Very impressive model, thank you very much for asking this important question. Really, I am working approximately in the same filed, means in how to setup mathematical modelling for COVID-19 spreading, so is there a chance for mutual scientific cooperation with you my colleague? Regards, Emad

Feel free to programme the functions:

-parameters

-values at t

-values at t+1

It works sequentially. Any spreadsheet can do (Excel or similar).

I think this can be of interest in the three given use cases:

-elderly care homes: resident and carers interact

-lockdown households: people blocked in their homes. Economic inequality bringing more people in infection distance among the poorer... The differential impact could be assessed/modeled

-crowds at large events

The common concept is the close neighbour, in number n.

In a care home, you have such neighbours at your dining table (n=5, 3?).

In a lockdown household it may be less (n=1, 2, etc), but "you can't escape".

In a crowd, n is more than 1000, and your close neighbours get easily to be n=100!

Transposed in a Western cowboy movie it is the equivalent of a Russian roulette game played in a saloon: the revolver has six slots for bullets, two are loaded, and four empty. This gives you a 2/3 chance to win: fair game?

If you play with many "friends", there are consequences...

May be these articles from USA, Canada, and United Kingdom and other European countries help you:

Article COVID-19 in a Long-Term Care Facility — King County, Washing...

https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/many-factors-behind-covid-19-outbreaks-hitting-quebecs-long-term-care-homes

https://www.ft.com/content/574ca84a-e735-4e42-8faf-62c641953efc

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/half-of-coronavirus-deaths-happen-in-care-homes-data-from-eu-suggests

Thanks Muhammad Yousuf for this article reporting about observed events of transmission. This supports the case for increased attention in protecting residents of elderly care homes

Dr Renaud Di Francesco

I have just read the responses from Drs Emad Kamil Hussein, Muhammad Yousuf and Ahmed Amin

McMichael, T. M. (2020). COVID-19 in a long-term care facility—King County, Washington, February 27–March 9, 2020. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 69. recommended by Dr Muhammad Yousuf but could not find any; only the COVID-19: Managing the COVID-19 pandemic in care homes for older people cited by Dr Renaud Di Francesco.

COVID-19 is now a big problem in the UK in residential / nursing homes, and the daily papers are reporting it, but I could not find anything academic, but I did see this in TIME:

Figures Show Hundreds More COVID-19 Deaths in U.K. Nursing Homes Than Recorded in Daily Tally

https://time.com/5820510/uk-coronavirus-deaths-nursing-home/

I had wondered whether the excellent paper by Dr Renaud Di Francesco would be appropriate as a two part paper, as part of it is very much related to caring while later, other topics are also discussed. I wondered whether it would be referenced by students writing about care, specifically. I whether there could be further discussion about the possibility of dining rooms not being used (not day / sitting rooms) in residential / nursing homes) although this would make the residents feel even more cut off if they were, now, not having visits from friends / family. I see this is quite an ethical problem; COVID-19 safety opposed to the quality of life of those who possible haven't much more time left.

It is so sad to think of the older people who are more likely to have multi-morbidity, and be at greater risk, being in this position. Those living at home are more able to make their own decisions about their lives, but these people are in the hands of others.

Mary

Very impressive and highly recommendable model your proposed. Thanks for sharing.

Dear all, thanks for the encouraging feedback!

the following links may be useful ;

Article A mathematical model for simulating the phase-based transmis...

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/mcog-mmd041020.php

https://www.mmnp-journal.org/articles/mmnp/abs/2020/01/mmnp200006s/mmnp200006s.html

https://www.su.se/english/about/news-and-events/university-emics-1.490567 news/mathematical-models-predict-the-spread-of-pand

@Esraa Ghazy, thanks for sharing this interesting article, which fits a multi-parameter descriptive model to historic macro data.

I am afraid that their approach cannot be used in a straightforward way to our micro forecast problem, with little data available, but it's usefully complementing the model landscape, thanks!

Dr Ahmed Nada

Congratulations on the profile updates.

I downloaded the above, most informative map from your other reference. Are you able to tell me where I can find further, but more academic information about this particular map?

I found this on RG:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_COVID-19_has_three_distinct_strains_Types_A_B_C_Is_this_taxonomy_a_facilitation_in_the_way_forward_for_a_possible_therapeutic_medication

but the link was from the Sun.

On Google images, the links were also from less academic sources:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=world+map+types+A,+B+and+C+types+-+strains+of+COVID-19&sxsrf=ALeKk03-1ss6k-H0YFU7UEiK8acS5pRI2Q:1588496613413&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwju6_mCq5fpAhXFiFwKHXuLBfMQ_AUoAXoECAwQAw&biw=1366&bih=655

Thank you,

Mary

I think the original information was from the University of Cambridge and Germany:

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/covid-19-genetic-network-analysis-provides-snapshot-of-pandemic-origins

This is quite a worrisome situation.. many thanks for sharing it with us all..

Why strain C for COVID-19 was so benign in Singapore and so virulent in Europe?

Question is, If strain C of SARS-CoV-2 spread from Singapore, why it was so benign (mortality rate 0.1%) in Singapore while it played havoc in Europe with mortality rate as high as 15.2% as of today (3 May 2020) in the United Kingdom.

Read this article u will get a good idea

This is from the website 'This week in Asia' (27 Apr 2020) and is reporting on an article from South China Morning Post:

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3081772/coronavirus-why-so-few-deaths-among-singapores-14000

This is also informative.

I suppose that as all countries have a different make up of their population (who, what age), different health characteristics (common chronic diseases etc), health services, financial characteristics etc. So the way the population suffered reflects all of these variables?

