ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression of pyroptosis-related factors (NLRP3, IL-18, NF-kappa B, HMGB-1, and GSDMD) in patients who died of COVID-19. The expression levels of NLRP3, IL-18, NF-kappa B, HMGB-1, and GSDMD in lung and spleen tissues of the COVID-19 group and the control group were detected by tissue immunofluorescence. The control group includes lung tissues and spleen tissues of two patients who died unexpectedly without SARS-CoV-2 infection, and the COVID-19 group includes the lung and spleen tissues of three patients who died of SARS-CoV-2 virus infection. The positive rates of NF-kappa B, NLRP3, IL-18, and GSDMD in the lung tissues from the control group and COVID-19 group were 9.8% vs 73.4% (p = 0.000), 5.5% vs 63.6% (p = 0.000), 24.4% vs 76.2% (p = 0.000), and 17.5% and 46.8% (p = 0.000) respectively. The positive rates of NF-kappa B, NLRP3, IL-18, HMGB-1, and GSDMD in the spleen tissues from the control group and COVID-19 group were 20.6% vs 71.2% (p = 0.000), 18.9% vs 72.0% (p = 0.000), 15.2% vs 64.8% (p = 0.000), 27.6% vs 69.2% (p = 0.000), and 23% and 48.8% (p = 0.000), respectively. The positive rates of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the CD68 positive cells of the lung and spleen in the control group and COVID-19 group were 2.5% vs 56.8% (p = 0.000);3.0% vs 64.9% (p = 0.000) respectively. The rates of NF-kappa B positive nuclei in the control group and COVID-19 group were 13.4% vs 51.4% (p = 0.000) in the lung and 38.2% vs 59.3% (p = 0.000) in the spleen. The rates of HMGB-1 positive cytoplasm in the control and the COVID-19 group were 19.7% vs 50.3% (p = 0.000) in the lung and 12.3% vs 45.2% (p = 0.000) in the spleen. The targets of SARS-CoV-2 are the lung and spleen, where increased macrophages could be involved in the up-regulation of pyroptosis-related inflammatory factors such as NF-kappa B, HMGB-1, NLRP3, IL-18, and GSDMD.
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In: Park SY, van Doren TP, Frederick J, Butler SA, Chen ZJ, Carroll L. Deconstructing "Normal” for a More Equitable Post–COVID-19 World. American Journal of Public Health 2022;112(4):533-533. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022. 306743 Two author degrees were incorrect in the online version of the article. Lorne Carroll's degree was missing and Zhangying Jennie Chen's degree was incorrectly listed as BSN. The byline should read: Susanna Y Park, MA, Taylor P. van Doren, MA, Jynx Frederick, BSPH, Sabrina Azemar Butler, MS, Zhangying Jennie Chen, BS, and Lorne Carroll, BSN This change does not affect the paper's conclusions. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.306743e © 2022 American Public Health Association Inc.. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Mask wearing in public has become an important measure to control the spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). With the prolonged development of the COVID-19 epidemic, the public’s awareness of self-protection has been gradually declining, leading to the increasing tendency of wearing masks incorrectly in public. The existing mask wearing detection methods usually only detect whether the mask is worn, without the detection of non-standard mask wearing scenarios, which is likely to cause cross infection. The current mask datasets lack the image data of non-standard mask wearing. To solve the above problems, on the basis of the existing mask datasets, more non-standard mask wearing images were collected through the Internet and offline, and the Mosaic data enhancement algorithm was improved to expand the data according to the features of face images in the cases of wearing masks. The improved Mosaic data enhancement algorithm could improve the mean average precision (mAP) of the benchmark network YOLOv4 by 2.08%. To address the problem of category imbalance in the dataset after data enhancement, the dynamic weighted balance loss function was proposed. Based on the weight binary cross entropy loss function, the reciprocal of the number of effective samples served as the auxiliary category weight, and dynamic adjustment was performed in each batch under training, thus solving the problems of weak stability, precision oscillation, and unsatisfactory effect when the re-weighting method was directly put to use. The experiment showed that mAP of the improved model reached 91.25%, and the average precision (AP) of non-standard mask wearing reached 91.69%. Compared with such single-stage methods as RetinaNet, Centernet, and Effcientdet, and such two-stage methods as YOLOv3-MobileNetV2 and YOLOv4-MobileNetV2, the improved algorithm exhibits higher detection accuracy and speed. © 2022, Editorial of Board of Journal of Graphics. All rights reserved.
