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Air conditioning systems can play a positive or negative role in the spread of COVID-19 infection. The importance of sufficient outdoor air changes in buildings was highlighted by the World Health Organization, therefore these should be guaranteed by mechanical ventilation systems or adequate air conditioning systems. The proposed case study concerns the optimal number of outdoor air changes to limit COVID-19 contagion for a school building in Central Italy. The Wells–Riley model is used to assess the risk of airborne infection, while energy consumption is calculated by a dynamic energy simulation software. The scope of the paper offers an innovative method to define the optimal ventilation strategy for the building's HVAC system design to reduce the risk of infection with limited increases in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Results show that the desirable approach is the one in which the same low value of contagion risk is set in all rooms. This new approach results in significant energy savings, compared to the most common ones (setting the same high outdoor air rates for all rooms) to counteract the risk of infection. Finally, the zero-emission building target is verified by introducing a suitable photovoltaic system to offset pollutant emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the case of Italy during the Covid-19 pandemic to critically assess the EU legal framework on third-country national migrants' equal access to social benefits. In Italy, migrants are structurally excluded from core social protections, a situation that during the pandemic led to a worsening of existing patterns of inequality; migrants have been more exposed than citizens to poverty, unemployment, and destitution. The first part of the paper looks for the EU legal root of this situation: it examines the EU legal framework in the migration field, showing that it is affected by fragmentation and inconsistencies. These problems become even more acute at the national level, where the Italian legislature mis-transposed the EU migration directives, thus affecting the use of discretionary clauses therein and severely curtailing migrants' equal treatment rights. Then, the second part of the paper asks whether adopting a mainstreaming approach to enhance equality could improve the situation of migrants. The paper argues that equality mainstreaming in the migration field shows good potential, while also encountering some structural limits. Therefore, it can hardly be considered a silver bullet against the problem of migrants' discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critically ill COVID-19 patients may exhibit various clinical symptoms of renal dysfunction including severe Acute Kidney Injury (AKI). Currently, there is a lack of bibliometric analyses on COVID-19- related AKI. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the current research status and hot topics regarding COVID-19 AKI. The literature was retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database. Subsequently, we utilized Microsoft Excel, VOSviewer, Citespace, and Pajek software to revealed the current research status, emerging topics, and developmental trends pertaining to COVID-19 AKI. This study encompassed a total of 1507 studies on COVID-19 AKI. The United States, China, and Italy emerged as the leading three countries in terms of publication numbers, contributing 498 (33.05%), 229 (15.20%), and 140 (9.29%) studies, respectively. The three most active and influential institutions include Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan University and Harvard Medical School. Ronco C from Italy, holds the record for the highest number of publications, with a total of 15 papers authored. Cheng YC’s work from China has garnered the highest number of citations, totaling 470 citations. The co-occurrence analysis of author keywords reveals that ‘mortality’, ‘intensive care units’, ‘chronic kidney disease’, ‘nephrology’, ‘renal transplantation’, ‘acute respiratory distress syndrome’, and ‘risk factors’ emerge as the primary areas of focus within the realm of COVID-19 AKI. In summary, this study analyzes the research trends in the field of COVID-19 AKI, providing a reference for further exploration and research on COVID-19 AKI mechanisms and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a significant influence on nutritional status. There have been several studies on dietary habits and nutritional status in connection with COVID-19. However, there has been no research on the bibliometric analysis of these papers. Therefore, our objective was to assess the most relevant scientific research on nutrition and COVID-19, as well as to assess current hot themes. Methods: We obtained data from the Scopus database on June 30, 2021. Qualitative and quantitative analyzes were conducted based on the Scopus. Collaboration and term analysis was performed using VOSviewer software version 1.6.16. Results: At the time of data collection, there were 177,946 documents in COVID-19. Scopus found 1885 articles related to nutrition and COVID-19 after narrowing the search to those terms. This includes 1309 (69.44%) research articles, 268 (14.22%) review papers, and 308 other types of document. The USA was the largest producer, with 24.83% of the documents, followed by Italy with 11.88% (n = 224), the UK with 10.82% (n = 204), and China with 7.59% (n = 143). The most active institution was Sapienza Università di Roma (n = 30, 1.59%). The leading journal in COVID-19 nutrition research was Nutrients (n = 115, 6.10%). The article with 310 citations published by Di Renzo et al. in 2020 was the most influential reference. The hot topics were stratified into three clusters: (1) "Food security in the COVID-19 pandemic"; (2) "nutritional determinants and COVID-19 outcomes"; and (3) "changes in dietary habits during the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences". Conclusions: This is the first bibliometric research to offer comprehensive information