Mary C R Wilson thanks for the useful highlighting of Singapore, which seemed to have been perfect in the handling of the infection risk.

However, there is seemingly another side to this coin:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/23/singapore-million-migrant-workers-suffer-as-covid-19-surges-back

This highlights the need for society to consider all its members, rich and poor, in its policy of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPI).

There are some aspects to this, illustrated by:

-the negative impact of lockdown in internal spread of infection within a household. This impact is made worse in deprived areas, with high density of people per square meter, and impossibility to isolate those with symptoms within the house. This was observed as an imbalance between wealthy Paris and deprived suburbs.

-the psychological impact of those in small flats, versus throse enjoying a large country house with garden, during a lockdown

-the less wealthy Italians from the South, who had to see infection probability raised by those wealthier from the North coming just before lockdown to their holiday houses in the South. The same "city to datcha migration" of people and virus happened in Russia, and anywhere. The wealthy people, escaping the city, propagate the virus more than the rest of society.

In the UK, there has been a positive move triggered by this sound consideration that protecting society is only feasible by protecting absolutely everyone. Homeless people have been relocated to hotels for the time of the pandemic, which is good for them, and for all. The hope is that many of these would re-connect with society, work, homes during this phase, and that there will not be an abrupt crisis for them once hotels are not paid by public money any more.

However again, the story is not one-sided, there are reported risks for these people:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/05/covid-19-hotel-homeless-people-uk

Regardless of mathematical predictions that are not minor, life in nursing homes carries the controversy that it is very difficult to change care habits towards them and from the elderly themselves, preserved sensorimotor functions such as the sense of touch mque often allows them to recognize intentions and objects and people especially when cognitive disorders coexist. The Covid pandemic forces us to look for other forms of institutional relationships that can alleviate the incomprehension of the elderly ...

Sadly a recently released information for the UK shows that

" Of all deaths involving coronavirus up to May 1, some 22,873 took place in hospitals, while 10,535 were elsewhere."

Does it mean that a reasonable estimate for total death would be 1.5 x hospital deaths recorded?

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/care-homes-account-40-coronavirus-100837017.html

" Of these:

– 8,312 took place in care homes..."

This article leads to an estimate of elderly care home deaths equal to roughly one third of hospital deaths.

So many people!

Why does the daily death number not aggregate these death in elderly care homes?

A simple benchmark with neighbouring country France shows more transparency to releasing data on elderly care homes, but the same tragedy:

https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/entry/coronavirus-morts-ehpad_fr_5ea07687c5b6b2e5b83bdb38

Here is an update on the UK approach of Covid19, where patients were diagnosed in hospitals and sent back by ambulance to care homes not medically equipped for Covid19:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53797462?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cmj34zmwmzyt/care-homes&link_location=live-reporting-story

There is more in the press.

France had also been very clear and transparent about higher death rates in EHPAD, see here an analysis

[1]

More generally here is an updated model, with a structured methodology, applied to residents and staff at care homes:

[2]

[1] case of France

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342132048_Covid19_impact_on_the_Elderly_Case_of_France_-a_quick_note

[2] model for elderly care homes, residents and staff

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343318918_Agent_Based_Model_for_Covid_19_Transmission_-field_approach_based_on_context_of_interaction?channel=doi&linkId=5f22db9c458515b729f35124&showFulltext=true

There are several ways to transmit the virus, the two of which are mixing.

Interesting

Dear Dr. Di Francesco!

You have done a nice work! Yes, I agree with this model. Still may I comment: this virus seems to be like a "snow ball on the mountain side" - it will become more dynamic as it spreads across the world triggering panic and stress among people:

Chung-Ying Lin et al. (2020). "Using an integrated social cognition model to predict COVID‐19 preventive behaviours" British Journal of Health Psychology, 11 August 2020, Open Access © 2020 The Authors. ...by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society, Available at:

Article Using an integrated social cognition model to predict COVID-...

Yours sincerely, Bulcsu Szekely

What do you think of Christmas 2020 and end of the year celebrations in elderly care homes?

Families visiting or not?

Risk adverse approach or festive mood respected?

What do you think?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342846169_Agent-Based_Model_for_Covid19_active_propagation_through_interaction_Use_cases_of_Elderly_Care_Homes_Households_in_Lockdown_Large_Events

Death Data focuses more on hospital deaths because hospital admissioned cases are usually critical and requires much attention thereby they will contribute to the data by reveal

Cont.;

By revealing the severity of the disease and what are the emergency drug regimens that should be given.

Cont.;

Whereas deaths at homes or elderly care homes do not contribute that much to the data published because such cases werent reported as severe enough to be admissioned to the hospital thus they will be of a lesser importance than the hospital based ones.

But that does not mean that they are not important. But compared to the hospital admissions it will fall behind.

Thank you for sharing this Question

Thank you for sharing this Question .

Very interesting question, thanks for sharing

Here is a link on the matter.

The statistics for the world are given.

Regards, Sergey

Here is an update for UK:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/19/covid-related-deaths-in-care-homes-in-england-jump

Case of France: 44% of Covid19 death were in elderly care homes ("EHPAD" in French admin. language) :

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2020/12/03/les-residents-d-ehpad-representent-44-des-morts-du-covid-19_6062084_4355770.html

Multiple countries analysed in leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, update from 2020/04, showing trends which have materialised now:

https://www.corriere.it/speciale/esteri/2020/coronavirus-strage-silenziosa-anziani-mondo/

Well done dear Prof. Di Francesco and thank you for sharing this excellent question.

I agree with with you.

kind regards..