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Objective To describe the spatial distribution of COVID-19 cases in Shaanxi Province and further explore its relevant factors, so as to provide evidence for the prevention and control of COVID-19 in Shaanxi Province. Methods The information of confirmed COVID-19 cases and relevant socioeconomic data in Shaanxi Province were collected. The temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of confirmed cases, and the correlation between the incidence of COVID-19 and socioeconomic factors in the population were analyzed by using a generalized linear model. Results Four cases were first reported in Shaanxi on 23 January 2020, with the highest number of new confirmed cases reaching 23 on 4 February and no new cases after 19 February. The imported cases appeared earlier and reached the new peak than the local cases, and entered the zero stage earlier than the local cases. The spatial distribution showed that Xi′ an (120 cases) had the largest number of confirmed cases, accounting for 48.98% of the total cases, and the districts with more confirmed cases were in Lianhu, Yanta, Xincheng and Weiyang. Socioeconomic factors which significantly associated with the number of confirmed cases in each district and country were education expenditure (IRR=0.287, 95% CI: 0.134-0.612), GDP per capita (IRR=1.143, 95% CI: 1.049-1.245) and the distance from Wuhan (IRR=0.995, 95% CI: 0.992-0.998). Conclusion Measures should be taken in key areas and population at the early stage of the epidemic to control the spread of the epidemic as soon as possible. © 2021, Publication Centre of Anhui Medical University. All rights reserved.
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Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of fibrinolysis strategy in patients with acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) during the COVID-19 epidemic, and to provide reference value for optimization of fibrinolytic process on the premise of prevention and control of COVID-19 transmission, including self-protection of medical staff. Methods: The efficacy and safety of fibrinolysis were retrospectively analyzed in 7 patients with acute STEM, who hospitalized from February 29, 2020 to April 3, 2020 in the Department of Cardiology, Wuhan Union Hospital of Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology. To optimize the fibrinolytic process on the premise of prevention and control of COVID-19 transmission, including self-protection of medical staff, a full-time medical team in charge of fibrinolysis under third-grade protection was established. The acute STEMI patients were treated immediately in a fixed and isolated area in emergency department before receiving green channel fibrinolysis. Blood samples for complete blood count, COVID-19 antibody test and nasopharyngeal swab samples for COVID-19 nucleic acid test were made before fibrinolysis, while the chest CT examination was accomplished after fibrinolysis. By comparing differences of time from the first electrocardiogram (ECG) to fibrinolysis before and after the improvement of fibrinolytic process, the effect of optimization of the fibrinolytic process was evaluated. Results: In the present study, seven patients with acute STEMI received fibrinolysis therapy, 6 of them achieved reperfusion and no bleeding was observed in all of the patients. Five out of the 7 patients were hospitalized after fibrinolysis, and the hospitalization days were 19.6 days on average. By following up to April 14, 2020, none of the 7 patients died. The first 2 patients were treated according to the routine medical procedure and the time from the first ECG to fibrinolysis were 201 and 106 minutes, respectively. After the optimization of the fibrinolytic process, the time from the first ECG to fibrinolysis of the last 5 patients were 42, 46, 51, 43 and 54 minutes, respectivelyï¼which was significantly shorter than that before optimization. Conclusions: During the COVID-19 epidemic, fibrinolysis in patients with acute STEMI is safe, effective and easy to implement. Therefore, it is recommended as the top priority for the patients with acute STEMI with indications for fibrinolysis. On the premise of prevention and control of COVID-19 transmission, including self-protection of medical staff, the duration of myocardial ischemia can be shortened by optimization of the fibrinolytic process.