Analysis of high-risk and low-risk clusters of covid-19 disease and its relationship with compliance of health protocols in public places in 10 districts of Tabriz city

Abstract

After the emergence of the SARS CoV-2 virus in September 2019, the disease of Covid-19 and its cause spread rapidly all over the world and caused a lot of damage to human societies in terms of psychological, economic, social, etc. Development and implementation of non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) such as using face masks and observing social distance, especially in public and high-traffic places, was one of the important pillars of dealing with the spread of this disease. Also, the identification of high and low risk areas of the society in the disease and death caused by it, helped the governments to identify high risk areas and carry out strategies to deal with this disease in a more effective way. The present study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the high-risk and low-risk clusters of the Covid-19 disease and its relationship with the level of compliance with countermeasures health protocols in public places in Tabriz city in order to prevent future possible epidemics. This study was conducted in two phases at the same time, the first phase included the estimation of the rate of covid-19 disease and the death caused by it in Tabriz city in the first 6 months of the year 1400 and their analysis. the second phase was the assessment of the compliance of health protocols in food preparation and distribution centers and public places in different areas of the city that done by using a checklist and completing it. The results showed that regions 4 and 9 had the highest and lowest values in the number of registered patients and regions 3 and 9 in the number of recorded deaths, respectively. Also, the ratio of the number of patients to the population in regions 2 and 7 and the ratio of the number of deaths to the population in regions 3 and 9 were the highest and lowest, respectively. regions 1, 3, 4 and 8 for the ratio of the number of deaths to the population and regions 4 and 10 for the ratio of the number of deaths to patients were among the areas with high-risk clusters, while regions 5 and 9 were considered areas by both indicators were identified as low risk. Compliance with health protocols was higher regions 2, 5, and 1 than other areas, and regions 6, 7, and 10 had the lowest protocol compliance. Among the occupational groups, the confectionery and teahouse groups had the highest and lowest compliance percentages, respectively. The less privileged areas of Tabriz city (in terms of economy, health) were among the high-risk areas of the city in terms of the death of Covid-19 patients, and compliance with health protocols in these areas was less than in the more privileged areas of the city. Also, no statistically significant relationship was observed between compliance with health protocols in selected public places and the number of patients and deaths (due to the presence of many confounders), but the results showed the positive effect of compliance with these protocols in reducing the number of deaths in the regions.