Barriers to in-Person Focus Group Participation during the Third-Year of COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Colorectal Cancer (CRC) Screening in Underrepresented Groups

Objectives: In the process of conducting research to understand barriers to colorectal cancer (CRC) screening in underrepresented groups such as Blacks and Hispanics, it became evident that there were also barriers to recruitment in this population. This study assesses the challenges faced in recruitment of focus group participants regarding CRC screening practices among underrepresented groups. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, qualitative research participants have primarily been interviewed through online video or audio interactions. However, as restrictions on in-person interactions have been lifted, in-person focus groups are being increasingly considered. Method(s): The study investigators began recruitment through community health workers in August 2022, when COVID-19 vaccines were available for all adults (age>18 years). Eligible individuals were: age 45-75, Black or Hispanic, with Medicaid or no insurance, and no family history of CRC or diagnosis of certain colon-related diseases. We combined in-person and virtual recruitment strategies, including posting flyers in communities, advertising our study at health fairs, and on social media. Participants would receive a $50 gift card. Result(s): Fifty-five met the eligibility criteria among 144 respondents, and 45 subjects (29 women and 16 men) agreed to be contacted. An average of 2.5 attempts were made per eligible subject. Unfortunately, we were able to recruit only four women (3 Hispanic and one non-Hispanic black). Traveling to the research site was a barrier to participation. Many subjects (49%) requested virtual participation (online video or audio interactions);some declined because the topic was too sensitive (considered taboo), and eligible men were reluctant to participate in-person. Conclusion(s): The requirement of in-person participation affected our recruitment goals, suggesting that COVID-19 has shifted the preferences of research participants to virtual interaction. In response to the eligible participant preferences, the study protocol has been revised to re-contact patients and schedule virtual FG sessions.Copyright © 2023

COVID-19 after two years: trajectories of different components of mental health in the Spanish population.

AIMS: Our study aimed to (1) identify trajectories on different mental health components during a two-year follow-up of the COVID-19 pandemic and contextualise them according to pandemic periods; (2) investigate the associations between mental health trajectories and several exposures, and determine whether there were differences among the different mental health outcomes regarding these associations. METHODS: We included 5535 healthy individuals, aged 40-65 years old, from the Barcelona Brain Health Initiative (BBHI). Growth mixture models (GMM) were fitted to classify individuals into different trajectories for three mental health-related outcomes (psychological distress, personal growth and loneliness). Moreover, we fitted a multinomial regression model for each outcome considering class membership as the independent variable to assess the association with the predictors. RESULTS: For the outcomes studied we identified three latent trajectories, differentiating two major trends, a large proportion of participants was classified into 'resilient' trajectories, and a smaller proportion into 'chronic-worsening' trajectories. For the former, we observed a lower susceptibility to the changes, whereas, for the latter, we noticed greater heterogeneity and susceptibility to different periods of the pandemic. From the multinomial regression models, we found global and cognitive health, and coping strategies as common protective factors among the studied mental health components. Nevertheless, some differences were found regarding the risk factors. Living alone was only significant for those classified into 'chronic' trajectories of loneliness, but not for the other outcomes. Similarly, secondary or higher education was only a risk factor for the 'worsening' trajectory of personal growth. Finally, smoking and sleeping problems were risk factors which were associated with the 'chronic' trajectory of psychological distress. CONCLUSIONS: Our results support heterogeneity in reactions to the pandemic and the need to study different mental health-related components over a longer follow-up period, as each one evolves differently depending on the pandemic period. In addition, the understanding of modifiable protective and risk factors associated with these trajectories would allow the characterisation of these segments of the population to create targeted interventions.

