and air pollution, this latter referred to particulate (PM(10)). For this reason, we can reiterate the need to act in favour of policies aimed at reducing pollutants in the atmosphere, by means of speeding up the already existing plans and policies, targeting all sources of atmospheric pollution: industries, home heating and traffic.


id: cord-342180-ylcv4zvl
author: Buonomo, B.
date: 2020-05-25
txt: ./txt/cord-342180-ylcv4zvl.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-342180-ylcv4zvl.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: http://medrxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.05.20.20107573v1?rss=1
doi: 10.1101/2020.05.20.20107573
summary:
  We consider a SEIR-like epidemic model where that contact and quarantine rates are assumed to depend on the available information and rumors about the disease status in the community. Among the main concerns raised were: predicting the evolution of the COVID19 pandemic wave worldwide or in specic countries [12, 25, 42] ; predicting epidemic peaks and ICU accesses [46] ; assessing the eects of containment measures [12, 14, 24, 25, 35, 42, 45] and, more generally, assessing the impact on populations in terms of economics, societal needs, employment, health care, deaths toll, etc [20, 36] . To this aim we build up an informationdependent SEIRlike model which is based on the key assumption that the choice to respect the lockdown restrictions, specically the social distance and the quarantine, is partially determined on fully voluntary basis and depends on the available information and rumors concerning the spread of the COVID19 disease in the community.

title:
  Modelling information-dependent social behaviors in response to lockdowns: the case of COVID-19 epidemic in Italy

abstract:
  The COVID-19 pandemic started in January 2020 has not only threatened world public health, but severely impacted almost every facet of lives including behavioral and psychological aspects. In this paper we focus on the 'human element' and propose a mathematical model to investigate the effects on the COVID-19 epidemic of social behavioral changes in response to lockdowns. We consider a SEIR-like epidemic model where that contact and quarantine rates are assumed to depend on the available information and rumors about the disease status in the community. The model is applied to the case of COVID-19 epidemic in Italy. We consider the period that stretches between February 24, 2020 when the first bulletin by the Italian Civil Protection was reported and May 18, 2020 when the lockdown restrictions have been mostly removed. The role played by the information-related parameters is determined by evaluating how they affect suitable outbreak-severity indicators. We estimated that citizens compliance with mitigation measures played a decisive role in curbing the epidemic curve by preventing a duplication of deaths and about 46% more contagions.


id: cord-342241-76mtn1m7
title: Carving out a place for internal medicine during COVID‐19 epidemic in Italy
author: Lenti, Marco Vincenzo
date: 2020-05-04
txt: ./txt/cord-342241-76mtn1m7.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-342241-76mtn1m7.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32294269/
doi: 10.1111/joim.13079
summary:
  Internal medicine has been immediately involved in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic in Italy, which started in late February 2020. The first few COVID-19 cases were suspected and diagnosed in internal medicine wards, including, among others, a young adult male from Codogno (referred to as "patient 1"), who was later transferred to the Intensive Care Unit of our hospital. Internal medicine was also called to the front line and has proactively responded with great flexibility to the growing number of cases, transforming its divisions into departments dedicated to the care of COVID-19. At our hospital, two entire Internal Medicine Units, in a few days, were transformed into ''COVID'' wards. In summary, internal medicine has responded promptly to COVID-19 Italian epidemic, due to its holistic attitudethe sick patient as an individual, rather than the disease, is the object of the studyand its methodological approach [5] .

abstract:
  Internal medicine has been immediately involved in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic in Italy, which started in late February 2020. The first few COVID-19 cases were suspected and diagnosed in internal medicine wards, including, among others, a young adult male from Codogno (referred to as "patient 1"), who was later transferred to the Intensive Care Unit of our hospital.


id: cord-342386-t5b8wpe2
title: All We Need Is Trust: How the COVID-19 Outbreak Reconfigured Trust in Italian Public Institutions
author: Falcone, Rino
date: 2020-10-02
txt: ./txt/cord-342386-t5b8wpe2.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-342386-t5b8wpe2.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33132966/
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.561747
summary:
  Since overall trust in public authorities did not decrease after March 11 in the whole sample, this indicates a leveling in trust attribution across the country after the introduction of new measures, which in turn could be interpreted as a shift in the perception of the emergency: whereas in early March, a significant part of the Italian population still believed the outbreak to be somehow contained to specific regions, and thus a local problem unlikely to affect everybody in the same way, the nationwide interventions announced on March 11 made it crystal clear to all that COVID-19 was indeed a national concern.

