Changes in the Facial Microbiome in Healthy Women After Wearing Masks during COVID-2019 (preprint)

Wearing masks has become a new normal in our daily lives because of the global outbreak of COVID-2019 (COVID-19). To compare the differences in the facial microbiota of healthy women before and after wearing masks and to further explore the probable effect of the habits of regularly wearing masks on the facial microbiome, we re-enrolled the same 19 healthy female participants in our previous study and detected the microbial composition of facial DNA samples using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Both alpha and beta diversity, and the abundance and function of facial microflora of recruited healthy women changed remarkably before and after wearing masks. The destination with different air quality indices, which ever was the strongest factor on microbial composition before wearing masks, no longer contributed to both microbiota composition and pathway after wearing masks. Sufficient sleep protected skin from sensitivity and apoptosis, which might be related to Prevotella expression and the function of cytochrome c. Maskne was the common complication of wearing masks. Suitable mask-wearing habits should be recommended to avoid facial skin problems.

Risk factors associated with fatal outcomes of novel coronavirus infection pneumonia (COVID-19): A systematic review and meta-analysis (preprint)

Background: The COVID-19 infection has caused 111652 deaths worldwide as of 13 April 2020. Risk factors for fatal outcomes of COVID-19 have varied across studies due to limited samples and have lacked effective qualitative and quantitative measurements. We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate risk factors for fatal outcomes of COVID-19.Methods: Data on demographic, clinic, laboratory findings and complications were extracted. Quantitative and qualitative synthesis was conducted for weighted-mean-difference (WMD) and odds-ratio (OR).Results: A total of 30 studies involving 5741 survivors and 1670 deaths were included. The death cases were significantly older than survivors (WMD=15.36, 95% CI: 12.90-17.82), male and smoking history showed higher risk to develop fatal outcome (OR=3.37, 95% CI: 2.27-5.01; OR=1.37, 95% CI: 1.02-1.83, respectively). The clinical symptoms including dyspnea (OR=4.63, 95% CI: 2.85-7.54), hemoptysis (OR=3.11, 95% CI: 1.26-7.56), malaise (OR=2.44, 95% CI: 1.49-3.97). comorbidities with coronary heart disease (OR=4.36, 95% CI: 1.91-9.97), COPD (OR=3.70, 95% CI: 2.03-6.73) and cardiovascular disease (OR=3.45, 95% CI: 2.54-4.70). Compared to survivors, many laboratory indexes increased in deaths group, including serum ferritin (WMD=741.47, 95% CI: 566.77-916.16), lactate dehydrogenase (WMD=226.86, 95% CI: 177.08-276.64) and myoglobin (WMD=102.58, 95% CI: 65.12-140.04), and the decreased indexes included PaO2/FiO2 (WMD=-71.61, 95% CI: -134.11 to -9.11), platelets (WMD=-41.09, 95% CI: -47.33 to -34.85) and PaO2 (WMD=-26.09, 95% CI: -38.9 to -13.29). Main complications contributed to the fatal outcome included sepsis (OR=184.61, 95% CI: 33.43-1019.42), shock (OR=133.76, 95% CI: 36.86-485.34) and respiratory failure (OR=47.37, 95% CI: 20.65-108.66). Conclusion: The main risk factors associated with fatal outcome of COVID-19 involved male, older age, smoking history, chronic medical conditions including coronary heart disease, COPD and cardiovascular disease, clinical symptoms including dyspnea, hemoptysis and malaise, the increased laboratory indexes including serum ferritin, lactate dehydrogenase and myoglobin, the decreased indexes including PaO2/FiO2, platelets and PaO2, main complications including sepsis, shock and respiratory failure. These factors could be considered in triaging patients and allocating medical resources when such medical resources are scarce, devising improved protocols for patient diagnosis and management, and developing new drugs and other therapies to treat COVID-19 patients.