The UK lockdown and the economic value of human life

Regional variations in vaccination against COVID-19 in Germany

Vaccination willingness against COVID-19 is generally perceived as low. Moreover, there is large heterogeneity across and within countries. As a whole, Germany has average vaccination rates compared to other industrialized countries. However, vaccination rates in the 16 different German federal states differ by more than 20 percentage points. We describe variation in vaccination rates on the level of the 400 German counties using data on all vaccinations carried out until December 2022. Around 52-72% of that variation can be explained by regional differences in demographic characteristics, housing, education and political party preferences. We find indications that the remaining part may be due to differences in soft factors such as risk aversion, trust in the German government, trust in science, and beliefs in conspiracy theories regarding the origins of the Corona virus. We conclude that improving the trust in science and the fight against conspiracy theories may possibly be effective tools to improve vaccination rates and effectively fight pandemics.

Think of What Really Matters: Structured Analysis of Personal Criteria can Save Lives

Helping decisions are susceptible to many biases—partly due to the helpers’ spontaneous emotional reactions to the appeal diverting their attention from the need to maximize the impact of their help. Attempts to overcome these biases by prompting deliberative thinking—namely, by asking participants to think deeply—have often been unsuccessful. Here, we propose a way of directing people’s attention to the most important aspects of their decisions, by asking them to rate the extent to which such attributes should be considered. In two experiments involving real-world crises, participants who underwent such structured analysis of their personal criteria were more likely to make decisions that maximized the number of lives saved. Moreover, their decisions were more in line with their personal values. We conclude that this method is a simple, efficient way of improving the quality of helping decisions in life-and-death situations.

The danger of the single storyline obfuscating the complexities of managing SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie showed how a single story is limited and thereby distorts the true nature of an issue. During this COVID-19 pandemic there have been, at least, three consecutive single stories-the 'lethal threat' story, followed by the 'economic threat' story, and finally the 'vaccine miracle' story. None of these single stories can convincingly and permanently capture the dynamics of the pandemic. This is because countries experienced different morbidity and mortality patterns, different socioeconomic disadvantage, age and vulnerability of population, timing and level of lockdown with economic variability, and, despite heavy promotion, vaccines were beset with a significant and variable degree of hesitancy. Lack of transparency, coherence and consistency of pandemic management-arising from holding on to single storylines-showed the global deficiency of public health policy and planning, an underfunding of (public) health and social services, and a growing distrust in governments' ability to manage crises effectively. Indeed, the global management has increased already large inequities, and little has been learnt to address the growing crises of more infectious and potentially more lethal virus mutations. Holding onto single stories prevents the necessary learnings to understand and manage the complexities of 'wicked' problems, whereas listening to the many stories provides insights and pathways to do so effectively as well as efficiently.

Impact of lockdown relaxation and implementation of the face-covering policy on mental health: A United Kingdom COVID-19 study

BACKGROUND

Pandemic mitigation policies, such as lockdown, are known to impact on mental health of individuals. Compulsory face covering under relaxed lockdown restrictions gives assurance of less transmission of airborne infection and has the potential to improve mental health of individuals affected by restrictions.

AIM

To examine the association of the lockdown relaxation and the implementation of the face covering policy on the mental health of the general population and sub-groups in the United Kingdom using interrupted time series model.

METHODS

Using a web-based cross-sectional survey of 28890 United Kingdom adults carried out during May 1, 2020 to July 31, 2020, changes in mental health status using generalised anxiety disorder (GAD-7), and impact of events scale-revised (IES-R) scales are examined, at the dates of the first lockdown relaxation (July 4, 2020) and the subsequent introduction of face covering (July 24, 2020) in United Kingdom. A sharp regression discontinuity design is used to check discontinuities in mental health outcomes at policy-change dates.

RESULTS

Average GAD-7 scores of participants were 5.6, 5.6 and 4.3 during the lockdown period, the lockdown relaxation phase and the phase of compulsory face covering, respectively, with lower scores indicating lower anxiety levels. Corresponding scores for IES-R were 17.3, 16.8 and 13.4, with lower scores indicating less distress. Easing lockdown measures and subsequent introduction of face covering, on average, reduced GAD-7 by 0.513 (95%CI: 0.913-0.112) and 1.148 (95%CI: 1.800-0.496), respectively. Corresponding reductions in IES-R were 2.620 (95%CI: 4.279-0.961) and 3.449 (95%CI: 5.725-1.172). These imply that both lockdown relaxation and compulsory face-covering have a positive association with mental health scores (GAD-7 and IES-R).

CONCLUSION

The differential impact of lockdown and relaxation on the mental health of population sub-groups is evident in this study with future implications for policy. Introduction of face covering in public places had a stronger positive association with mental health than lockdown relaxation.

Multiplexed detection of SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory infections in high throughput by SARSeq

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need for massively-parallel, cost-effective tests monitoring viral spread. Here we present SARSeq, saliva analysis by RNA sequencing, a method to detect SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses on tens of thousands of samples in parallel. SARSeq relies on next generation sequencing of multiple amplicons generated in a multiplexed RT-PCR reaction. Two-dimensional, unique dual indexing, using four indices per sample, enables unambiguous and scalable assignment of reads to individual samples. We calibrate SARSeq on SARS-CoV-2 synthetic RNA, virions, and hundreds of human samples of various types. Robustness and sensitivity were virtually identical to quantitative RT-PCR. Double-blinded benchmarking to gold standard quantitative-RT-PCR performed by human diagnostics laboratories confirms this high sensitivity. SARSeq can be used to detect Influenza A and B viruses and human rhinovirus in parallel, and can be expanded for detection of other pathogens. Thus, SARSeq is ideally suited for differential diagnostic of infections during a pandemic.

Massively parallel but cost-effective testing is essential to monitor the spread of pathogenic agents. Here the authors present SARSseq, which uses a dual indexing strategy in a multiplexed RT-PCR reaction to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 at scale.