abstract:
  The central focus of this research is the fast and crucial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a crucial psychological, relational, and political construct: trust. We investigate how the consequences of the pandemic, in terms of healthcare, state intervention and impositions, and daily life and habits, have affected trust in public institutions in Italy, at the time when the contagion was rapidly spreading in the country (early March 2020). In this survey, addressed to 4260 Italian citizens, we analyzed and measured such impact, focusing on various aspects of trust. This attention to multiple dimensions of trust constitutes the key conceptual advantage of this research, since trust is a complex and layered construct, with its own internal dynamics. In particular, the analysis focuses on how citizens attribute trust to Public Authorities, in relation to the management of the health crisis: with regard to the measures and guidelines adopted, the purposes pursued, the motivations that determine them, their capacity for involvement, and their effectiveness for the containment of the virus itself. A pandemic creates a bilateral need for trust, both in Public Authorities (they have to rely on citizens’ compliance and must try to promote and maintain their trust in order to be effective) and in citizens, since they need to feel that somebody can do something, can (has the power to) protect them, to act at the needed collective level. We are interested to explore how this need for trust affects the attributional process, regarding both attitudes and the corresponding decisions and actions. The most striking result of this survey is the very high level of institutional trust expressed by respondents: 75% of them trust Italian public authorities to be able to deal with the COVID-19 emergency. This is in sharp contrast with the relatively low levels of institutional trust characteristic of Italy, both historically and in recent surveys. Moreover, the survey allowed the discrimination of several potential predictors for trust, thus emphasizing factors that, during this crisis, are exhibiting an anomalous impact on trust.


id: cord-342919-ls2q1g0v
title: Italians on the Age of COVID-19: The Self-Reported Depressive Symptoms Through Web-Based Survey
author: Balsamo, Michela
date: 2020-10-16
txt: ./txt/cord-342919-ls2q1g0v.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-342919-ls2q1g0v.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33178074/
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.569276
summary:
  In the very early stage of the nationwide lockdown, 3,672 quarantined Italian adult residents (65% females, ranging from 18 to 85 years) participated in a web-based cross-sectional survey, including measures of depressive symptoms, which were measured by the Teate depression inventory, and state anxiety levels. Females, younger people, students, singles, residents in northern Italy, people who were reluctant to adhere to quarantine guidelines, and people less worried about being infected with COVID-19 were at high risk of developing depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 epidemic, also after controlling for state anxiety. Research evidence aims of this study were to explore (1) the likely effects of quarantine on mental health (anxiety and depressive symptoms), immediately after the nationwide lockdown issued by the Italian Government, and (2) the factors that contribute to, or mitigate, these consequences. Compared to the previous model, no statistical differences were found in sex, age, and adherence level to quarantine guidelines groups when predicting depression symptom severity, when controlling for anxiety (see Appendix A).

abstract:
  The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected the Italian community. The widespread use of quarantine had the desired impact of controlling the epidemic, although it caused many psychological consequences. To date, compliance of the Italian public with voluntary home quarantine has been very high, but little is known about the impact of psychological health on sociodemographic categories during the quarantine. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of depressive symptoms in specific sociodemographic categories during the COVID-19 quarantine lockdown and the potential factors that contribute to, or mitigate, these effects. In the very early stage of the nationwide lockdown, 3,672 quarantined Italian adult residents (65% females, ranging from 18 to 85 years) participated in a web-based cross-sectional survey, including measures of depressive symptoms, which were measured by the Teate depression inventory, and state anxiety levels. The overall prevalence was 27.8% for moderate and 9.3% for severe levels of depressive symptoms. A generalized logistic model was used to identify the factors associated with mental health problems. Among these factors, sociodemographic variables (e.g., sex, age, employment status) and adherence to quarantine guidelines were analyzed. Females, younger people, students, singles, residents in northern Italy, people who were reluctant to adhere to quarantine guidelines, and people less worried about being infected with COVID-19 were at high risk of developing depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 epidemic, also after controlling for state anxiety. These findings showed that public levels of depressive symptoms did not increase the greater likelihood of being infected. Our study suggested that the monitoring of psychological outcomes for outbreaks could identify groups at higher risk of psychological morbidities due to the current pandemic in order to target future psychological interventions for implementation.


