Using a sharing-platform to prevent a new outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in rural areas

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: A new wave of Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the epidemiological situation in Ukraine. This caused the need to tighten quarantine measures that have been introduced since 31.08.2020. The conducted analysis showed that there are 3 groups of technologies for digital contact tracing: from maximum (25%) to minimum (20%). Objective of the study is to develop an exchange platform to track the spread of COVID-19 in rural areas. METHODS: Factor analysis identified key factors of COVID-19 virus spread. Cluster analysis identified clusters of COVID-19 spread. Taxonomy method established the limits of using contact tracing methods. Discriminatory method makes it possible to change the applied contact tracing method. FINDINGS: The results showed that the identified factors (medico-demographic special features of Covid-19 virus spread; rural infrastructure to counteract the infection) describe in total 83.24% of the data processed. Specified 4 clusters differ in the level of susceptibility of the population to COVID-19 and infrastructure development: from minimum (33% of the united territorial communities) to maximum - 13% of the united territorial communities. The value of the integral indicator calculated provides means for establishing the maximum (8.5) and the minimum (2) limit of changes in the method of digital contact tracing. CONCLUSION: The developed methodology was implemented on the basis of the united territorial communities of Sumy region. Monitoring of changes in the epidemiological situation made it possible to justify the need to change the contact tracing model, which will reduce the epidemiological level in the region as a whole by 30%. ========================================================================================== COPYRIGHTS©2021 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers. ==========================================================================================