Covid And Emerging Infectious Diseases

Over the last two years with the strain of coronavirus having a devastating effect on the world’s healthcare system and triggering a global "lockdown", one question that has emerged; What, or which infectious disease is going to hit us next? Many infectious diseases prevalent in humans and animals are caused by pathogens that once emerged from other animal hosts. In addition to these established or re-emerging infections, new infectious diseases periodically emerge. In extreme cases they may lead to pandemics as we currently are seeing. The increased urbanization and globalization of the world order with faster connectivity and traveling has further in-creased the risk factors for emerging infections. Despite this, enormous progress has been made in the field of infectious disease in the last few decades. The number of deaths and severe infections because of diseases like Malaria, HIV, Ebola, Dengue, Yellow fever virus (YFV), Zika etc. have been significantly reduced and diseases like Polio are on the brink of eradication. In particular, the emergence of the devastating SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has revolutionized the field in an unprecedented way. A myriad of vaccine platforms and highly potent therapeutic approaches have been developed by government, industry, academic, and non-governmental organizations. However, the rapid and unparalleled spread of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, and the amount of toll that it has caused to the public health and global economy also underscores the urgent need to develop broadly cross-reactive, rapidly deployable, and scalable therapeutic platforms. Development of these novel therapeutic modalities also requires a strong emphasis on the functional and mechanistic understanding of how molecular components in a biological process related to emerging infectious diseases work together. Onset of the out-breaks of recent decades including but not limited to SARS-CoV-1, MERS, Ebola virus, Zika virus, Nipah virus, Yellow fever virus, Lassa virus and the ongoing ever devastating SARS-CoV-2 pandemic also highlight the urgent need to devise a future proof pandemic preparedness strategy and the demand for a fast and early response.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges to the nation's K-12 education system. The rush to slow the spread of the virus led to closures of schools across the country, with little time to ensure continuity of instruction or to create a framework for deciding when and how to reopen schools. States, districts, and schools are now grappling with the complex and high-stakes questions of whether to reopen school buildings and how to operate them safely if they do reopen. These decisions need to be informed by the most up-to-date evidence about the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19; about the impacts of school closures on students and families; and about the complexities of operating school buildings as the pandemic persists. Reopening K-12 Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prioritizing Health, Equity, and Communities provides guidance on the reopening and operation of elementary and secondary schools for the 2020-2021 school year. The recommendations of this report are designed to help districts and schools successfully navigate the complex decisions around reopening school buildings, keeping them open, and operating them safely.

As the culminating volume in the DCP3 series, volume 9 will provide an overview of DCP3 findings and methods, a summary of messages and substantive lessons to be taken from DCP3, and a further discussion of cross-cutting and synthesizing topics across the first eight volumes. The introductory chapters (1-3) in this volume take as their starting point the elements of the Essential Packages presented in the overview chapters of each volume. First, the chapter on intersectoral policy priorities for health includes fiscal and intersectoral policies and assembles a subset of the population policies and applies strict criteria for a low-income setting in order to propose a "highest-priority" essential package. Second, the chapter on packages of care and delivery platforms for universal health coverage (UHC) includes health sector interventions, primarily clinical and public health services, and uses the same approach to propose a highest priority package of interventions and policies that meet similar criteria, provides cost estimates, and describes a pathway to UHC.

