ANALYSIS, RESULTS, AND DISCUSSION

The results, discussions, and analysis of the data acquired in this study are
presented in this chapter. As a result, it responds to the questions posed in the problem
statement and summarizes the information obtained.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

In this study, we looked for data, articles, and research papers about COVID-19
transmission in order to address our problem statements.This section is a compilation of
all answers obtained from various sources.

The following are the questions we addressed, followed by the data we gathered:

Research Question 1:
What are the different phases of COVID-19 transmission and how does it change?

Answer 1:
According to Kaur & Bherwani, et al. (2021), Phase 1 showed restricted transmission,
with only a few patients having traveled to afflicted nations.

Answer 2:
According to Kaur & Bherwani, et al. (2021), Such patients were quickly isolated and
treated in designated hospitals.

Answer 3:
According to Kaur & Bherwani, et al. (2021), Because there was no information
concerning the propagation of the virus through asymptomatic individuals at the time,
the sickness moved to the next stage.

Answer 4:
According to Kaur & Bherwani, et al. (2021), The virus spreads in the local environment
through symptomatic or asymptomatic individuals with a travel history during Phase II.

Answer 5:
According to Kaur & Bherwani, et al. (2021), Phase-III is the community transmission, in
which persons who had no contact with the asymptomatic and symptomatic patients
begin to exhibit symptoms.
Answer 6:
According to Kaur & Bherwani, et al. (2021), At this point, additional means of
transmission are also to blame for disease spread, and the situation becomes
unmanageable.

Answer 7:
According to Kaur & Bherwani, et al. (2021), In Phase IV, the illness crossed
boundaries, resulting in inter-/intrastate transmission, and the number of cases and
fatalities increased suddenly, culminating in an epidemic.

Answer 8:
According to Kaur & Bherwani, et al. (2021), COVID-19 eventually reached Phase-V,
with the original epidemic in China quickly spreading to other nations in Europe,
America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, resulting in a pandemic.

Research Question 2:
Why is contact tracing important to control the transmission of COVID-19?

Answer 1:
According to Poland (2020), The core principle, which is crucial in the early stages of an
outbreak in order to contain it, is to identify who is sick and then trace who may have
been exposed and so infected in larger and broader rings. If you can do this quickly,
effectively, and efficiently, you will be able to drastically decrease the consequences of
an epidemic or pandemic.

Answer 2:
According to Craig & Rizvi, et al. (2021), The number of contacts tracked, timeliness,
and compliance with combination intervention implementation, as well as R0, were
discovered to have an effect on efficacy. The combination of NPIs and contact tracing
was determined to be the most effective.

Answer 3:
According to Saurabh & Prateek, et al. (2020), To slow the spread of illness, contact
tracing entails interviewing affected persons to determine which other people they may
have exposed to the virus, locating those exposed contacts, isolating infected contacts,
and quarantining exposed contacts until they are no longer contagious.

Answer 4:
According to CDC (2021), Contact tracing is one of the strategies used by public health
organizations to break the chain of viral transmission. Contact tracing is a critical
approach in the COVID-19 response to enable tracking of the growing COVID-19
pandemic as the number of vaccinated persons grows and vaccine reluctance and
access concerns persist.

Answer 5:
According to Craig & Rizvi, et al. (2021), The proper deployment of strategically stacked
NPIs, which comprise contact tracking as well as other treatments such as testing,
might attenuate and decrease illness burden by reducing viral disease incidence,
transmission, hospitalizations, and death.

Answer 6:
According to CDC (2020), Case investigation and contact tracing, which has been used
by municipal and state health department workers for decades, is an important
technique for avoiding the spread of COVID-19. Action must be taken right now. To curb
the spread of COVID-19, communities must scale up and train a big staff, as well as
collaborate across public and private institutions.

Answer 7:
According to the World Health Organization (2021), Contact tracing is a critical public
health strategy for managing infectious disease epidemics like the COVID-19 virus.
Contact tracing can break the chains of transmission by quickly identifying, isolating,
and treating patients, as well as providing supported quarantine of contacts, implying
that viral transmission can be halted.

