Contraception access during the COVID-19 pandemic

• Published in: Contraception and reproductive medicine 2020-10, Vol.5 (1), p.17-17, Article 17
• Main Authors: Aly, Jasmine, Haeger, Kristin O, Christy, Alicia Y, Johnson, Amanda M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access; Contraception; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Epidemics; Mortality; Pandemic; Pandemics
• ISSN: 2055-7426; 2055-7426
• DOI: 10.1186/s40834-020-00114-9

Chinese health authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) on December 31, 2019, and by January 30, 2020, WHO designated the outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern [2]. Without mitigation efforts in place, healthcare systems risk being stretched beyond capacity in, for example, intensive care unit (ICU) beds, personal protective equipment (PPE), and ventilators for treating patients with COVID-19. In a modified susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered (SEIR) model by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), it was projected that India will have 558,832 cases (95% confidence interval (CI): 391,731–1,031,743) and 20,792 deaths (95% CI: 16,039–34,705) by September 16, 2020, assuming no changes in public health interventions and that infected individuals have life-long immunity after recovery [9]. Limitations of the models include caveats that confirmed deaths and cases are underestimates based only on symptomatic individuals, case definitions may change, data may be skewed by differences in reporting by region or public health department, and seasonality is not figured in.