Statistical indicators of compliance with anti-COVID-19 public health measures at European airports

The impact of inspection policies on reducing disease prevalence in public buildings: A systems dynamics approach

The occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed new dimensions of urban resilience to communities. Failure to implement health protocols in public buildings has had a significant impact on the spread of the disease, and inspection has become necessary to enforce the rules. This study presents different inspection policies of public buildings to reduce disease prevalence. It evaluates and compares the implementation of these policies in the long run based on the systems dynamics approach. First, baseline modeling was performed without inspection to analyze the proposed policies, and disease prevalence was investigated. Then various proposed inspection and fines policies, including fixed inspection and fines rate (FIFF), fixed inspection rate with the variable fine rate (FIVF), and variable inspection and fines rate (VIVF), are introduced, and their system dynamics models are presented. The impact of each inspection policy on the violations rate and disease prevalence in public buildings has been investigated using long-term simulation. Based on the results, regulatory agencies can significantly reduce the rate of violations in public buildings and improve urban resilience to the epidemic by adopting proper inspection policies. The results can help city managers to adopt appropriate inspection policies.

Improving the Effectiveness of Anti-COVID Measures in Buildings: Learning from Users’ Perception

The COVID-19 spread abruptly changed the fruition of indoor environments, where necessary adaptive measures have since been implemented. Buildings open to the public were suddenly equipped with physical devices aiming to encourage users’ appropriate behaviors, such as hand sanitizing, social distancing, and temperature monitoring. Through a twofold architectural-psychological perspective, the paper presents a research aiming to understand how users perceive these devices in the Italian context and to identify the design features that could improve their effectiveness in enhancing individuals’ awareness. With an interdisciplinary approach, four methods were adopted: observational field surveys, background and normative framework analysis, survey research through an online questionnaire, and case studies survey research. The results confirm the overall effectiveness of the implemented anti-COVID strategies, their suitability in encouraging individuals’ appropriate behaviors, and the importance of regulating the users’ flow indoors. The research allowed defining the devices (hand-sanitizing devices and temperature-measurement instruments) and wayfinding systems more suited to be included in the prevention strategy and identified their more appropriate design features in relation to the users’ feedback. Operational suggestions are presented as well. The adopted experimental approach can be useful in supporting decision making in managing of the built environment in both the current and future contexts.