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Evolution of Responses to COVID-19 and Epidemiological Characteristics in South Korea

The characteristics of COVID-19 have evolved at an accelerated rate over the last two years since the first SARS-CoV-2 case was discovered in December 2019. This evolution is due to the complex interplay among virus, humans, vaccines, and environments, which makes the elucidation of the clinical and...

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Autores principales: Jeon, Junhwi, Han, Changyong, Kim, Tobhin, Lee, Sunmi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8997838/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35409740
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074056
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author Jeon, Junhwi
Han, Changyong
Kim, Tobhin
Lee, Sunmi
author_facet Jeon, Junhwi
Han, Changyong
Kim, Tobhin
Lee, Sunmi
author_sort Jeon, Junhwi
collection PubMed
description The characteristics of COVID-19 have evolved at an accelerated rate over the last two years since the first SARS-CoV-2 case was discovered in December 2019. This evolution is due to the complex interplay among virus, humans, vaccines, and environments, which makes the elucidation of the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 essential to assess ongoing policy responses. In this study, we carry out an extensive retrospective analysis on infection clusters of COVID-19 in South Korea from January 2020 to September 2021 and uncover important clinical and social factors associated with age and regional patterns through the sophisticated large-scale epidemiological investigation using the data provided by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). Epidemiological data of COVID-19 include daily confirmed cases, gender, age, city of residence, date of symptom onset, date of diagnosis, and route of infection. We divide the time span into six major periods based on the characteristics of COVID-19 according to various events such as the rise of new variants, vaccine rollout, change of social distancing levels, and other intervention measures. We explore key features of COVID-19 such as the relationship among unlinked, asymptomatic, and confirmed cases, serial intervals, infector–infectee interactions, and age/region-specific variations. Our results highlight the significant impact of temporal evolution of interventions implemented in South Korea on the characteristics of COVID-19 transmission, in particular, that of a high level of vaccination coverage in the senior-aged group on the dramatic reduction of confirmed cases.
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spelling pubmed-89978382022-04-12 Evolution of Responses to COVID-19 and Epidemiological Characteristics in South Korea Jeon, Junhwi Han, Changyong Kim, Tobhin Lee, Sunmi Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The characteristics of COVID-19 have evolved at an accelerated rate over the last two years since the first SARS-CoV-2 case was discovered in December 2019. This evolution is due to the complex interplay among virus, humans, vaccines, and environments, which makes the elucidation of the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 essential to assess ongoing policy responses. In this study, we carry out an extensive retrospective analysis on infection clusters of COVID-19 in South Korea from January 2020 to September 2021 and uncover important clinical and social factors associated with age and regional patterns through the sophisticated large-scale epidemiological investigation using the data provided by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). Epidemiological data of COVID-19 include daily confirmed cases, gender, age, city of residence, date of symptom onset, date of diagnosis, and route of infection. We divide the time span into six major periods based on the characteristics of COVID-19 according to various events such as the rise of new variants, vaccine rollout, change of social distancing levels, and other intervention measures. We explore key features of COVID-19 such as the relationship among unlinked, asymptomatic, and confirmed cases, serial intervals, infector–infectee interactions, and age/region-specific variations. Our results highlight the significant impact of temporal evolution of interventions implemented in South Korea on the characteristics of COVID-19 transmission, in particular, that of a high level of vaccination coverage in the senior-aged group on the dramatic reduction of confirmed cases. MDPI 2022-03-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8997838/ /pubmed/35409740 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074056 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Jeon, Junhwi
Han, Changyong
Kim, Tobhin
Lee, Sunmi
Evolution of Responses to COVID-19 and Epidemiological Characteristics in South Korea
title Evolution of Responses to COVID-19 and Epidemiological Characteristics in South Korea
title_full Evolution of Responses to COVID-19 and Epidemiological Characteristics in South Korea
title_fullStr Evolution of Responses to COVID-19 and Epidemiological Characteristics in South Korea
title_full_unstemmed Evolution of Responses to COVID-19 and Epidemiological Characteristics in South Korea
title_short Evolution of Responses to COVID-19 and Epidemiological Characteristics in South Korea
title_sort evolution of responses to covid-19 and epidemiological characteristics in south korea
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8997838/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35409740
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074056
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