ABSTRACT
Purpose: In general, children have less severe disease with SARSCoV2 infection than adults. However, some children do experience life-threatening sequelae from infection. In order to analyze inflammatory responses to SARS-CoV2 and clinical outcomes, this study evaluates the plasma protein profiles of pediatric COVID19 patients compared to HLH, severe sepsis, Kawasaki disease, febrile viral illness and healthy controls Methods: The Luminex platform measured 150 analytes in 108 patients with pediatric COVID19, 32 of which developed MIS-C, 16 with HLH, 14 with severe sepsis, 25 with Kawasaki disease, 21 with febrile viral illness, and 20 health controls. The results were tested for significant proteins with a p<=0.05 and those that pasted with an FDR cut off of 0.1 and 80% confidence. Semi-supervised learning using protein analyte profiles of inflammatory disease were used to predict COVID19 similarities and clinical outcomes were compared Results: Analyte comparison COVID19 patients revealed increase in CXCL9 in patients with MIS-C. Semi-supervised predictions revealed HLH as the most common predictor and showed that an HLH plasma signature in pediatric patients with COVID19 was associated with higher instances of MIS-C, longer hospital stay, and higher instances of respiratory failure Conclusion(s): This evaluation of plasma proteins demonstrated that pediatric patients with SARS-Cov2 infection with inflammatory plasma profile similar to an HLH signature experienced more severe disease These results reflect complex range of immune responses in children with COVID19, and they support potential for prospective risk stratification using plasma biomarkers.
ABSTRACT
Vaxication (i.e., post-vaccination travel) and branding destinations for COVID-19 safety have emerged as the cornerstones to fully rebound global tourism. Numerous destination brands are now stimulating tourism demand through realigned travel incentives specifically for fully vaccinated travelers. However, there is growing fear and incidents of travel shaming across destinations, especially due to the recent outbreaks of the highly contagious COVID-19 'delta and omicron' variants. Addressing this critical research gap, the present study makes pioneering efforts to empirically examine the effects of COVID-19 branded destination safety (CBDS) on vaxication intentions, under the moderating influence of travel shaming and travel incentives. Drawing on study data from 560 fully-vaccinated residents from Hawaii, United States and structural equation modeling (SEM) with Mplus, the evidence suggests that the positive impact of CBDS on vaxication intention can be further strengthened by travel incentives, or weakened when travel shaming picks up more momentum. Besides the validation of newly developed scales, the study offers strategic insights based on dominant theories (e.g., theory of planned behavior and protection motivation theory) to interpret the changing tourism demand, and to transform the emerging challenges into opportunities through and beyond the pandemic.
ABSTRACT
This research aims to conduct a cross cultural study of Mainland Chinese and the United States (U.S.) seniors’ personality traits and identify how they affect motivation, preferences, sociodemographic, and travel-related characteristics. Using samples of 496 Mainland Chinese and 532 U.S. senior responses, this research determined that three personality traits (psychocentric, midcentric, and allocentric) described U.S. senior participants and two personality traits (psychocentric and midcentric) described Mainland Chinese senior participants. Using a series of analytical tools including one-way ANOVA, regression, independent sample t-test, and chi-square tests, differences between senior tourists’ personality traits and other variables were determined across U.S. and Mainland Chinese senior samples and across the measurement constructs. Practical implications are discussed and recommendations for future research are provided. © 2021 Asia Pacific Tourism Association.