Answer 8:
According to Keeling & Read, et al. (2020), Given adequate resources, contact tracing
is a very successful and resilient approach. The key benefits are that it can identify
possibly infected persons before serious symptoms appear, and if done fast enough, it
can prevent secondary cases from spreading.

Research Question 3:
How can COVID-19 transmit from person to person?

Answer 1:
According to Gautam & Trivedi (2020), COVID-19 is thought to spread by droplets or
aerosols released when coughing or sneezing, and airborne transmission occurs when
the remnant from evaporated, contaminated droplets becomes suspended in the air and
infects individuals who breathe it in.
Answer 2:
According to Yang (2016) Droplet transmission is the spread of infections from an
infected individual to a recipient via droplet nuclei that fall on the surface.

Answer 3:
According to Liu & Gayle, et al. (2020), A person can potentially become infected by
touching a contaminated surface, which results in fomite transmission.

Answer 4:
According to Doremalen & Bushmaker, et al. (2020), Coronaviruses have been shown
to survive for a few hours on aerosols, copper, printing papers, and tissue papers, and
for many days on cardboard, stainless steel, plastics, treated wood, glass, and
banknotes.

Answer 5:
According to Setti & Fabrizio, et al. (2020), According to an Italian investigation,
SARS-CoV-2 adheres to particulate matter in conditions of steady environment and high
concentration.

Answer 6:
According to Setti & Fabrizio, et al. (2020), As a result, the virus may be transmitted
over a greater distance by the carrier. In such instances, it is critical to do a quantitative
risk assessment to determine the potential health consequences of inhaling dust
containing Covid-19.

Answer 7:
According to Ong & Tan, et al. (2020) Covid-19 was also found in patient feces samples,
indicating that viral shedding in stool might be a possible route of faecal-oral
transmission.

Answer 8:
According to Zhang & Litvinova, et al. (2020),There is a risk of viral transmission from
toilet products to food and water via contaminated hands.
Research Question 4:
How many people can a single positive individual infect?

Answer 1:
According to McGinty (2020), Everyone is at risk of contracting it, and the virus has a
R0 (estimate of how many healthy individuals one infected person will infect) of 1.5 to
3.5, according to the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial
College London.

Answer 2:
According to Nightengale (2020), Although a person infected with a new coronavirus
may only infect a few individuals, there have been reported incidents of a single person
infecting dozens of others.

Answer 3:
According to Nightengale (2020), The sickness is contracted by one individual, who
subsequently infects two others. Depending on how contagious a sickness is, those two
persons can infect four other people, and so on. In the case of new coronavirus
(COVID-19), the number of persons infected with the virus might quickly double or
treble.

Answer 4:
According to Eisenberg (2020), R0 for this novel coronavirus has been calculated by a
number of organizations. R0 is predicted to be between 1.5 and 3.5 by the Imperial
College group. R0s in that range are used in the majority of modeling simulations that
anticipate future instances.

Answer 5:
According to the World Health Organization (2020), The World Health Organization
(WHO) initially assessed R0 of COVID-19 to be between 1.4 and 2.4. The forecast is
crucial because it allows governments to predict and strategize rapidly in order to avert
negative scenarios.

Answer 6:
According to Park & Cook, et al. (2020) R0 is predicted to be between 1.5 and 3.5 by
the Imperial College group.
Answer 7:
According to Zhang & Diao, et al. (2020) While the Italian model anticipated R0 to be
between 2.76 and 3.25, researchers from Lombardy who studied the early stages of the
outbreak in their region noted a fall in R0 quickly after mitigating measures were
implemented.

Answer 8:
According to Pei & Chen (2020), In early February, R0 was 2.28 on the Diamond
Princess Cruise Ship. They concluded that unless R0 is reduced by 25–50% by tight
infection management and control techniques, the estimated total cases in the next
decade would be high. If the R0 value is decreased by half, the number of cases is
reduced by half, and if the R0 value is reduced to one, the infectious cases
progressively die off.

