COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis

One of the current questions in the contemporary scientific debate is to explain factors determining the diffusion of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), a new viral infection that is generating a severe acute respiratory syndrome with serious pneumonia to manifold people worldwide that may result in progressive respiratory failure and death. To reduce the number of total deaths and infected individuals of COVID-19, many countries, universities, public and private research organizations have accelerated the scientific research production generating new knowledge about this new Coronavirus disease, but also many people/organizations not involved in research activities sought to provide innovative solutions, especially adopting what they already know, such as current technologies. This on-going accumulation of knowledge, driven by an accelerated velocity of science production on COVID-19 is due to a process of systematic research in labs to generate effective vaccines, new therapies, and new antiviral drugs that can counteract this global public health threat and future epidemics similar to COVID-19.Current literature in this field of research is rather fragmented and doesn’t tell us in a systematic framework the manifold and complex factors involved in transmission dynamics the COVID-19, effects of public policies (such as, lockdown) on public health and economic system and results for improving decision-making of the crisis management of COVID-19 in society.The goal of this book is to explain some characteristics related to factors determining the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 associated with geography, environment, atmosphere and social structure of cities and regions and effects of public policies applied by governments. In particular, this book, in an interdisciplinary perspective, describes a collection of new researches that can clarify some factors of the spread of COVID-19 in polluted cities extending and effects of containment measures to explain vital relationships that may be helpful for decision making of policymakers in different environments to solve this global health issue or at least reduce its impact in society and future social issues of similar viral agents. This book is designed for public and private managers and policymakers, as well as general readers that wish to clarify critical aspects of COVID-19 and that wish to expand their knowledge on these areas. I have attempted to minimize the use of extremely complex models, concepts and theories. Studies that I include here are integrated with cases study and empirical analyses based on real contexts of cities and nations, rather than on theoretical models that generate simulations with computer experiments to predict eventual real effects of the dynamics of COVID-19 pandemic in different urban contexts. In order to attain a reasonable depth, this book concentrates on selected topics of particular relevance to problems of COVID-19, and which meet the needs of the intended audience.