ABSTRACT
Wastewater-based epidemiology is an important public health tool with great applicability when facing the COVID-19 pandemic, since infected individuals are able to excrete SARS-CoV-2 particles. In this context, this study aimed to correlate the number of cases of COVID-19 with physical and chemical variables and the presence of the virus in raw sewage samples from a sewage treatment plant (SIP) in the municipality of Lavras, Minas Gerais, Brazil, collected between the 19th and 25th epidemiological weeks. The samples were concentrated by electronegative membrane adsorption method and SARS-CoV-2 RNA was extracted, detected, and quantified by RT-qPCR using oligonucleotides and probes for the N gene. Moreover, the variables pH, total suspended solids, and chemical oxygen demand were evaluated. COVID-19 cases were obtained from epidemiological bulletins made available by the municipal government From the 24th epidemiological week on, a reduction in viral concentration (copies L-1) was observed concomitantly with the pandemic response countermeasures initiated by the municipality. A strong and significant positive correlation (p<0.05) between viral load and number of confirmed cases was obtained through Spearman's test. However, there was no correlation between the presence of the virus and the physical and chemical characteristics of the sewage. Therefore, it is suggested that further research be carried out in order to track SARS-CoV-2 concentrations in wastewater, thus corroborating with the fight against the pandemic and the achievement of epidemiological surveillance systems based on sewage monitoring.
ABSTRACT
The challenges of university processes in times of emergency in history do not refer to substantial changes until March 2020 with the appearance of the new SARS COV-19 coronavirus. The substantive processes in higher education institutions have undergone transformations in their conceptions and methodologies, in the case of the academy, in the development of classes with the virtual modality, these changes have been extremely renovating in some cases and in others of assumption of some semi-presential and distance modalities. The main purpose is to describe the process of virtuality in classes and their interactions between teachers and students, at first with the COVID 19 state of emergency, and to induce prospective elements of these experiences in a POST-COVID 19 scenario. This research explores and describes the main ways in which teachers interact with students and vice versa, in the development of classes, under the study and analysis of the sample of research subjects taught by the authors in the Law program at the Puyo branch of Uniandes, based on a virtual survey conducted after the first month of the new modality. The main results point to an understanding of graduating the interactions and the depth of these in terms of content and permanent evaluations of all the subjects of the curriculum, and the decisions to opt for the appropriate virtual resources.
ABSTRACT
The current times of higher education in the world, with the appearance of the new Sars-Cov-2 virus, and its incidence in the Covid-19 disease that has disrupted the planet, have been, are and will be difficult for its new organization, planning, execution, control, evaluation and feedback. The substantive functions and their essential interrelations have also been affected and somewhat chaotic at first. As part of these, formative research - a trend that affects the interrelation of academia with research - has had to reinvent itself when it comes to understanding the spaces and times of interaction, and especially the modeling of forms of organization, not different but if differentiating in their conception and application. The present work promotes, from the point of view of participatory action research, with an exploratory and descriptive scope, the ways of interaction of formative research, from the curricular development of the subjects of the field of training of epistemology and methodology of the research in the Law career of the Universidad Regional Autonoma de los Andes. The application of proposals of forms of organization of the teaching-learning process is carried out, totally virtual, through the conceptions of formative research, which exposes partial results that denote the functionality and importance of the above with the influence of its own novelties of the virtual platform Moodle and those of videoconferences, prioritizing Microsoft Teams and Zoom.