Research Question 5:
How can social distancing and self isolation help to control the transmission of the
virus?

Answer 1:
According to Chang, et al. (2020), It was expected that social distance, when combined
with isolation/restrictions, would manage the condition within 13–14 weeks and lower
peak incidence by 40–60 percent..

Answer 2:
According to Basile, et al. (2020), Isolation methods can be beneficial in reducing
secondary viral spread.

Answer 3:
According to Hellwelle & Abbott, et al. (2020), To achieve 90 percent control over the
epidemic, around 80 percent of persons required to be traced and quarantined.

Answer 4:
According to National Jewish Health (2020), Social distancing is a public health strategy
used to reduce the transmission of infectious diseases such as coronavirus. A spray of
little liquid droplets is released into the air when a person coughs or sneezes. If you get
too close, you can breathe in the droplets as well as whatever viruses they may carry.
Social distance entails being cautious about what you expose yourself to and who you
associate with.
Answer 5:
According to CDC (2020), It is necessary for sick persons in self-isolation to stay away
from the public in order to prevent future infections to others. They are advised to seek
medical attention on a regular basis and to maintain contact with doctors because the
virus's intensity can be lethal.

Answer 6:
According to Maragakis (2020), For people who are confirmed to have COVID-19,
isolation is appropriate. Isolation is a health care term that means keeping people who
are infected with a contagious illness away from those who are not infected.

Answer 7:
According to Maragakis (2020), Social and physical separation, as well as
self-quarantine and isolation where appropriate, can all help to limit the incidence
of infection in a city, town, or community.

Answer 8:
According to Suppawittaya, et al. (2020), Concerning Covid-19's frequent transmission,
it has been declared a pandemic, and a variety of societal changes are being
implemented in a variety of nations to avoid further spread and relieve the situation,
including social distance, self-quarantine, and self isolation.

Research Question 6:
How to properly control the transmission of COVID-19?

Answer 1:
According to Bruin & Lequarre, et al. (2020), To avoid infection, several steps are used,
such as maintaining cleanliness, utilizing facemasks, isolation/quarantine, social
distance, and, in severe circumstances, lockdown in hotspot locations.

Answer 2:
According to Liu & Zhang, et al. (2020), It was critical to use hand sanitizer or wash
hands with soap for 20 seconds after sneezing or touching contaminated surfaces.
Surfaces were cleaned using a variety of solutions, including ethanol, isopropyl alcohol,
sodium hypochlorite bleach, and hydrogen peroxide.
Answer 3:
According to Heizerling & Stuckey, et al. (2020), Workers in health, transportation,
safety, security, and infrastructure were the most vulnerable to infection and hence
received first priority for personal protective equipment (PPE). Source control measures
such as masking patients and visitors with N95 or higher-level respirators, employing
telemedicine, and designating distinct locations/rooms for treatment all contributed to a
reduction in the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission among health personnel.

Answer 4:
According to McCourt (2020), Avoiding gatherings and maintaining a healthy distance of
1-2 m encouraged social/physical detachment.

Answer 5:
According to Chang, et al. (2020), It was expected that social distance, when combined
with isolation/restrictions, would manage the condition within 13–14 weeks and lower
peak incidence by 40–60 percent.

Answer 6:
According to Hellewell & Abbott et al. (2020), To achieve 90 percent control over the
epidemic, around 80 percent of persons required to be traced and quarantined.

Answer 7:
According to Kucharski, et al. (2020), Lockdown was implemented in numerous nations
in hotspot areas with the highest number of incidents. It comprised the entire shutdown
of public transportation, public venues, educational institutions, hotels, offices, and
industries, among other things. The illness transmission rate was cut in half as a result
of the lockdown.

Answer 8:
According to Ho & Lin, et al. (2020), People in poor nations began to utilize indigenous
fabric masks owing to a scarcity of medical masks. Cotton masks might be used instead
of medical masks because there is no discernible difference in droplet transmission.
Cotton masks are washable and reusable.