Analysis of COVID-19 Lockdown Effects on Urban Air Quality: A Case Study of Monterrey, Mexico

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused several millions of deaths and forced the world population to a new normality. This study aims to analyze the air quality variation of several gaseous pollutants (CO, NO2, SO2, O3, PM10, and PM2.5) during the pre-lockdown, lockdown, and unlock period in the city of Monterrey using ground-based measurements. In this research, we proposed to use a control period of previous years to identify parameter variation due to local climate. The results showed a drastic decrease in measured contaminants during the lockdown period as follows: SO2 (−41.9%) > PM10 (−30.5%) > PM2.5 (−25.6%) > NO2 (−14.9%) > CO (−9.8%) compared to the control period (2017–2019). The O3 was the only air pollutant that showed an opposite trend, increasing during lockdown (+15%) and unlock (+2.2%), whereas CO (−16.6%) and NO2 (−30.6%) were further decreased. Moreover, using OMI/AURA satellite data, we detected a NO2 tropospheric column reduction by −1.9% during lockdown concerning the same period in the control interval. Moreover, we found a significant improvement in the Air Quality Index (AQI) due to the lockdown. Our findings indicate an association between air pollutants and economic activity and can be used in future strategies to improve urban air quality. © 2022 by the authors.

Eating habits and academic stress among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic, Paraguay 2021

The objective of the study was to identify the eating habits related to the level of stress among students of the National University of Caaguazu during the COVID-19 pandemic. A descriptive, observational, cross-sectional study was carried out with 353 students selected from different faculties. Demographic variables, eating habits and academic stress were studied. A total of 353 university students were included in the study, 64.9% female, and 59.5% under 23 years of age. 36.5% belonged to the Faculty of Production Sciences while 30% were from the third year. In total, 64.8% (229 students) had a high level of stress. High stress level was related to high consumption of sweets (AOR= 2.94, 1.57-5.51), high consumption of fast food (AOR= 2.23, 1.14-4.32), low consumption of fruits (AOR= 1.66, 0.99-2.79), skipping lunch (AOR= 2.94, 1.55-5.60), and increased daily snacks (AOR= 3.36, 1.74-6.47). The results of our study made visible the problem that academic stress during the Covid-19 pandemic influenced the acquisition of bad eating habits. Copyright © 2022, Sociedad Chilena de Nutricion Bromatologia y Toxilogica. All rights reserved.

Psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on head of household residents in a marginal population of North Lima

The objective of this research is to determine the psychological impact of the coronavirus pandemic on heads of families residing in a marginal population of North Lima. It is a quantitative study, with a descriptive-cross-sectional and correlational design, with a population of 360 heads of household residents in 4 human settlements in North Lima, where two instruments were used to find the psychological impact and fear regarding COVID-19. In the results, the normality of the distribution of the results of the variables and their dimensions was determined through the Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test. The results identified that the results of the variables and their components have a non-normal distribution (p<0.05), therefore, nonparametric tests will be used to find relationships between them or with the characteristics of the sample, also it indicates that the female sex shows a close correlation in both applied instruments. In conclusion, strategies for the promotion and prevention of mental health should be sought, so that the population can have the necessary knowledge to develop strategies to protect their mental health. © 2022 The Authors. Published by IASE.

Assessing the accuracy of multiple prognostic scores for immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in patients with advanced solid tumors

