[New characteristics of COVID-19 caused by the Omicron variant in Guangzhou].

We investigated the types of novel coronavirus strains present during the Omicron epidemic from late 2022 to early 2023, COVID-19 co-infections with other pathogens, and clinical characteristics of patients with novel coronavirus infections. Adult patients hospitalized due to SARS CoV-2 infection in six hospitals in Guangzhou city were included in the study from November 2022 to February 2023. Clinical information was collected and analyzed, and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid was obtained for pathogen detection using a variety of techniques, including standard methods and mNGS, tNGS. The results showed that the main strain circulating in Guangzhou was Omicron BA.5.2, and the overall detection rate of potentially pathogenic pathogens combined with Omicron COVID-19 infection was 49.8%. In patients with severe COVID-19 infection, special attention should be paid to aspergillosis and combined Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. In additon, Omicron strain infection could cause viral sepsis, which led to a worse prognosis for COVID-19 patients. Diabetic patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection did not benefit from glucocorticoid treatment, and caution was necessary when using glucocorticoids. These findings highlighted some new features of severe Omicron coronavirus infection that should be noted.

A Novel Snore Detection and Suppression Method for a Flexible Patch With MEMS Microphone and Accelerometer

Sleep apnea impacts more and more people all over the world, and obstructive sleep apnea of which is the most frequent. Hence, research on snoring detection and related suppression methods is extremely urgent. In this article, a novel low-cost flexible patch with MEMS microphone and accelerometer is developed to detect snore event and sleeping posture, and a small vibration motor embedded in the patch is designed to suppress snoring. Theoretical analyses of short-time energy, piecewise average filtering (PAF), and Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) processing are described in detail, and the improved MFCCs are put forward and used as the input of the convolutional neural network (CNN). Furthermore, the snore recognition method based on the combination of similarity analysis and CNN analysis is presented, followed by the snoring suppression method. Experimental results demonstrate that the main features of the sound signals can be extracted effectively by PAF and MFCCs processing, and the data compression ratio is about 99.41%. Besides, the locations of the eigenvectors can be found accurately based on short-time energy analysis. The numbers of high similarity of snoring signals within 30 s are larger than 3, while those of non-snoring signals are often less than 3. If the preliminary screening with similarity analysis is passed, CNN analysis will be conducted to judge whether there are snoring events. The accuracy of snore recognition with CNN analysis is calculated to be as high as 99.25%. Finally, the average snoring time measured by the smart patch with snoring suppression is reduced to 15 from 135 min, which indicates that the proposed snore recognition and suppression methods are effective.

[Analysis of bronchoscope-guided tracheal intubation in 12 cases with coronavirus disease 2019 under the personal protective equipment with positive pressure protective hood].

Endotracheal intubation is an independent risk factor for respiratory infectious diseases. We conducted a retrospective study in 12 cases with COVID-19 who underwent endotracheal intubation at ICU of the Guangzhou eighth hospital from January 20 to February 10, 2020. The intubation procedure, anesthetic regimen, and complication were collected and analyzed. The 9 healthcare workers who involved in intubation received virus nucleic acid test and 14 days temperature monitoring. All 12 patients were successfully intubated under the guidance of bronchoscope, without any complications. Midazolam, Propofol and Morphine or fentanyl were used for sedation and analgesia, avoiding patients cough and agitated during the procedure. The 9 healthcare workers were protected under the Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) with positive pressure protective hood. The detection of oropharyngeal swab virus nucleic acid were negative in all 9 healthcare workers, none of them had fever or any respiratory symptoms. The PPE with positive pressure protective hood should be needed to perform bronchoscope-guided endotracheal intubation in patients with COVID-19, it could strengthen to protect healthcare workers from virus exposure.