Between March and April 2020, Cyprus and Greece health authorities enforced three escalated levels of public health interventions to control the COVID-19 pandemic. We quantified compliance of asthmatic schoolchildren from both countries to intervention levels, using wearable sensors to continuously track personal location and physical activity. Changes in ‘fraction time spent at home’ and ‘total steps/day’ were assessed with a mixed-effects model adjusting for confounders.
We observed significant mean increases in ‘fraction time spent at home’ in Cyprus and Greece, during each intervention level by 41.4% and 14.3% (level 1), 48.7% and 23.1% (level 2) and 45.2% and 32.0% (level 3), respectively.
Physical activity in Cyprus and Greece demonstrated significant mean decreases by -2,531 and -1,191 (level 1), -3,638 and -2,337 (level 2) and -3,644 and -1,961 (level 3) total steps/day, respectively. We also report significant independent effects of weekends and age on fraction time spent at home and weekends, age, humidity and gender on physical activity.
We suggest that wearable technology provides objective, continuous, real-time location and activity data making possible to inform in a timely manner public health officials on compliance to various tiers of public health interventions during a pandemic.
The article was published on Europe PMC