id: cord-343123-s7fzex7v
title: Forecasting of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths Using ARIMA Models
author: Bayyurt, Lutfi
date: 2020-04-22
txt: ./txt/cord-343123-s7fzex7v.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-343123-s7fzex7v.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: http://medrxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.04.17.20069237v1?rss=1
doi: 10.1101/2020.04.17.20069237
summary:
  Time series analysis were made for the number of cases and deaths in Italy, Spain and Turkey due to COVID-19 pandemic. It was determined that the explanatory power of the estimation equation for the number of case in Italy was 76.1% and the error terms were stationary as a result of Ljung-Box statistics. The explanatory power of the model for the number of death in Italy was calculated as 92.7%, and it was determined that the error terms were stationary as a result of Ljung-Box statistics. The explanatory power of the model for the number of death in Turkey was calculated as 71.4% and it was determined that the error terms were stationary as a result of Ljung-Box statistics. The explanatory power of the model for the number of death in Spain was calculated as 95.8%, and it was determined that the error terms was stationary as a result of Ljung-Box statistics.

abstract:
  After the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-2002/2003) and middle east respiratory syndrome (MERS-2012/2014) in the world, new public health crisis, called new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), started in China in December 2019 and has spread all over countries. COVID-19 coronavirus has been global threat of the disease and infected humans rapidly. Control of the pandemi is urgently essential, and science community have continued to research treatment agents. Support therapy and intensive care units in hospitals are also efective to overcome of COVID-19. Statistic forecasting models could aid to healthcare system in preventation of COVID-19. This study aimed to compose of forecasting model that could be practical to predict the spread of COVID-19 in Italy, Spain and Turkey. For this purpose, we performed Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model on the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control COVID-19 data to predict the number of cases and deaths in COVID-19. According to the our results, while number of cases in Italy and Spain is expected to decrease as of July, in Turkey is expected to decline as of September. The number of deaths in Italy and Spain is expected to be the lowest in July. In Turkey, this number is expected to reach the highest in July. In addition, it is thought that if studies in which the sensitivity and validity of this method are tested with more cases, they will contribute to researchers working in this field. KEYWORDS: COVID-19, pandemi, ARIMA, time series analysis


id: cord-343252-mtcqawxc
author: Ruggieri, P.
date: 2020-07-23
txt: ./txt/cord-343252-mtcqawxc.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-343252-mtcqawxc.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13018-020-01740-4
doi: 10.1186/s13018-020-01740-4
summary:
  title: COVID-19 strategy in organizing and planning orthopedic surgery in a major orthopedic referral center in an area of Italy severely affected by the pandemic: experience of the Department of Orthopedics, University of Padova CONCLUSIONS: Extensive swab test of all people (even if asymptomatic) and proactive tracing and quarantining of potential COVID-19 positive patients may diminish the virus spread. On the contrary, in Lombardia, swab tests were performed only in severe symptomatic cases, increasing the risk that asymptomatic patients (possibly COVID-19 positive) could spread the virus in the community. We feel that, if the COVID-19 pandemic persists, in every single hospital, it could be possible to continue the orthopedic surgical activity and also to restart elective surgery [16] , using a strategy that implies testing all the healthcare staff and all the patients (possibly before the admission or surgical treatment). Extensive swab test of all people (even if asymptomatic), and a proactive tracing and quarantining of potential COVID-19 positive patients may diminish the virus spread.

title:
  COVID-19 strategy in organizing and planning orthopedic surgery in a major orthopedic referral center in an area of Italy severely affected by the pandemic: experience of the Department of Orthopedics, University of Padova

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: According to the required reorganization of all hospital activities, the recent COVID-19 pandemic had dramatic consequences on the orthopedic world. We think that informing the orthopedic community about the strategy that we adopted both in our hospital and in our Department of Orthopedics could be useful, particularly for those who are facing the pandemic later than Italy. METHODS: Changes were done in our hospital by medical direction to reallocate resources to COVID-19 patients. In the Orthopedic Department, a decrease in the number of beds and surgical activity was stabilized. Since March 13, it has been avoided to perform elective surgery, and since March 16, non-urgent outpatient consultations were abolished. This activity reduction was associated with careful evaluation of staff and patients: extensive periodical swab testing of all healthcare staff and swab testing of all surgical patients were applied. RESULTS: These restrictions determined an overall reduction of all our surgical activities of 30% compared to 2019. We also had a reduction in outpatient clinic activities and admissions to the orthopedic emergency unit. Extensive swab testing has proven successful: of more than 160 people tested in our building, only three COVID-19 positives were found, and of over more than 200 surgical procedures, only two positive patients were found. CONCLUSIONS: Extensive swab test of all people (even if asymptomatic) and proactive tracing and quarantining of potential COVID-19 positive patients may diminish the virus spread.


