tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
BMC Public Health
. 2021 Jun 21;21(1):1178.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-11178-w.
Rhinovirus prevalence as indicator for efficacy of measures against SARS-CoV-2
Simo Kitanovski[SUP] #[/SUP][SUP] 1 [/SUP], Gibran Horemheb-Rubio[SUP] #[/SUP][SUP] 2 3 [/SUP], Ortwin Adams[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Barbara Gärtner[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Thomas Lengauer[SUP] 6 [/SUP], Daniel Hoffmann[SUP] 7 [/SUP], Rolf Kaiser[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Respiratory Virus Network
Affiliations
Abstract
Background: Non-pharmaceutical measures to control the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) should be carefully tuned as they can impose a heavy social and economic burden. To quantify and possibly tune the efficacy of these anti-SARS-CoV-2 measures, we have devised indicators based on the abundant historic and current prevalence data from other respiratory viruses.
Methods: We obtained incidence data of 17 respiratory viruses from hospitalized patients and outpatients collected by 37 clinics and laboratories between 2010-2020 in Germany. With a probabilistic model for Bayes inference we quantified prevalence changes of the different viruses between months in the pre-pandemic period 2010-2019 and the corresponding months in 2020, the year of the pandemic with noninvasive measures of various degrees of stringency.
Results: We discovered remarkable reductions δ in rhinovirus (RV) prevalence by about 25% (95% highest density interval (HDI) [-0.35,-0.15]) in the months after the measures against SARS-CoV-2 were introduced in Germany. In the months after the measures began to ease, RV prevalence increased to low pre-pandemic levels, e.g. in August 2020 δ=-0.14 (95% HDI [-0.28,0.12]).
Conclusions: RV prevalence is negatively correlated with the stringency of anti-SARS-CoV-2 measures with only a short time delay. This result suggests that RV prevalence could possibly be an indicator for the efficiency for these measures. As RV is ubiquitous at higher prevalence than SARS-CoV-2 or other emerging respiratory viruses, it could reflect the efficacy of noninvasive measures better than such emerging viruses themselves with their unevenly spreading clusters.
Keywords: Bayesian; COVID-19; Germany; Modeling; Rhinovirus; SARS-CoV-2.
. 2021 Jun 21;21(1):1178.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-11178-w.
Rhinovirus prevalence as indicator for efficacy of measures against SARS-CoV-2
Simo Kitanovski[SUP] #[/SUP][SUP] 1 [/SUP], Gibran Horemheb-Rubio[SUP] #[/SUP][SUP] 2 3 [/SUP], Ortwin Adams[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Barbara Gärtner[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Thomas Lengauer[SUP] 6 [/SUP], Daniel Hoffmann[SUP] 7 [/SUP], Rolf Kaiser[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Respiratory Virus Network
Affiliations
- PMID: 34154549
- DOI: 10.1186/s12889-021-11178-w
Abstract
Background: Non-pharmaceutical measures to control the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) should be carefully tuned as they can impose a heavy social and economic burden. To quantify and possibly tune the efficacy of these anti-SARS-CoV-2 measures, we have devised indicators based on the abundant historic and current prevalence data from other respiratory viruses.
Methods: We obtained incidence data of 17 respiratory viruses from hospitalized patients and outpatients collected by 37 clinics and laboratories between 2010-2020 in Germany. With a probabilistic model for Bayes inference we quantified prevalence changes of the different viruses between months in the pre-pandemic period 2010-2019 and the corresponding months in 2020, the year of the pandemic with noninvasive measures of various degrees of stringency.
Results: We discovered remarkable reductions δ in rhinovirus (RV) prevalence by about 25% (95% highest density interval (HDI) [-0.35,-0.15]) in the months after the measures against SARS-CoV-2 were introduced in Germany. In the months after the measures began to ease, RV prevalence increased to low pre-pandemic levels, e.g. in August 2020 δ=-0.14 (95% HDI [-0.28,0.12]).
Conclusions: RV prevalence is negatively correlated with the stringency of anti-SARS-CoV-2 measures with only a short time delay. This result suggests that RV prevalence could possibly be an indicator for the efficiency for these measures. As RV is ubiquitous at higher prevalence than SARS-CoV-2 or other emerging respiratory viruses, it could reflect the efficacy of noninvasive measures better than such emerging viruses themselves with their unevenly spreading clusters.
Keywords: Bayesian; COVID-19; Germany; Modeling; Rhinovirus; SARS-CoV-2.