Article ; Online: Understanding the role of mask-wearing during COVID-19 on the island of Ireland
Royal Society Open Science, Vol 10, Iss
2023 Volume 7
Abstract: Non-pharmaceutical interventions have played a key role in managing the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is challenging to estimate their impacts on disease spread and outcomes. On the island of Ireland, population mobility restrictions were imposed during the ... ...
Abstract | Non-pharmaceutical interventions have played a key role in managing the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is challenging to estimate their impacts on disease spread and outcomes. On the island of Ireland, population mobility restrictions were imposed during the first wave, but mask-wearing was not mandated until about six months into the pandemic. We use data on mask-wearing, mobility, and season, over the first year of the pandemic to predict independently the weekly infectious contact estimated by an epidemiological model. Using our models, we make counterfactual predictions of infectious contact, and ensuing hospitalizations, under a hypothetical intervention where 90% of the population wore masks from the beginning of community spread until the dates of the mask mandates. Over periods including the first wave of the pandemic, there were 1601 hospitalizations with COVID-19 in Northern Ireland and 1521 in the Republic of Ireland. Under the counterfactual mask-wearing scenario, we estimate 512 (95% CI 400, 730) and 344 (95% CI 266, 526) hospitalizations in the respective jurisdictions during the same periods. This could be partly due to other factors that were also changing over time. |
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Keywords | COVID-19 ; mask-wearing ; hospitalizations ; counterfactuals ; Ireland ; Science ; Q |
Language | English |
Publishing date | 2023-07-01T00:00:00Z |
Publisher | The Royal Society |
Document type | Article ; Online |
Database | BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (life sciences selection) |
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