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The places most at risk of becoming the scene of a Covid outbreak and acting as super-spreaders of contagions are restaurants, gyms and coffee shops: this is clear from a US study that has analyzed data from 98 million mobile phones over two months in major cities in the
United States
and compared them with infections to develop an
epidemiological model
on the spread of the
coronavirus
.
The study has been published in the scientific journal
Nature
, coinciding with the curfew imposed by the governor of the state of
New York
,
Andrew Cuomo
, which orders the closure of restaurants and bars at 10 p.m. and also an early closure for gyms.
As explained in
Nature
, researchers, scientists at
Stanford University
, the
Northwestern University of Chicago
and the research center of
Microsoft
in
Cambridge
have used a lot of anonymous data collected during the
first wave
of the epidemic
Covid
for two months since March in 10 of the largest cities in the United States, including
Chicago
,
Illinois
,
New York
and
Philadelphia
.
They then mapped the
hour-to-hour movements of 98 million cell phones
between different "points of interest" such as restaurants, churches, gyms, hotels, car dealerships and sporting goods stores in 57,000 surveyed neighborhoods.
Finally, they used this data to develop models of the spread of the infections and compare them with real data on the spread of the epidemic.
More infections in poor neighborhoods
The analyzes show, the researchers write in the study, that "a small minority of '
super-diffusing
'
POIs
are responsible for the vast majority of infections, and that limiting maximum occupancy at each critical point is more effective than uniformly reducing mobility" .
The public places that, according to these models, have caused the greatest increase in infections in the areas examined are restaurants at full capacity, followed by gyms, cafes, hotels and motels.
However, by limiting the presence in restaurants to 20% of their maximum capacity, the researchers argue, infections would be reduced by more than 80%.
The model also explains why poor neighborhoods in American cities have the highest rates of contagion: residents are less able to work from home, travel more, and go to busier businesses than in other areas.
In the two months examined, grocery stores in the poorest neighborhoods had on average 59% more visitors per hour per square meter.
If the study published by
Nature is
confirmed
, it could provide useful information on which activities to keep closed and which to keep open, in a way that minimizes the damage to the economy.
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