Epidemics
Resource: https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/containing-unusual-resistance/index.html
Dangerous antibiotic-resistant germs can spread easily. In this article and video, the CDC seek to prevent this spreading by noticing that unusual resistance is easily contained when it has yet to spread. The Containment Strategy would encourage Health departments to act swiftly with health care facilities and CDC at the first sign of unusual resistance. Enforcing actions such as rapid identification, infection control assessments, colonization screenings, coordinated response between facilities, and continued assessments and screenings, can aid in finding and responding to unusual resistance early and aggressively which then can stop its spread and protect people. This is heavily relevant to the topic of Epidemics in our course.
According to the branching process model, we denote k as the number of neighbors and p as the probability that the infected people will pass on contagion to their neighbors. R0 = p*k denotes the basic productive number, or the expected number of people who would be affected by the epidemic. In the case that R0 > 1, then the disease persists indefinitely to spread. Many public health activities attempt to reduce R0 by working on the p factor and reduce the likelihood of the infected person coming into contact with its neighbors by enforcing better sanitary measures during flu season. However, CDC’s approach to reduce the aggressiveness of the epidemic is actually by working on the k factor and containing the diseased people from reaching their neighbors in the first place in order to prevent contagion.