id: cord-343295-c3y6rtb7
title: The COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: policy and technology impact on health and non-health outcomes
author: Chiara, Berardi
date: 2020-09-03
txt: ./txt/cord-343295-c3y6rtb7.txt
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extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hlpt.2020.08.019
doi: 10.1016/j.hlpt.2020.08.019
summary:
  Objective: The paper aims to analyse the policies implemented by the government and their impact on health and non-health outcomes considering both scaling-up and scaling-down interventions. We investigate the impact of policies on the daily reported number of deaths, case fatality rate, confirmation rate, intensive care unit saturation, and financial and job market indicators across the three major geographical areas of Italy (North, Centre, and South). This section considers various interventions such as measures to contain the spread of the virus, policies for prevention and cure, interventions for economic stimulus, and the introduction of new health technology. This section describes the policy implemented by the government to cope with the limited capacity of the health care system and the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, significant technological interventions seemed to be far from having any impact on the outcomes considered (daily number of reported deaths and ICU saturation) due to delayed implementation (see Figure 10 in the appendix).

abstract:
  Italy was the first Western country to experience a major coronavirus outbreak and consequently faced large-scale health and socio-economic challenges. The Italian government enforced a wide set of homogeneous interventions nationally, despite the differing incidences of the virus throughout the country. Objective: The paper aims to analyse the policies implemented by the government and their impact on health and non-health outcomes considering both scaling-up and scaling-down interventions. Methods: To categorise the policy interventions, we rely on the comparative and conceptual framework developed by Moy et al. (2020). We investigate the impact of policies on the daily reported number of deaths, case fatality rate, confirmation rate, intensive care unit saturation, and financial and job market indicators across the three major geographical areas of Italy (North, Centre, and South). Qualitative and quantitative data are gathered from mixed sources: Italian national and regional institutions, National Health Research and international organisations. Our analysis contributes to the literature on the COVID-19 pandemic by comparing policy interventions and their outcomes. Results: Our findings suggest that the strictness and timing of containment and prevention measures played a prominent role in tackling the pandemic, both from a health and economic perspective. Technological interventions played a marginal role due to the inadequacy of protocols and the delay of their implementation. Conclusions: Future government interventions should be informed by evidence-based decision making to balance, the benefits arising from the timing and stringency of the interventions against the adverse social and economic cost, both in the short and long term.


id: cord-346229-jxlrz0ce
title: Rationing in a Pandemic: Lessons from Italy
author: Craxì, Lucia
date: 2020-06-16
txt: ./txt/cord-346229-jxlrz0ce.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-346229-jxlrz0ce.txt
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mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41649-020-00127-1
doi: 10.1007/s41649-020-00127-1
summary:
  At the beginning of March 2020, the Italian Society of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation, and Intensive Care (SIAARTI) issued recommendations aimed at supporting physicians in prioritizing patients when the number of critically ill patients overwhelm the capacity of ICUs. One motivating concern for the SIAARTI guidance was that, if no balanced and consistent allocation procedures were applied to prioritize patients, there would be a concrete risk for unfair choices, and that the prevalent "first come, first served" principle would lead to many avoidable deaths. As difficult allocation choices were already being made, clinicians (including one of the authors, MV) of the ethics section of the Italian Society of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation, and Intensive Care (SIAARTI) were asked to publish guidance on the allocation of limited resources. Clinical ethics recommendations for the allocation of intensive care treatments in exceptional, resource-limited circumstances: The Italian perspective during the COVID-19 epidemic

