covid-19

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Resources

Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern

You cannot fight a fire blindfolded. And we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected.

-Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), 16 March 2020

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About

On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization was notified about a cluster of pneumonia of unknown origin in the city of Wuhan, China. Chinese authorities later identified a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) as the causative agent of the outbreak. After the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak spread to multiple countries across the globe, including Switzerland, the World Health Organization recognized it as a pandemic on 11 March 2020.

During this international public health emergency, the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern provides information and resources about the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic for scientists, public health experts, journalists and the public.

Projects

Ongoing

EpiPose - Epidemic intelligence to minimize 2019-nCoV’s public health, economic and social impact in Europe
- Real-time modeling and projections of the COVID-19 epidemic in Switzerland
- Living Evidence on COVID-19
Tracking the COVID-19 epidemic in Switzerland: phylogenetics and epidemiological modeling
Assessing Critical Health Literacy in the Covid-19 pandemic - An empirical study using data from 4 Swiss univeristies (as part of the multi-national Covid-19 International Student Well-being Study.
COVID-19 reports by ISPM

Completed

Estimating case fatality ratio of COVID-19 from observed cases outside China

Publications

Abel T. COVID-19. Éducation à la santé et coresponsabilité. In F. Gamba, M. Nardone, T. Ricciardi & S. Cattacin (Hrsg.), COVID-19 – Le regard des sciences sociales, (S. 293-300). Genève et Zurich: Seismo.
Abel T. Gesundheitskompetenz und die Corona-Krise. Gesundheitswesen. 2020 Apr;82(4):301-302.
Abel T, McQueen D. The COVID-19 pandemic calls for spatial distancing and social closeness: not for social distancing! Int J Public Health. 2020 Apr;65(3):231.
Abel T, McQueen D. Critical health literacy and the COVID-19 crisis. Health Promot Int. 2020 Apr 2:daaa040.
Chowdhury R, Heng K, Shawon MSR, Goh G, Okonofua D, Ochoa-Rosales C, et al. Dynamic interventions to control COVID-19 pandemic: a multivariate prediction modelling study comparing 16 worldwide countries. Eur J Epidemiol. 2020 May 20.
Buitrago-Garcia DC, Egli-Gany D, Counotte MJ, Hossmann S, Imeri H, Salanti G, Low N. The role of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections: rapid living systematic review and meta-analysis medRxiv. 2020.04.25.20079103
Gonzalez-Jaramillo N, Low N, Franco OH. The double burden of disease of COVID-19 in cardiovascular patients: overlapping conditions could lead to overlapping treatments Eur J Epidemiol. 2020 Apr 15.
Mesa Vieira C, Franco OH, Gomez Restrepo C, Abel T. COVID-19: the forgotten priorities of the pandemic Maturitas. 2020;04.004.
Hauser A, Counotte MJ, Margossian CC, Konstantinoudis G, Low N, Althaus CL, Riou J. Estimation of SARS-CoV-2 mortality during the early stages of an epidemic: a modelling study in Hubei, China and northern Italy. medRxiv. 2020;03.04.20031104.
Salathé M, Althaus CL, Neher R, Stringhini S, Hodcroft E, Fellay J, et al. COVID-19 epidemic in Switzerland: on the importance of testing, contact tracing and isolation. Swiss Med Wkly. 2020 Mar 19;150:w20225.
Riou J, Althaus CL. Pattern of early human-to-human transmission of Wuhan 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), December 2019 to January 2020. Euro Surveill. 2020 Jan;25(4).

Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force

Several researchers of the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine are members of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force that assists the authorities in overcoming the COVID-19 crisis: