key: cord-0794768-pr10gisv authors: Hao, Rongzhang; Zhang, Yewu; Cao, Zhidong; Li, Jing; Xu, Qing; Ye, Lingling; Guo, Xudong; Zheng, Tao; Song, Hongbin title: Control strategies and their effects on the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 in representative countries date: 2021-06-25 journal: J Biosaf Biosecur DOI: 10.1016/j.jobb.2021.06.003 sha: 3a64dd9400770a581154b72fb965479acf47820b doc_id: 794768 cord_uid: pr10gisv COVID-19 is the most severe pandemic globally since the 1918 influenza pandemic. Effectively responding to this once-in-a-century global pandemic is a worldwide challenge that the international community needs to jointly face and solve. This study reviews and discusses the key measures taken by major countries in 2020 to fight against COVID-19, such as lockdowns, social distancing, wearing masks, hand hygiene, using Fangcang shelter hospitals, large-scale nucleic acid testing, close-contacts tracking, and pandemic information monitoring, as well as their prevention and control effects. We hope it can help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of pandemic prevention and control in future. COVID-19 is the most severe pandemic globally since the 1918 influenza pandemic. How to eEffectively responding to this once-in-a-century global pandemic is a worldwide challenge that the international community needs to jointly face and solve. This studypaper reviews and discusses the key measures taken by major countries in 2020 to fight against the COVID-19, such as lockdowns, social distancing, wearing masks, hand hygiene, using Fangcfang shelter hospitals, large-scale nucleic acid testing, close-contacts tracking, and pandemic information monitoring, as well as their prevention and control effects. We hope it can help improve the efficiency and pertinence effectiveness of pandemic prevention and control in future. COVID-19, the most severe infectious pandemic globally in the past century, has not only caused significant loss of life and health worldwide, but also created a general and systematic impact on the economic development and social stability of almost all the countries. It also has a great and far-reaching influence on the global development pattern and security governance. Practice shows that the comprehensive use of multiple prevention and control measures from the perspectives of three principles, i.e., controlling the infection sources, cutting off infection Commented [A3]: the word 'pertinence' has been replaced because it did not look like the right word for the context. Authors may check and decide. However, due to national differences in conditions and culture, variouscultures, countries adopt varied prevention and control strategies against COVID-19, resulting in regionally wide regional variations in the spread scope, duration, and intensity of COVID-19. East Asian countries, represented by China firstly, that first reported the pandemic outbreak, have taken active and strict prevention and control measures, and have quickly and effectively controlled domestic virus spread, leaving only sporadic cases or low-intensity re-occurrence. After preliminarya period of strict control, the pandemic in European countries such as Italy, Spain, and Germany with, which was severe conditions in the early stagestages, has entered a stable/declining period. However, after gradually looseninggradual relaxation of social controlrestrictions because of the economic recovery targettargets and public resistance, the pandemic has inevitably rebounded obviously. A severe pandemic situation exists in some countries and regions represented bysuch as the United States and Commented [A5]: The word 'pandemic' has been removed here because it has already appeared twice in the sentence, and will be obvious to the reader without being explicitly mentioned. This also reduces wordiness of the sentence. Lockdown and social distancing are measures adopted by many countries in the early stage. While the uniqueUnique national realities and pandemic situations in each country make it harddifficult to strictly distinguish thebetween lockdown and social distancing during the implementation process. For the convenience of analysis, the following content will distinguish them slightly based on the priority of the measures of lockdown or social distancing. Restricted by social mobilization capacity and other factors, most countries did not enforce a very strict lockdown, but took measures to close specific places and venues. As many countries enforced multiple measures simultaneously, it is a little harddifficult to quantify the impact of each control measure on the virus spread. In general, the lockdown by most countries can indeed reducereduced the infection coefficient R to below 1, demonstrating that it is a very effective prevention and control measure. Although India has also enforced a strict lockdown, the coefficient R doesdid not fall below 1, which may be related to its high population density and limited implementation in practice. It is not clear what period of data is being discussed in this paragraph. All previous paragraphs are in past tense, while this paragraph suddenly shifted to present tense, without indicating a clear period. I have assumed past tense, in keeping with previous paragraphs and edited this section. Authors may check and decide which is more appropriate. Before the completion of large-scale vaccination to form a protective immune barrier, social distancing is a key measure to constrain the spread of the COVID-19. Almost all the countries have suppressed a regional outbreak of the pandemic in various degrees by requiring people to keepmaintain social distancing 6 The above study reveals that social distancing is also a very effective prevention and control measure. If the public are highly voluntarilyy to cooperates with the government, moderate prevention and control measures can be adopted. For example, Japan and Sweden did not enforce a lockdown, but their citizens cooperated very well and isolated themselves voluntarily, thus benefiting the pandemic control. As for a stay-at-home order, its effect on controlling the spread of the novel coronavirus is varied in various places. In densely populated areas, this order is more effective. A study based on Twitter data found that New Zealanders paid the highest attention to prevention and control measures, while Americans paid the lowest attention to these measures 10 , which to some extent indicates whether social distancing can relieve control the pandemic effectively. In order Tto achieve a better prevention and control effect, governments need to expand the publicityincrease awareness, and makelet the public understand the harm danger of the novel coronavirus and the necessity of social distancing. The strict and general implementation of personal prevention At the suggestion of Wang Chen, who is an academician of the 13,000 beds available, and 12,000 patients admitted and treated. One out of every four COVID-19 cases in Wuhan was admitted and treated in such hospitals 12 . Large-scale nucleic acid testing is an effective method to monitor Therefore, close contacts could be identified rapidly and isolated, and contacts of these close contacts could be also tracked 13 . When fighting against the COVID-19, apart from traditional surveillance methods and information systems, various countries generally apply big data and iInternet information technology to thefor acquisition, analysis, and application of COVID-19 information. From the perspectives of pandemic surveillance and information utilization in various countries, experience and lessons from COVID-19 prevention and control are summarized as follows: (1) In terms of COVID-19 surveillance channels, various countries mainly rely on the existing infection-and disease-surveillance systems, despite improvement or expansion of the existing surveillance systems for COVID-19 in some countries or regions. (2) From the perspective of prevention and control results, if countries or regions develop proactive surveillance of COVID-19 cases, especially by undertaking great efforts in nucleic acid testing for key groups or close contacts in an early stage, and strictly implement quarantine-related measures such as isolation, their pandemic control effect would be better and remarkable. (3) Big data plays a vital role in the COVID-19 prevention and control. Multi-source data like traffic and location information greatly help tos discover confirmed cases, look for close contacts, identify high-risk groups, and resume work, production, and normal life. A successful pandemic response consists ofin scientific prevention and control as well as precise measures. Methods like big data should be used to monitor the pandemic and trace its source at a higher level. Big data can integrate interconnected and interactive individual and group data, thus improving the decision-making and management abilities of governments and experts, and enhancing cities' "immunity" effectively 15 . In addition to its important role in COVID-19 prevention and control, and resumption of work and production, big data is also greatly beneficial forto regular pandemic prevention and control. In the context of globalization, cross-regional human mobility is a major reason for the pandemic spread. Therefore, after an outbreak occurs, dynamic spatiotemporal data related to human mobility and focusing on airways, railways, and highways can help track potentially infected cases quickly, predict the dynamic evolution trend, trace suspected close contacts, and check potential high-risk groups who resume work and production. Specifically, big data concerning spatiotemporal mobility of humans plays a key role in COVID-19 responses such as pandemic situation study and judgment 16 , closecontacts tracing 17 , pandemic risk rating 18 , etc. Telecom big data provides strong support in mobile population flow statistics based on mobile phone terminal position, pandemic situation study and judgment as well as local Commented [A16]: this phrase has been expanded to avoid confusion based on the word 'mobile' , which can either mean mobility or a telecom device in this context. prevention and control, greatly helping governments make precise policies 19 . Network big data has a critical function in the pandemic trend analysis and medical resource distribution, helpings joint efforts in advance prevention and precise policy-making by various departments involved in joint prevention and control departments, directings enterprises to resume work and production, and can be used for platforms sharing information about the production and distribution of pandemic prevention materialpandemic prevention material production and distribution platforms 20 , and for the integration and disseminationpublicity of dynamic pandemic data 17 , information communication and exchanges, etc. Considering the above major practices against the COVID-19 at home and abroad as well as the current pandemic situation, it'sit is hard to develop a set of common control measures applicable to all countries. on their own national conditions. However, real control effects depend on not only on knowing the right control strategies, but also effectively implementing these strategies. 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