COVID Chaos is a book about the 2019 SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic that was written real time, spanning the time from March 31, 2020 through December 31, 2021, by two Emeritus Professors of Infectious Diseases (Adult - RJS, Pediatrics - JSA). RJS's and JSA's careers began with the HIV pandemic, involved collaboration with the 2009 Influenza pandemic, and now are finishing up with the Coronavirus pandemic. The authors have broad experience with outbreaks, from the local level (RJS had career long responsibilities for controlling outbreaks at medical school hospitals and worked taking care of COVID-19 patients during the pandemic), all the way up to the pandemic level (JSA wrote a book about the 2009 Influenza pandemic and has worked with the WHO for the past 10 years.The aim of the book is to give the reader some insight into the global impact of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak during the first two years, from multiple perspectives (patient, healthcare provider, global citizen, public health, economic, geopolitical). An attempt was also made to understand how SARS-CoV-2 caused disease, both its pathogenesis at the individual patient level, and globally, as to how it was so successful at causing a pandemic and how it compares with other organisms capable of causing outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. It is written to be of interest to anyone who likes to read and wants to know more about what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic and why.COVID Chaos was written by two infectious disease physicians, who each have over 35 years of experience caring for patients with a large variety of infectious diseases. Additionally, both did research in understanding the pathogenesis of infectious diseases, and collectively have many years of experience handling outbreaks at the local level, have been involved with guideline documents making recommendations for reducing infections at the national level, and have global experience managing international infectious diseases.The book begins with three first person accounts from physicians involved in COVID-19 care during the early pandemic, when it was overwhelming hospitals.It then tracks its course from Wuhan, China, to other parts of the world, while comparing and contrasting public health interventions, both at the hospital and local community level, all the way up to country level.The book attempts to understand the broad spectrum of COVID-19 disease, both clinically and pathophysiologically, as well as its global collateral damage. It explores in depth SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development, testing and the geopolitical problems with vaccine deployment, and attempts to understand the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and its place in the pantheon of other organisms causing pandemics.The book concludes with some late breaking pandemic events at the end of 2021 (Omicron variant, etc.) and a global photo essay about the pandemic.

The COVID-19 outbreak and response has been characterized by institutional missteps, media misinformation, and economic and social upheavals. This book is intended to de-mystify and inform in a succinct and straightforward text. The lessons shared are applicable to other infectious diseases and future inevitable pandemics. Readers will learn about the origins of COVID-19, the disease it causes, tests and how they work, therapeutics and prophylactic measures such as vaccines. This text prepares readers to be better able to respond to future emerging infectious diseases and pandemics. Key Features Positively influences career choices within public health Applies basic science to problems raised by the COVID-19 pandemic such as vaccine development and herd immunity Prepares readers with context and tactics for understanding future infectious disease outbreaks Successfully used in college senior health sciences seminars Engaging and balanced treatment of the politicization of public health issues, especially COVID-19 Related Titles Goswami, S. & C. Day, eds. COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2: The Science and Clinical Application of Conventional and Complimentary Treatments (ISBN 9781032011950). Koley, T. K. & M. Dhole. The COVID-19 Pandemic: The Deadly Coronavirus Outbreak (ISBN 9780367558895). Ryan, J. M., ed. COVID-19 – Two volume set (ISBN 9780367740610).

In response to a request from the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a standing committee of experts to help inform the federal government on critical science and policy issues related to emerging infectious diseases and other 21st century health threats. This set of Rapid Expert Consultations are the first of their kind and represent the best evidence available to the Committee at the time each publication was released. The science on these issues is continually evolving, and the scientific consensus the Committee reaches on these topics will likely evolve with it. The standing committee includes members with expertise in emerging infectious diseases, public health, public health preparedness and response, biological sciences, clinical care and crisis standards of care, risk communication, and regulatory issues.

Emerging infectious disease outbreaks have transformed the very nature of urban life worldwide, even as the extent and experience of pandemics are shaped by the planetary urban condition. Pandemic Urbanism critically investigates these relationships in a world faced with its first pandemic on a majority urban planet. The authors reveal the social and historical context of recent infectious disease events and how they have variously transformed the urban fabric. They highlight the important role played by socio-ecological processes associated with the global urban periphery – suburban or post-suburban zones and hinterland areas of “extended” urbanization – changing mobility patterns, and new forms of urban governance and pandemic response. The book develops novel insights for post-pandemic urban governance and planning grounded in the quest for social and spatial justice. In doing so, it reveals a paradox at the heart of pandemic urbanism: urban life enables contagion to spread easily, yet at the same time offers unique possibilities to contain and respond to disease outbreaks. Multidisciplinary in approach and written by experts in the field, this book is an invaluable primer on the origins, pathways, and management of infectious disease.