Background: Many patients fail to achieve a clinical benefit from ICI. Several scores have been developed to improve ICI candidates selection but it is uncertain which one better predicts patients’ outcome. Here, we performed a direct comparison of the most successful scores. Methods: This is a sub-analysis of the immunoblood prospective observational study that enrolled patients diagnosed with advanced solid tumors treated with ICI. Main clinicopathological data were retrieved from medical records and responses assessed according to RECIST 1.1 criteria. LIPI, RMH, PMH, dNLR, NLR, PIPO and GRIm scores were calculated. Receiving operator characteristics (ROC) curves and their area under curve (AUC) were used to predict PFS and durable clinical benefit (DCB;stable disease≥6 months or better). Associations with PFS, OS and DCB, where assessed with Cox and logistic regressions. Scores’ correlation was assessed with Spearman rho. Significance was set at p<0.05. Results: We recruited 155 patients (65% male, mean age 63). NSCLC (28%), colorectal (20%) breast (9%) H&N (6%) cancer and melanoma (6%) were the most frequent tumor types. Frequency of the high risk/bad outcome group of each score were: LIPI 13%, RMH 36%, PMH 54%, GRIm 14%, PIPO 6%, NLR 32% and dNRL 27%. Fair accuracy in identifying patients at higher risk of progression or mild accuracy in predicting DCB were observed for the RMH (AUC PFS: 0.7, 95%CI: 0.6-0.8;AUC DCB: 0.6, 0.5-0.8) and LIPI (AUC PFS: 0.7, 95%CI: 0.6-0.8;AUC: 0.6, 0.5-0.7) scores. All other scores provided poor/no accuracy. No significant difference was observed between RMH and LIPI AUC for PFS and DCB (both p>0.05). Additionally, only LIPI and RMH were associated with PFS (p=0.001;p<0.001), OS (p<0.001;p=0.001) and DCB (p=0.034;p=0.010) at univariate analyses. At multivariate analyses RMH and LIPI remained significantly associated with PFS (p=0.030;p=0.021) and OS (p=0.012;p<0.001). A strong correlation between both scores (rho=0.72, p<0.001) was observed. Conclusions: RMH and LIPI scores were sufficiently reliable in assessing the prognosis of patients with advanced solid tumors treated with ICI. They were superior to other analyzed scores in our population and highly correlated. Legal entity responsible for the study: Hospital Clinic y Provincial de Barcelona, Medical Oncology Department. Funding: Has not received any funding. Disclosure: J. Garcia-Corbacho: Financial Interests, Personal, Advisory Board, FGFR inhibitors implementation in clinical practice: Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical;Financial Interests, Institutional, Invited Speaker, Participation in clinical trials of the company as PI: Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical, Boehringer Ingelheim, Astellas, Cytomx, Incyte, Lilly, Menarini, Merck, Bayer, AstraZeneca, Amgen, Daiichi Sankyo. L. Mezquita: Financial Interests, Personal, Advisory Board: Takeda, AstraZeneca, Roche;Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker: Roche, BMS, AstraZeneca, Takeda;Financial Interests, Personal, Research Grant, SEOM Beca Retorno 2019: BI;Financial Interests, Personal, Research Grant, ESMO TR Research Fellowship 2019: BMS;Financial Interests, Institutional, Research Grant, COVID research Grant: Amgen;Financial Interests, Institutional, Invited Speaker: Inivata, Stilla. N. Baste Rotllan: Non-Financial Interests, Advisory Role: Eisai, MSD, Merck Serono, BioNTech, Roche, BMS, Exelixis. A. Prat: Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker: Roche;Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker, Lecture fees: Novartis, Daiichi Sankyo;Financial Interests, Personal, Advisory Board, Advisory role/consultancy: Novartis, Pfizer, BMS, Puma, Oncolytics Biotech, MSD, Guardant Health, Peptomyc;Financial Interests, Institutional, Invited Speaker, Clinical trials: Daiichi Sankyo;Financial Interests, Institutional, Other, Contracted research: Boehringer, Medica Scientia Inno. Research;Financial Interests, Personal, Advisory Board: AstraZeneca;Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker, Leadership role: Reveal Genomics, SL.;Financial I terests, Personal, Stocks/Shares: Reveal Genomics, Oncolytics Biotech;Financial Interests, Personal, Royalties: Reveal Genomics;Financial Interests, Institutional, Invited Speaker: Roche, AstraZeneca, Novartis;Financial Interests, Personal and Institutional, Invited Speaker: Daiichi Sankyo;Non-Financial Interests, Institutional, Other, Leadership roles: Patronage committee: SOLTI Foundation, Actitud Frente al Cáncer Foundation. All other authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

TIME, HASSLE, AND ENCOUNTER TYPE AS PERCEIVED BARRIERS TO USE OF INTERPRETATION SERVICES FOR PATIENTS WITH LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENCY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