abstract:
  In late February and early March 2020, Italy became the European epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite increasingly stringent containment measures enforced by the government, the health system faced an enormous pressure, and extraordinary efforts were made in order to increase overall hospital beds’ availability and especially ICU capacity. Nevertheless, the hardest-hit hospitals in Northern Italy experienced a shortage of ICU beds and resources that led to hard allocating choices. At the beginning of March 2020, the Italian Society of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation, and Intensive Care (SIAARTI) issued recommendations aimed at supporting physicians in prioritizing patients when the number of critically ill patients overwhelm the capacity of ICUs. One motivating concern for the SIAARTI guidance was that, if no balanced and consistent allocation procedures were applied to prioritize patients, there would be a concrete risk for unfair choices, and that the prevalent “first come, first served” principle would lead to many avoidable deaths. Among the drivers of decision for admission to ICUs, age, comorbidities, and preexisting functional status were included. The recommendations were criticized as ageist and potentially discriminatory against elderly patients. Looking forward to the next steps, the Italian experience can be relevant to other parts of the world that are yet to see a significant surge of COVID-19: the need for transparent triage criteria and commonly shared values give the Italian recommendations even greater legitimacy.


id: cord-348038-9v16k6gi
title: COVID 19—A message from Italy to the global nursing community
author: Bagnasco, Annamaria
date: 2020-05-08
txt: ./txt/cord-348038-9v16k6gi.txt
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mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14407
doi: 10.1111/jan.14407
summary:
  With the global pandemic now accelerating in areas of the world yet to see Italian levels of infection, it is vital that PPE equipment is procured and delivered to the COVID-19 front-line critical care environments. Learn also from Italian nurses'' experiences of the harm long-term use of PPE: facial lesions and sores produced by the pressure and sweat caused by masks and goggles worn far beyond the usual time frame in normal clinical practice. To healthcare providers and policy makers in areas at the start of their COVID-19 epidemic, our message is to plan for the replacement of staff in critical care areasthink about how this will be done, how they can be prepared and how you plan to recall recently retired nurses back to the hospitals. One last but very important lesson from the epidemic is the need to plan for the possibility of caring for patients in their own homes.

abstract:
  During these difficult times, it is not easy to learn all the nursing lessons from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy. It is not easy because - at the time of writing - Italian nurses are in the middle of this emergency that shows no sign of diminishing. Whatever is said today can change completely after only 24 hours. As a global community we have only known about this virus for a few months, but it has invaded lives, hospitals and homes, subverting habits, practices, and protocols. Some of the lessons learned will emerge later - after reflection and retrospective analysis. However, some things are now so evident that sharing them now is vital to help prepare those who are getting ready to face this emergency.


id: cord-348743-fy7le3ar
author: Bellizzi, Saverio
date: 2020-07-27
txt: ./txt/cord-348743-fy7le3ar.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-348743-fy7le3ar.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33110522/
doi: 10.7189/jogh.10.020320
abstract: nan
summary:
  Specifically, the Atlas tracks government policies on access to contraceptive methods, family planning counselling and the provision of online information on contraception in 46 European states. Access to contraception is not just a low-and middleincome countries issue: In the 2019 European Contraception Atlas, Italy ranked just 26th out of the total 46 countries for various reasons such as the very limited provision of free contraception as well as under-resourced and understaffed family planning centers. Despite the disruption due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential to ensure that women can have control over their bodies and their sexual and reproductive life, and protect the access to modern contraceptives and family planning services for both men and women. Despite the disruption due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential to ensure that women can have control over their bodies and their sexual and reproductive life, and protect the access to modern contraceptives and family planning services for both men and women.

title:
  Access to modern methods of contraception in Italy: Will the COVID-19 pandemic be aggravating the issue?


id: cord-350006-c4be9eii
title: The Perception of COVID-19 among Italian Dentists: An Orthodontic Point of View
author: Martina, Stefano
date: 2020-06-18
txt: ./txt/cord-350006-c4be9eii.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-350006-c4be9eii.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32570842/
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17124384
summary:
  An online questionnaire, including the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4), was sent to Italian dentists during the final days of the lockdown with items about anxiety, fear, distress, perceived risk for operators, and concerns about orthodontic patients caused by working during the COVID-19 outbreak. The questionnaire was comprised of 31 multiple-choice questions: 5 questions were about personal data (gender, age, region of residence); 4 were on symptoms of COVID-19; 7 were about the perceived risk for operators during orthodontic procedures, anxiety and distress caused by working during the COVID-19 outbreak; 6 were about the fears for an infection and the concerns regarding orthodontic and Temporomandibular Disorders (TMD) patients whose treatment has been suspended due to the epidemic; 5 were about emergencies and changes in clinical procedures and work organization as a result of the COVID-19.