on COVID-19 and nutrition in the published literature. Research will likely be helpful to scholars and policymakers. This study sheds light on the growth and development of nutrition and covid-19-related research and should contribute to the expansion of the global frontier in the major hot topics, including "food security in the COVID-19 pandemic"; "nutritional determinants and COVID-19 outcomes"; and "changes in diet habits during the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2020 will be remembered worldwide as the year of COVID-19 outbreak. The onset of this pandemic abruptly changed everybody's life and, in a particular manner, doctors' lives. Our hand surgery department became rapidly one of the first COVID-19-specialized wards in Italy, impacting considerably the authors' routines and activities. In this paper, the authors focus on how the demographics of patients with hand trauma changed and how they had to modify their activity. The authors retrospectively took into consideration all patients reaching their emergency department (ED) with hand trauma between 9 March 2020 (the day of the beginning of the first lockdown in Italy) and 8 March 2021 and compared them to those who reached the ED in the three previous years. Authors have analyzed the number of patients, their gender and age, the severity of their trauma, where the trauma occurred, the type of lesion, the percentage of patients who underwent surgery, and the percentage of patients who had an emergency admission. In the last year, the number of patients reaching the ED for a hand trauma has been reduced by two thirds (975 patients during the past year), the mean age of those patients has slightly increased, the severity of cases has increased, places of trauma and type of lesions have changed, and, lastly, the percentage of patients needing surgery who were admitted immediately has increased. This paper shows how the type of patients reaching the ED changed and discusses how surgeons evolved and modified their habits in treating those patients during the first lockdown and the year that followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2020 the world faced the spread of the coronavirus infection disease (Covid-19). This was a general public health emergency but many people with disabilities might have been particularly affected. Objective: This paper aims to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) and their families. Methods: 110 parents of children with CP (aged 2 to 19) who completed a questionnaire were included. These children were under the care of one of the Italian Children Rehabilitation Centers. Socio-demographic and clinical information about patients and their families were collected. In addition, difficulties on adopting protective measures and in respecting lockdown rules by children were explored. We adopted the ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) framework to create multiple choice questions. Descriptive statistics were reported and logistic regression analyses were run in order to identify the predictors of perceived impairment in motor, speech, manual and behavioral abilities. Results: Daily activities of children, as well as rehabilitation and fitness sessions, underwent a change during the pandemic. Spending more time with family due to lockdown measures, has had, in some cases a positive effect however there was a perceived decrease in rehabilitation support and school activities. The age range (between 7 and 12 years) and difficulty in respecting rules emerged as significant predictors of the perceived impairment due to Covid-19 pandemic. Conclusions: The pandemic has had different impacts on children and their families on the basis of children's characteristics. Rehabilitation activities during a hypothetic lockdown should consider these characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the world, the 2019 Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has raised serious public health problems and major medical challenges. The Italian Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (SIGENP) published several papers on the impact of COVID-19 on the current management, diagnosis, and treatment of acute and chronic gastrointestinal, hepatic, immune-mediated, and functional disorders. The present article summarizes the most relevant SIGENP reports and consensus during and after the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak, including the diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), indications and timing of digestive endoscopy, and insights into the novel hepatitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, practitioners had to make tragic decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources in the ICU. The Italian debate has paid a lot of attention to identifying the specific regulatory criteria for the allocation of resources in the ICU; in this paper, however, we argue that deciding such criteria is not enough for the implementation of fair and transparent allocative decisions. In this respect, we discuss three ethical issues: (a) in the Italian context, the treating physician, rather than a separate committee, was generally the one responsible for the allocation decision; (b) although many allocative guidelines have supported moral equivalence between withholding and withdrawing treatments, some health professionals have continued to consider it a morally problematic aspect; and (c) the health workers who have had to make the aforementioned decisions or even only worked in ICU during the pandemic often experienced moral distress. We conclude by arguing that, even if these problems are not directly related to the above-mentioned issues of distributive justice, they can nevertheless directly affect the quality and ethics of the implementation of allocative criteria, regardless of those chosen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several epidemiological models have been proposed to study the evolution of COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we propose an