ArticleGlobal policy2021
COVID-Apps: Misdirecting Public Health Attention in a Pandemic.
Article in Global policy, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Public health system in post-pandemic Sierra Leone: a scoping review.BMC infectious diseases · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
When there is no vaccine for a disease, 'Test, Trace, Treat/Isolate' is the public health go-to directive. During the COVID-19 pandemic, mobile phone apps are designed to improve on this. But COVID-apps have not been effective as a public health tool. Countries spend millions to develop them, yet they have been shown to have terrible return on investment. This commentary explores why COVID-apps are generally championed and provides three brief case studies (Germany, Sierra Leone, Canada) of non-app public health success. In conclusion, I argue that we need to get our public health care priorities straight: Better and more testing; increased investment in manual contact tracing and treatments; hospitalization when necessary; and wrap-around care - assistance with groceries, cleaning, child- or eldercare responsibilities, telehealth doctor appointment hookups - for sick people in home isolation.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.