abstract:
  COVID-19 has severely impacted dentists, who are at a great risk of infection. This study aimed to investigate if dentists are anxious about returning to their daily activities, and what the perception of the risk is for dentists and orthodontists regarding orthodontic procedures. An online questionnaire, including the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4), was sent to Italian dentists during the final days of the lockdown with items about anxiety, fear, distress, perceived risk for operators, and concerns about orthodontic patients caused by working during the COVID-19 outbreak. Data were analyzed with a chi-square test and logistic regression analysis. The level of significance was set as p < 0.05. A total of 349 dentists completed the survey, including 183 orthodontists. Returning to their daily work activity was a source of anxiety for 192 participants and this was associated with the level of distress (odds ratio (OR) = 3.7; p < 0.001). Most of the orthodontists (67.6%) thought that they would increase the number of working hours during the week (OR = 1.8; p = 0.007). Italian dentists were mostly scared to return to their daily activities because they considered their jobs a high risk to them and their families. Dentists with an exclusive/prevailing orthodontic activity were forced to increase their working day during the week.


id: cord-350041-b1vmnwv2
author: Cena, Hellas
date: 2020-05-07
txt: ./txt/cord-350041-b1vmnwv2.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-350041-b1vmnwv2.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32574257/
doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.00944
summary:
  There has been a gradual increase in studies exploring prevention and control measures, and we recommend paying close attention to nutrition, which may contribute to modulating some important consequences of COVID-19 infection, as such pro-inflammatory cytokine storm. Unfortunately, we do not yet have weight, height, and waist circumference data for all patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, and, therefore, we cannot disentangle the effects of adiposity on lung function and immune response to viral infection. Recent data on patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 treated at an academic health institution in New York City, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, between March 1, 2020, and April 2, 2020, with follow up through April 7, 2020 (13, 14) showed that obesity, after age, was linked to more severe coronavirus cases, with a substantially higher odds ratio than any cardiovascular or pulmonary disease.

title:
  Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19–SARS-CoV-2) and Nutrition: Is Infection in Italy Suggesting a Connection?

abstract:
  Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. The outbreak first occurred in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019 and hit Italy heavily in February 2020. Several countries are adopting complete or partial lockdown to contain the growth of COVID-19 infection. These measures may affect people's mental health and well-being but are necessary to avoid spreading the pandemic. There has been a gradual increase in studies exploring prevention and control measures, and we recommend paying close attention to nutrition, which may contribute to modulating some important consequences of COVID-19 infection, as such pro-inflammatory cytokine storm.


id: cord-350479-3xusxrij
author: Licastro, Danilo
date: 2020-05-18
txt: ./txt/cord-350479-3xusxrij.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-350479-3xusxrij.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1128/jvi.00543-20
doi: 10.1128/jvi.00543-20
summary:
  title: Isolation and Full-Length Genome Characterization of SARS-CoV-2 from COVID-19 Cases in Northern Italy In December 2019, the novel coronavirus Severe Acquired Respiratory Syndrome SARS-CoV-2 emerged in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei province, People''s Republic of China, as the etiologic agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has hence spread worldwide causing a global pandemic (1-3).…. Despite a high burden of COVID-19 in Italy, very little information is available to date from full-length high-quality sequences. The first sequences deposited in GISAID (EPI_ISL_410545 and EPI_ISL_410546) were collected in Rome from a Chinese tourist from Hubei province who got infected before visiting Italy, and another one (EPI_ ISL_412974) was from a test-positive Italian citizen returning from China. Sequence analysis showed a good coverage along the SARS-CoV-2 genome for all four isolates (Fig. 1) . A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China

title:
  Isolation and Full-Length Genome Characterization of SARS-CoV-2 from COVID-19 Cases in Northern Italy

abstract:
  In December 2019, the novel coronavirus Severe Acquired Respiratory Syndrome SARS-CoV-2 emerged in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei province, People's Republic of China, as the etiologic agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has hence spread worldwide causing a global pandemic (1-3).….


