This article, using scientific knowledge, looks at the COVID-19 dynamics of contagion to identify ideal measures that should be taken to stop contagion. These ideal measures, then, compared with real policies will allow assessing the potential for a second wave. Our aim, for this series, is to find ways to improve how we foresee if, …
Continue reading “Dynamics of contagion and the COVID-19 Second Wave”
In this article we explore the way the COVID-19 pandemic was born and, hidden, spread globally. Learning from this very early process, we deduce initial key elements and indicators to monitor and control the COVID-19 second wave and recurrent ones. With this series of articles we are looking for ways to better estimate the likelihood …
Continue reading “The Hidden Origin of the COVID-19 and the Second Wave”
This brief article is a first early warning about food insecurity resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The danger is rising and deserves further and more in-depth analysis and monitoring. As the COVID-19 pandemic developed, we immediately added food insecurity on our watch list of issues to monitor (see our COVID-19 section). To date, mid-May 2020, …
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Europe, the Middle East, Oceania, part of South Asia and the U.S. progressively exit the COVID-19 lockdowns and relax the most severe social distancing measures. In the meantime, China, Singapore and South Korea, the countries that were hit first and succeeded in controlling the first wave, appear to face different dynamics after easing of anti-COVID-19 …
Many countries hit by the pandemic are now exiting or about to exit the period of most stringent isolation measures. Indeed, they estimate they succeeded in controlling contagion. Meanwhile, they avoided the dreaded break down of their health-care system, which could have taken place if hospitals had been overwhelmed. In Europe, one country stands apart, …
Continue reading “The Strange Case of Sweden in the COVID-19 Pandemic”
One of the critical and key uncertainty about the COVID-19, among so many, is the immunity a patient may have after recovery from the COVID-19. In other words, can someone who recovered from the COVID-19 catch the disease again and infect other people again? As long as we have neither vaccine nor fully efficient antiviral …
Continue reading “The COVID-19, Immunity and Isolation Exit Strategy”
The world is now struggling to know how to face the COVID-19 pandemic. We want to know how long the pandemic will last. Actually, what we want to know is when the pandemic will end and when life will be able to resume normally. As we explained in the opening article for this series, to …
Continue reading “COVID-19 Antiviral Treatments and Scenarios”
The COVID-19 pandemic is now a global fact. It still involves many uncertainties. At present and in the near future, we need to handle the ongoing pandemic as a global catastrophic crisis with complex cascading impacts. We also need to start thinking about reconstruction. We are here concerned with reconstruction that will allow polities to …
Continue reading “The COVID-19 Pandemic, Surviving and Reconstructing”
On 11 March Chancellor Merkel warned that the SARS-CoV-2 – the virus for the COVID-19 – could infect between 60 and 70% of Germany’s population (DW, “Coronavirus: Germany’s Angela Merkel urges ‘solidarity and reason‘”, 11 March 2020). She was accused to spread panic (Ibid.). Chancellor Merkel’s point was to highlight the very real danger Germans …
Continue reading “Worst Case Baseline Scenarios for the COVID-19 Pandemic”
As the COVID-19 spreads throughout the world, its cascading and multiple impacts deepen. As a result, fear spreads. Meanwhile, finance and business firms now started promoting the idea that the COVID-19 epidemic was a “black swan event”. For example, Goldman Sachs, in its Top of Mind, issue 86 (February 28, 2020) featured an article titled …
Continue reading “Why the COVID-19 is NOT a Black Swan Event”