extension of the SUIHTER model, to analyse the COVID-19 spreading in Italy, which accounts for the vaccination campaign and the presence of new variants when they become dominant. In particular, the specific features of the variants (e.g. their increased transmission rate) and vaccines (e.g. their efficacy to prevent transmission, hospitalization and death) are modeled, based on clinical evidence. The new model is validated comparing its near-future forecast capabilities with other epidemiological models and exploring different scenario analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has been characterized by a social media "infodemic": an overabundance of information whose authenticity may not always be guaranteed. With the potential to lead individuals to harmful decisions for the society, this infodemic represents a severe threat to information security, public health and democracy. In this paper, we assess the interplay between the infodemic and specific aspects of the pandemic, such as the number of cases, the strictness of containment measures, and the news media coverage. We perform a comparative study on three countries that employed different managements of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020—namely Italy, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. We first analyze the three countries from an epidemiological perspective to characterize the impact of the pandemic and the strictness of the restrictions adopted. Then, we collect a total of 6 million posts from Facebook to describe user news consumption behaviors with respect to the reliability of such posts. Finally, we quantify the relationship between the number of posts published in each of the three countries and the number of confirmed cases, the strictness of the restrictions adopted, and the online news media coverage about the pandemic. Our results show that posts referring to reliable sources are consistently predominant in the news circulation, and that users engage more with reliable posts rather than with posts referring to questionable sources. Furthermore, our modelling results suggest that factors related to the epidemiological and informational ecosystems can serve as proxies to assess the evolution of the infodemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing disruptive effects on the healthcare systems, economy and social life of countries all over the world. Even though the elder portion of the population is the most severely affected by the COVID-19 disease, the counter-measures introduced so far by governments took into little account the age structure, with restrictions that act uniformly on the population irrespectively of age. In this paper, we introduce a SIRD model with age classes for studying the impact on the epidemic evolution of lockdown policies applied heterogeneously on the different age groups of the population. The proposed model is then applied to age-stratified COVID-19 Italian data. The simulation results suggest that control measures focused to specific age groups may bring benefits in terms of reduction of the overall mortality rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 epidemic in Italy has severely affected people aged more than 80, especially socially isolated. Aim of this paper is to assess whether a social and health program reduced mortality associated to the epidemic. Methods: An observational retrospective cohort analysis of deaths recorded among >80 years in three Italian cities has been carried out to compare death rate of the general population and "Long Live the Elderly!" (LLE) program. Parametric and non-parametric tests have been performed to assess differences of means between the two populations. A multivariable analysis to assess the impact of covariates on weekly mortality has been carried out by setting up a linear mixed model. Results: The total number of services delivered to the LLE population (including phone calls and home visits) was 34,528, 1 every 20 day per person on average, one every 15 days during March and April. From January to April 2019, the same population received one service every 41 days on average, without differences between January-February and March-April. The January-April 2020 cumulative crude death rate was 34.8‰ (9,718 deaths out of 279,249 individuals; CI95%: 34.1–35.5) and 28.9‰ (166 deaths out of 5,727 individuals; CI95%:24.7–33.7) for the general population and the LLE sample respectively. The general population weekly death rate increased after the 11th calendar week that was not the case among the LLE program participants (p<0.001). The Standardized Mortality Ratio was 0.83; (CI95%: 0.71–0.97). Mortality adjusted for age, gender, COVID-19 weekly incidence and prevalence of people living in nursing homes was lower in the LLE program than in the general population (p<0.001). Conclusions: LLE program is likely to limit mortality associated with COVID-19. Further studies are needed to establish whether it is due to the impact of social care that allows a better clients' adherence to the recommendations of physical distancing or to an improved surveillance of older adults that prevents negative outcomes associated with COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European countries struggled to fight against the second and the third waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the Test-Trace-Isolate (TTI) strategy widely adopted over the summer and early fall 2020 failed to contain the spread of the disease effectively. This paper sheds light on the effectiveness of such a strategy in two European countries (Spain and Italy) by analysing data from June to December 2020, collected via a large-scale online citizen survey with 95,251 and 43,393 answers in Spain and Italy, respectively. Our analysis describes several weaknesses in each of the three pillars of the TTI strategy: Test, Trace, and Isolate. We find that 40% of respondents had to wait more than 48 hours to obtain coronavirus tests results, while literature has shown that a delay of more than one day might