Work

Weathering the pandemic: How the Caribbean Basin can use viral and environmental patterns to predict, prepare, and respond to COVID‐19

Year: 2020

Type: review

Abstract: The 2020 coronavirus pandemic is developing at different paces throughout the world. Some areas, like the Caribbean Basin, have yet to see the virus strike at full force. When it does, there is reasonable evidence to suggest the consequent COVID-19 outbreaks will overwhelm healthcare systems and economies. This is particularly concerning in the Caribbean as pandemics can have disproportionately higher mortality impacts on lower and middle-income countries. Preliminary observations from our team and others suggest that temperature and climatological factors could influence the spread of this novel coronavirus, making spatiotemporal predictions of its infectiousness possible. This review studies geographic and time-based distribution of known respiratory viruses in the Caribbean Basin in an attempt to foresee how the pandemic will develop in this region. This review is meant to aid in planning short- and long-term interventions to manage outbreaks at the international, national, and subnational levels in the region.

Source: Journal of Medical Virology

DOI: 10.1002/jmv.25864

Authors: David E. de Ángel Solá, Leyao Wang, Marietta Vázquez, Pablo A. Méndez‐Lázaro

Institutions: Yale University, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus

Language: English

Topic: COVID-19 epidemiological studies

Subfield: Modeling and Simulation

Field: Mathematics

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences