Baldassi F, D'Amico F, Malizia A, Gaudio P
Italian Joint NBC Defence School, Italian Ministry of Defence (MoD), Rieti, Italy.
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy.
Eur Phys J Plus. 2021;136(10):1072. doi: 10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-02004-8. Epub 2021 Oct 26.
In early December 2019, some people in China were diagnosed with an unknown pneumonia in Wuhan, in the Hubei province. The responsible of the outbreak was identified in a novel human-infecting coronavirus which differs both from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus and from Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus. The new coronavirus, officially named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, has spread worldwide within few weeks. Only two vaccines have been approved by regulatory agencies and some others are under development. Moreover, effective treatments have not been yet identified or developed even if some potential molecules are under investigation. In a pandemic outbreak, when treatments are not available, the only method that contribute to reduce the virus spreading is the adoption of social distancing measures, like quarantine and isolation. With the intention of better managing emergencies like this, which are a great public health threat, it is important to dispose of predictive epidemiological tools that can help to understand both the virus spreading in terms of people infected, hospitalized, dead and recovered and the effectiveness of containment measures.
2019年12月初，中国湖北省武汉市的一些人被诊断出患有不明肺炎。疫情的病原体被确定为一种新型的人类感染冠状病毒，它既不同于严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒，也不同于中东呼吸综合征冠状病毒。这种新型冠状病毒，被国际病毒分类委员会正式命名为严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2，在几周内就已传播到全球。目前只有两种疫苗获得了监管机构的批准，其他一些疫苗正在研发中。此外，即使一些潜在的药物分子正在研究中，但尚未确定或开发出有效的治疗方法。在大流行疫情爆发时，当没有可用的治疗方法时，唯一有助于减少病毒传播的方法就是采取社交距离措施，如检疫和隔离。为了更好地应对此类对公众健康构成重大威胁的紧急情况，拥有能够帮助了解病毒在感染、住院、死亡和康复人群方面的传播情况以及防控措施有效性的预测性流行病学工具非常重要。
