COVID-19 in Puerto Rico: Preliminary observations on social distancing and societal response toward a novel health stressor.

Coralee Pérez-Pedrogo; Margarita Francia-Martínez; Alfonso Martínez-Taboas

doi:10.1037/tra0000664

COVID-19 in Puerto Rico: Preliminary observations on social distancing and societal response toward a novel health stressor.

Psychological Trauma Theory Research Practice and Policy ◽

10.1037/tra0000664 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (5) ◽

pp. 515-517

Author(s):

Coralee Pérez-Pedrogo ◽

Margarita Francia-Martínez ◽

Alfonso Martínez-Taboas

Keyword(s):

Puerto Rico ◽

Social Distancing ◽

Societal Response

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Only a combination of social distancing and massive testing can effectively stop COVID-19 progression in densely populated urban areas

10.1101/2020.06.23.20138743 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Mario Moisés Alvarez ◽

Grissel Trujillo-de Santiago

Keyword(s):

Hot Spots ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Smart Cities ◽

Relative Effectiveness ◽

Epidemiological Model ◽

Social Distancing ◽

Societal Response ◽

Epidemiological Significance

AbstractWe present a simple epidemiological model that includes demographic density, social distancing, and efficacy of massive testing and quarantine as main parameters to model the progression of COVID-19 pandemics in densely populated urban areas (i.e., above 10,000 hab km2). Our model demonstrates that effective containment of pandemic progression in densely populated cities is achieved only by combining social distancing, widespread testing, and quarantining of infected subjects. This finding has profound epidemiological significance, and sheds light on the controversy regarding the relative effectiveness of widespread testing and social distancing. Our simple epidemiological simulator can also be used to assess the efficacy of a governmental/societal response to an outbreak.This study has also relevant implications on the concept of smart cities; densely populated areas are hot spots highly vulnerable to epidemic crisis.

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‘Distancers’ and ‘non-distancers’? The potential social-psychological impact of moralising COVID-19 mitigating practices on sustained behaviour change

10.31234/osf.io/dbkj6 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Annayah Miranda Beatrice Prosser ◽

Madeline Judge ◽

Leda Blackwood ◽

Jan Willem Bolderdijk ◽

Tim R Kurz

Keyword(s):

Behaviour Change ◽

General Public ◽

Psychological Impact ◽

Hand Washing ◽

Policy Intervention ◽

Social Psychological ◽

Social Distancing ◽

Societal Response ◽

Interactional Processes

COVID-19 mitigating practices such as “hand-washing”, “social distancing” or “social isolating” are constructed as ‘moral imperatives’, required to avert harm to oneself and others. Adherence to COVID-19 mitigating practices is presently high among the general public, and stringent lockdown measures supported by legal and policy intervention has facilitated this. In the coming months, however, as rules are being relaxed and individuals become less strict, and thus the ambiguity in policy increases, the maintenance of recommended social distancing norms will rely on more informal social-interactional processes. We argue that the moralisation of these practices, twinned with relaxations of policy, may likely cause interactional tension between those individuals who do vs. those who do not uphold social distancing in the coming months: i.e., derogation of those who adhere strictly to COVID-19 mitigating practices and group polarisation between ‘distancers’ and ‘non-distancers’. In this paper we explore how and why these processes might come to pass, their impact on an overall societal response to COVID-19, and the need to factor such processes into decisions regarding how to lift restrictions.

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