Currently submitted to: JMIR Preprints
Date Submitted: Apr 21, 2020
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 21, 2020 - Apr 6, 2021
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How will Lockdown, social distancing and other respiratory and hygiene etiquettes implemented to mitigate COVID-19 affect incidence of other respiratory illnesses like PTB and Influenza?
Since the declaration of Covid-19 as a Pandemic by WHO on 13th March,2020 over 210 countries / territories have active cases and 1/3rd of the world’s population are on complete lockdown or partial restriction. Main route of transmission of Covid-19 is through droplets like most communicable respiratory illnesses followed by infected surfaces. Public measures like wearing masks, social distancing, hand washing and other respiratory hygiene are being followed in unprecedented level and people are tested rapidly if they show symptoms of the disease such as fever, cough, fatigue, myalgia and dyspnea.. These symptoms are similar to other respiratory diseases such as common flu, influenza, pneumonia and Tuberculosis and these preventive measures are also effective in these diseases. In Wuhan, China the lockdown lasted for 76 days and seems to follow similar course in other countries. The air pollution and travel has also decreased which will further decrease transmission of respiratory illnesses. These behavioral changes can get embedded into human cultures as seen in Japan after Spanish flu where people regularly wear masks in winter. This might play a vital role to decrease incidence of other respiratory illnesses like Tb and influenza for which we need to be observant and carry time series analysis of the pre and post pandemic data. With proper strategies this could be utilized as an opportunity to reduce burden of other respiratory communicable disease around the globe.
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