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. 2021 Jun:197:111099.
doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2021.111099. Epub 2021 Apr 2.

The impact of first and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in society: comparative analysis to support control measures to cope with negative effects of future infectious diseases

Mario Coccia  1
Affiliations

The impact of first and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in society: comparative analysis to support control measures to cope with negative effects of future infectious diseases

Mario Coccia. Environ Res. 2021 Jun.

Abstract

The goal of this study is a comparative analysis of the first and second wave of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to assess the impact on health of people for designing effective policy responses to constrain negative effects of future pandemic waves of COVID-19 and similar infectious diseases in society. The research here focuses on a case study of Italy, one of the first countries to experience a rapid increase in numbers of COVID-19 related infected individuals and deaths. Statistical analyses, based on daily data from February 2020 to February 2021, suggest that the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Italy had a high negative impact on health of people over February-May 2020 period; after that, negative effects declined from June 2020 onwards. Second wave of COVID-19 pandemic from August 2020 to February 2021 had a growing incidence of confirmed cases also associated with variants of coronavirus, whereas admissions to Intensive Care Units and total deaths had lower levels compared to first wave of COVID-19. Lessons learned of this comparative analysis between first and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy can be generalized in similar geo-economic areas to support effective policy responses of crisis management to constrain the negative impact on health of people of recurring waves of COVID-19 pandemic and similar infectious diseases in future.

Keywords: COVID-19; Containment measures; Country monitoring; Crisis management; Health systems; Healthcare sector; Pandemic response; Preventing transmission; Public health; Public health capacity; Public policy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author, Mario Coccia, declares that he has no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Trend of confirmed cases of the first and second wave (W) of COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Data are MM7 of time series in log scale. Notes: Measures to control the spread of the COVID-19 within the community are being pursued to safeguard societies and economies, until vaccines and therapies become available and widespread distributed. For first wave was applied a full lockdown in Italy, whereas for second wave of COVID-19 pandemic was applied a policy based on three risk clusters: yellow regions – moderate risk, orange regions – medium-high risk and red regions - high risk (COVID-19 Health system response monitor, 2021). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Trend of hospitalized people (included ICUs) of the first and second wave (W) of COVID-19 in Italy.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Trend of fatality rates of the first and second wave of COVID-19 in Italy.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Effects of the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic on health of people in Italy from February to July 2020.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Effects of the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic on health of people in Italy from August 2020 to February 2021.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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