make tracing all cases inefficient. We also identify limitations in the manual contact tracing capabilities in both countries, as only 29% of respondents in close contact with a confirmed infected individual reported having been contact traced. Moreover, our analysis shows that more than 45% of respondents report being unable to self-isolate if needed. We also analyse the mitigation strategies deployed to contain the second wave of coronavirus. We find that these interventions were particularly effective in Italy, where close contacts were reduced by more than 20% in the general population. Finally, we analyse the participants' perceptions about the coronavirus risk associated with different daily activities. We observe that they are often gender- and age-dependent, and not aligned with the actual risk identified by the literature. This finding emphasises the importance of deploying public-health communication campaigns to debunk misconceptions about SARS-CoV-2. Overall, our work illustrates the value of online citizen surveys to quickly and efficiently collect large-scale population data to support and evaluate policy decisions to combat the spread of infectious diseases, such as coronavirus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three European countries included in the northwest littoral of the Mediterranean region – Italy, France and Spain – reported their first cases of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus early in 2020. The subsequent epidemic strongly impacted these countries, challenging the healthcare systems efficiency, and the capacity and transparency of their public statistics structures. Because public statistics were not fully adapted to such a new health situation, the available official data could not wholly describe the epidemic correctly. This paper developed an indicator derived from the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 aiming to describe the time and spatial dynamics of the epidemic. Although the analysis was not applied to France due to the lack of data available, the comparative analysis among Spain and Italy highlighted some similarities and certain divergences, partially attributable to the features of each country‘s national demographic patterns and the peculiarities of applied health protocols. Finally, mortality during the first wave of the epidemic has been analysed for the three countries, demonstrating higher mortality index in Spain, although the reported number of SARS-CoV-2 declared deaths does not explain a portion of this mortality excess. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This paper aims to measure the performance of early detection methods, which are usually used for infectious diseases. Methodology: By using real data of confirmed Coronavirus cases from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Italy, the moving epidemic method (MEM) and the moving average cumulative sums (Mov. Avg Cusum) methods are used in our simulation study. Results: Our results suggested that the CUSUM method outperforms the MEM in detecting the start of the Coronavirus outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the heterogeneous impact of school closures during Covid-19 pandemic in Italy on academic performance across different schools, grades, subjects and groups of students. Our analysis utilises an innovative dataset that combines administrative data on standardised tests in grades 5 and 8 with a specifically-designed survey that collects information about teachers' practices between February and June 2020. Firstly, by employing a multilevel (mixed-effects) model, we estimate the extent of learning loss and examine its variability across schools, for students in primary and middle levels during the school year 2020/21. The findings confirm that learning loss has been considerable (between 0.05 and 0.27 SD) although heterogeneity across disciplines and grades exists – higher in English in grade 5, and in mathematics and reading in grade 8. Secondly, as a main contribution of the paper, we explore the mechanisms behind the substantial differences observed across schools, which can be explained by the ability of teachers in using digital tools and evaluating their students, as well as by the leadership role exerted by school principals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to predict the economic resilience to crises of territories based on local pre-existing socioeconomic characteristics. Specifically, we consider the case of Italian municipalities during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, leveraging a large-scale dataset of cardholders performing transactions in Point-of-Sales. Based on a set of machine learning classifiers, we show that network-based measures and variables related to the social, economic, demographic and environmental dimensions are relevant predictors of the economic resilience of Italian municipalities to the crisis. In particular, we find accurate classification performance both in balanced and un-balanced scenarios, as well as in the case we restrict the analysis to specific geographical areas. Our analysis predicts that territories with larger income per capita, soil consumption, concentration of real estate activities and commuting network centrality in terms of closeness and Pagerank constitute the set of most affected areas, experiencing the strongest reduction of economic activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, we provide an application of an early-warning system able to provide timely evidence to policymakers about the detrimental effects generated by natural disasters and severe crisis episodes, thus contributing to optimize public decision support systems. • We quantify economic resilience of Italian municipalities through bank transaction data. • We model territories with a set of socioeconomic and network-based covariates. • Machine learning classifiers accurately predict economic resilience. • We use SHAP values to identify most relevant predictors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]