First and second waves of Covid-19 in Egypt: People’s adherence to stay-at-home policy and its impact of COVID-19 spread.

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Public health and Community medicine department, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia university

2 Public Health and community medecine department, Faculty of medicine, Menoufia university

3 public health and community medecine department, faculty of medicine, Menoufia university

Abstract

Abstract:
Background: The acquisition of Covid-19 virus infection is known to be caused by droplet transmission, and social distancing is thought to be the major effective preventive measure. Objective: To compare community mobility and people’s commitment to the stay-at-home policy and its impact on the incidence of Covid-19 virus infection during the first and second waves of Covid-19. Participants and methods: This study utilized the official daily reports of the Egyptian ministry of health and population (MOHP) about the numbers of new Covid-19 cases, along with the google mapping of community mobility all over Egypt. These reports were analyzed to compare the number of weekly reported cases and people’s mobility at different places between first and second Covid-19 waves.Results: There was less adherence of the Egyptian people to the stay-at-home policy with more mobility to different places in the second wave than the first Covid-19 wave with statistically significant difference (p 0.018 & <0.001). There was more duplication of cases per week in the second wave than in the first one, and this was statistically significant (p 0.018). Conclusion: Egyptians were more committed to the stay-at-home policy with a less number of weekly reported cases of COVID-19 in the first wave than the second one.
Keywords: Community mobility, Covid-19, Google mapping.

Keywords