ANALYSIS OF RESULTS

In order to address our research questions, we summarized all of the information,

articles, and research papers linked to Covid-19 transmission in this study. This section
analyzes the answers presented in the results and discussion.
 The analysis results for each study topic are as follows:

Phases of COVID-19 Transmission

Phase I Restricted transmission with only a few patients having traveled

to afflicted nations.

Phase II The virus spreads in the local environment through symptomatic

or asymptomatic individuals with a travel history.

Phase III The community transmission in which persons who had no

contact with the asymptomatic and symptomatic patients begin
to exhibit symptoms.

Phase IV The illness crossed boundaries, resulting in inter-/intrastate

transmission, and the number of cases and fatalities increased
suddenly, culminating in an epidemic.

Phase V The original epidemic in China quickly spread to other nations in

Europe, America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, resulting in
a pandemic.

Figure 1: Phases of Covid-19 Transmission

Figure 1 shows the (5) five different phases of Covid-19 transmission. In this
table, it shows that in the first phase only a few patients that traveled to afflicted nations
resulted in a restricted transmission. The next phase is symptomatic and asymptomatic
individuals with a travel history spreading the virus in the local environment. In the third
phase, community transmission occurs when those who have had no interaction with
asymptomatic and symptomatic patients develop symptoms. Fourth phase happened
when the sickness crossed state lines, resulting in inter-/intrastate transmission, and the
number of cases and fatalities skyrocketed, resulting in an epidemic. At last the first
outbreak in China swiftly spread to other countries in Europe, America, Africa, Asia, and
the Middle East, resulting in a pandemic.
 Figure 2: Importance of Contact Tracing

Figure 2 shows an overview of what the eight (8) experts mentioned in their
articles, interviews, or research. The graph shows that all of the experts used contact
tracing on controlling the virus and discovered that it is effective. The experts' responses
differ, but they all agree that it is more effective if you can apply it fast, efficiently, and
isolate the positive individuals.

Figure 3: Different Modes of Transmission of Covid-19

 Figure 3 shows the different types of transmission of the virus. It shows that
symptomatic or asymptomatic you can infect others by coughing or sneezing. People
can catch a disease through either direct or indirect transmission, there are also
chances of virus transfer from toilet product to food and water through soiled hands.

Figure 4:Estimated Individuals One Infected Person will Infect

The graph shows the number of one positive people who can be infected,
estimated by different organizations. Three of the said organizations estimate that one
person can infect 1.5-3.5 persons. The remaining organizations estimated differently
and these are their estimations; 1.4-2.4 persons, 2-4 persons, 2.28 persons, 2.76-3.25
persons and the highest number of persons is 12.

Help of Self Isolation and Social Distancing on Controlling Covid-19 Transmission

Self isolation Social Distancing

Lower peak incidence by 40–60 percent. Lower peak incidence by 40–60 percent.

Reduced secondary virus spread Public health strategy

 90 percent control over the epidemic Help to limit the incidence of infection
in a community

Isolating to not positive individuals Distancing to others

Help to limit the incidence of infection

in a community

Figure 5: Self Isolation and Social Distancing

Figure 5 shows all the help that self isolation and social distancing contribute to
controlling Covid-19. The graph categorizes health strategies into two groups, self
isolation helps to control Covid-19 transmission by lowering the peak incidence by
40-60 percent, reducing virus spread, controlling epidemic by 90%, isolating negative
persons, and limiting infection in a community. Social distancing on the other hand is a
public health strategy that can also lower the peak by 40-60 percent, limiting infection in
a community, and distancing to other individuals that you don’t if they're positive.

Controlling Covid-19 Transmission

Maintaining cleanliness and utilizing facemasks

Isolation/quarantine and social distance

Health workers prioritizing using of (PPE) personal protective

equipment

Avoid gatherings and physical distancing of 1-2 m

Using of cloth mask

Lockdown in hotspot locations

Contact tracing

Figure 6: Controlling Covid-19 Transmission

The table displays several actions to take in order to restrict the transmission of
Covid-19 depending on various sources. According to the answers provided by many
sources, if these solutions are effectively utilized, they can assist the community in
managing epidemics and pandemics.
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