“ Population Density Linked to COVID-19 Spread in India ”

Mumbai, India. Credit: Sthitaprajna Jena (CC BY-SA 2.0). By Sanjeet BagcchiNEW DELHI, Jul 8 2020 (IPS) Indian health experts say the findings of a US study — which suggest that population density is unrelated to COVID-19 infection rates — to be completely contradictory to their experience of dealing with the pandemic in India, a country with 1.3 billion people. Shima Hamidi, lead author of the study, published June in the Journal of the American Planning Association, claimed in a press statement that “the fact that [urban] density is unrelated to confirmed virus infection rates and inversely related to confirmed COVID-19 death rates is important, unexpected and profound”. “In theory, density leads to closer contact and more interaction among residents, which makes them potential hotspots for the rapid spread of emerging infectious diseases,” Hamidi of Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, said. However, after controlling for metropolitan population, county density is not significantly related to the infection rate, possibly due to greater adherence to social distancing guidelines, the authors pointed out. Also, counties with higher densities have significantly lower virus-related death rates than do counties with lower densities, possibly due to superior healthcare systems, they added. Hamidi and colleagues assessed SARS-CoV-2 infection rates and Covid-19 death rates, from 20 January to 25 May at 913 metropolitan counties in the US. They ...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Asia-Pacific Headlines Health Population COVID-19 Source Type: news