id: cord-350976-ks8g6agf
author: Prante, Franz J.
date: 2020-06-07
txt: ./txt/cord-350976-ks8g6agf.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-350976-ks8g6agf.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10272-020-0886-0
doi: 10.1007/s10272-020-0886-0
summary:
  The development of Italian health care expenditure is reported in Figure 2 together with data for selected European countries and the euro area average. In this period, public health care spending was similarly affected in Portugal and Spain and to a larger extent in Greece, i.e. the countries hardest hit by the euro crisis and the subsequent austerity policies. After a slightly expansive second phase from 2000 to 2010, in which spending per capita in Italy increased by 27.1%, the growth of public health expenditure registered a reduction in the third time interval (as was the case in Portugal, Greece and Spain). Altogether, from 1990 to 2018, public and compulsory health care expenditure per capita in Italy increased by less than 26.8%, which is by far the lowest value among the European countries reported in Figure 3 .

title:
  Decades of Tight Fiscal Policy Have Left the Health Care System in Italy Ill-Prepared to Fight the COVID-19 Outbreak

abstract:
  Although austerity was particularly strong in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2008 and its consequences in the euro area, Italian fiscal policies have been characterised by tough consolidation periods ever since the 1990s.


id: cord-351384-z6t7csg8
title: Coping with the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy and Spain: Lessons in Response Urgency
author: Montesó-Curto, Pilar
date: 2020-07-28
txt: ./txt/cord-351384-z6t7csg8.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-351384-z6t7csg8.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://doi.org/10.7189/jogh.10.020326
doi: 10.7189/jogh.10.020326
abstract: nan
summary:
  title: Coping with the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy and Spain: Lessons in Response Urgency It took the Italian government just two weeks to react firmly with the laws enacted on March 7 to establish a "red zone" throughout the country, which is when it closed all shops, except pharmacies and food stores, and banned entry and exit from the country. Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and Spain: Lessons in response urgency Pilar Montesó-Curto 1 , Laura Sánchez-Montesó 2 , Fabio Stefano Maramao 2 , Loren Toussaint 3 Then, on March 13, the Government of Catalonia decreed the "confinement" of several municipalities due to a cluster within the epidemic that caused an exponential increase in cases of COVID-19 in Igualada, Vilanova del Camí, Santa Margarida de Montbui i Òdena [5] . A "state of emergency" in Spain was finally declared through a royal decree (463/2020) [6] on March 14 for a period of 15 calendar days.


id: cord-351666-q7dqsl7n
author: Milani, Fabio
date: 2020-08-19
txt: ./txt/cord-351666-q7dqsl7n.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-351666-q7dqsl7n.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32839640/
doi: 10.1007/s00148-020-00792-4
summary:
  2 In my global framework, for each country, COVID-19 cases can affect risk perceptions about the virus, which can trigger a social distancing response. The paper exploits a variety of newly available datasets to study the interrelationship between health shocks originating from the COVID-19 pandemic, people''s real-time perceptions about coronavirus risk, the extent of their social distancing response, and unemployment. 7 In the analysis, the number k * i is also equal to 4, as the vector x * i,t contains the country-specific global counterparts for the same variables in x i,t , i.e., the growth rate of COVID-19 cases, coronavirus risk perceptions, social mobility, and unemployment. Figures 4 and 5 show the impulse response functions for all countries in the sample for the risk perception and social distancing variables to a one-standard-deviation COVID shock originating in Italy.

title:
  COVID-19 outbreak, social response, and early economic effects: a global VAR analysis of cross-country interdependencies

abstract:
  This paper studies the social and economic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in a large sample of countries. I stress, in particular, the importance of countries’ interconnections to understand the spread of the virus. I estimate a global VAR model and exploit a dataset on existing social connections across country borders. I show that social networks help explain not only the spread of the disease but also cross-country spillovers in perceptions about coronavirus risk and in social distancing behavior. In the early phases of the pandemic, perceptions of coronavirus risk in most countries are affected by pandemic shocks originating in Italy. Later, the USA, Spain, and the UK play sizable roles. Social distancing responses to domestic and global health shocks are heterogeneous; however, they almost always exhibit delays and sluggish adjustments. Unemployment responses vary widely across countries. Unemployment is particularly responsive to health shocks in the USA and Spain, while unemployment fluctuFations are attenuated almost everywhere else.


id: cord-353820-r8bxop2t
title: COVID‐19 in Italian pediatric patients: the experience of a tertiary children’s hospital
author: Romani, Lorenza
date: 2020-07-08
txt: ./txt/cord-353820-r8bxop2t.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-353820-r8bxop2t.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32640088/
doi: 10.1111/apa.15465
summary:
  In Italy COVID‐19 rapidly increased in February 2020 and by 12 May 2020, 2.0 % of the confirmed cases were under 18 years and 3.7% of those had been hospitalized. This case series report reviews the demographic characteristics, clinical course, laboratory findings, radiologic features and treatment of children admitted with COVID‐19 to a tertiary care hospital in Italy. In Italy COVID-19 rapidly increased in February 2020 and 25 by 12 May 2020, 2.0 % of the confirmed cases were under 18 years and 3.7% of those had been 26 hospitalized (1). This case series report reviews the demographic characteristics, clinical course, 27 laboratory findings, radiologic features and treatment of children admitted with COVID-19 to a 28 tertiary care hospital in Italy. Systematic review of COVID-19 in children shows milder cases and a 110 better prognosis than adults Clinical and epidemiological features of 36 children with 112 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Zhejiang, China: an observational cohort study

abstract:
  Coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) caused by the novel SARS‐CoV‐2 has spread worldwide since its onset in Wuhan in December 2019. In Italy COVID‐19 rapidly increased in February 2020 and by 12 May 2020, 2.0 % of the confirmed cases were under 18 years and 3.7% of those had been hospitalized. This case series report reviews the demographic characteristics, clinical course, laboratory findings, radiologic features and treatment of children admitted with COVID‐19 to a tertiary care hospital in Italy.


id: cord-355238-wl53z9l7
author: Putrino, Alessandra
date: 2020-07-10
txt: ./txt/cord-355238-wl53z9l7.txt
cache: ./cache/cord-355238-wl53z9l7.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
url: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32650753/
doi: 10.1186/s12903-020-01187-3
summary:
  Due to the increasing involvement of a large part of the population in the global epidemic situation in Italy, the present study aimed to assess the knowledge about the new coronavirus, the perception of risk and the clinical management of the risk related to infection during the first month of the Italian epidemic in an online survey of Italian dentists. Six questions were intended to evaluate the direct influence of the coronavirus epidemic on the dentist''s clinical activity (presence or absence of infected cases in their region; questions of patients about coronavirus; patients appearing to be worried or not about possible infections with coronavirus during dental procedures; effective decrease or not in patient appointment number since the coronavirus outbreak onset; adoption of special measures taken during professional activity since the coronavirus emergency started in Italy; and which prevention methods are possibly used).

title:
  Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Italy: knowledge, management of patients and clinical experience of Italian dentists during the spread of contagion

abstract:
  BACKGROUND: The coronavirus infection that emerged in China in the last few months of 2019 has now spread globally. Italy registered its first case in the second half of February, and in a short time period, it became the top country in Europe in terms of the number of infected people and the first in the world in terms of deaths. The medical and scientific community has been called upon to manage the emergency and to take measures. Dentists also need to take new precautions during their clinical activity to protect themselves, coworkers and patients from the risks of contagion and to avoid further spread of infection. METHODS: Following the data published in the international literature as well as the guidelines and directives constantly updated by the WHO and by the national health authorities, a questionnaire to be completed anonymously was submitted online to Italian dentists using social tools and online professional platforms. The collected data were processed statistically, providing descriptive data and analysis of correlations of the most significant parameters using the Pearson’s χ2, the Likelihood-Ratio χ2, Cramér’s V, Fisher’s exact test, Goodman and Kruskal’s γ, and Kendall’s τb (p < 0.05). RESULTS: A total of 535 dentists from Italy participated in the survey. A good level of scientific knowledge about coronavirus and the extra precautionary measures needed to limit the spread was related to the age of respondents and their sex. Coming from areas with higher concentrations of cases affected knowledge, level of attention and perception of risk related to dental activity. CONCLUSIONS: At the moment, there are no therapies or vaccines to contain the infection with the new coronavirus that is causing many infections, many of which are fatal, worldwide. Dentists are one of the categories at highest risk of encountering diseases and infections because they work in close proximity with patients, and in their procedures, there is always contact with aerosols with high bacterial and viral potential. Therefore, during this COVID-19 emergency, it is important that dentists are properly informed and take the appropriate precautionary measures.