BACKGROUND: Underuse of interpretation services for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) patients has been both widely reported in popularmedia and is increasingly documented in the literature. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of healthcare and has directly impacted the use of interpreters with barriers such as strict visitation policies, limited patient interactions with healthcare workers, and withdrawal of in-person interpreters from the hospital setting. In this study we assess the use of interpreter services by healthcare professionals (HCPs) for LEP patients at an academic teaching hospital during the pandemic. METHODS: A combination of quantitative and qualitative data was obtained, and a total of 107 HCPs responded to the survey between August and October 2021. The majority of respondents were physicians (50.4%) and the largest specialties represented were Internal Medicine, Hospital Medicine, and medical subspecialties (36.4%). RESULTS: Study participants reported a preference for digital interpreters. Despite affirming the importance of interpretation services for LEP patients and endorsing the use of telephone and tablet digital methods, many HCPs cite hassle and time constraints as limiting factors for the use of interpreter services. HCPs reported wide variation in use of interpretation services based on type of encounter. Of HCPs who assessed themselves as non-fluent in Spanish, 71% reported patient encounters without interpretation services, with some reporting they “know enough Spanish to get through”. When asked to rank their likely use of interpretation services in different clinical settings, 88% stated they use interpretation in “Goals of Care Meetings”, 87%use them when “Consenting Patients”, and 80% use them for the initial encounters. However, only 47% and 51% stated that they used interpreters for follow-up encounters and consult visits, respectively. Only 25% reported using interpreters for other visits. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 Pandemic has hastened a shift to digital platforms in many arenas, and healthcare interpretation services have been equally affected. However, despite hopes that digital or telephonic means of interpretation would improve interpretation use by HCPs, our study shows that HCPs continue to use these services at inadequate rates. Time constraints, hassle, and encounter type were common explanations for underuse before the pandemic and continue to be widely cited during COVID-19. The legal imperative to use adequate interpretation services at every encounter should be better communicated to HCPs, and health systems should work to decrease barriers to interpreter services use. If third party interpretation presents the same barriers to use, healthcare systems should consider a strategic change to increase the bilingual work force and certify language skills so that patients can receive language-concordant care more consistently.

Identifying Urban Agriculture Needs and Challenges for the Implementation of Green Labeling in Xochimilco, Mexico

The current global situation with a dominant economic development model producing social inequality, increment and intensification of urbanization has generated severe environmental degradation and an associated increase in the likelihood of pandemics. New strategies that strengthen sustainable food production are urgent in highly unequal countries as Mexico. In Mexico City, the most populated city of the country, a wetland system, named Xochimilco, still holds chinampas, a unique and ingenious food system dating from pre-Hispanic times. These days chinampas are the best example of urban sustainable agriculture production. Unfortunately, this system is under threat due to urbanization and industrial land-use changes. Among the strategies to promote sustainable modes of production and consumption is eco or green labeling, consisting of a voluntary environmental certification approach, and marketing and advertising tool, that can change producers' and consumers' behavior toward long-term sustainability. Although widely used, the benefits of green labels for producers are not always realized. This study aimed to learn more about the agro-ecological production process and commercialization challenges in Xochimilco and San Gregorio Atlapulco in Southern Mexico City to understand chinampa producers' needs and determine whether a green label can offer solutions in this vulnerable socio-ecological system, particularly suffering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemics. For this, a literature review and producers' mental model analysis based on network theory, were developed. Results show that non-resolved issues such as commercialization problems, consumers' unwillingness to pay a fair price, loss of healthy soil, and degraded water quality used for irrigation persist and can affect the benefits of a green label including to improve chinampa production and farmers' income. Farmers' current necessities comprised increasing profits, receiving financial advice to set prices of agro-ecological vegetables and production costs, among others. Under the current production and commercialization scenarios complying with the assessment cost of certification will be difficult for most producers;then, implementing the green label would probably fail to fulfill the benefits. Attending to former and persistent conflicts and satisfying chinampa producers' neglected necessities are essential before implementing any program. Copyright © 2022 Arroyo-Lambaer, Zambrano, Rivas, Vázquez-Mendoza, Figueroa, Puente-Uribe, Espinosa-García, Tapia-Palacios, Mazari-Hiriart, Revollo-Fernández, Jiménez-Serna, Covarrubias and Sumano.

Predictive factors of six-week mortality in critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2: A multicenter prospective study.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study is to identify the risk factors associated with mortality at six weeks, especially by analyzing the role of antivirals and munomodulators. DESIGN: Prospective descriptive multicenter cohort study. SETTING: 26 Intensive care units (ICU) from Andalusian region in Spain. PATIENTS OR PARTICIPANTS: Consecutive critically ill patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection were included from March 8 to May 30. INTERVENTIONS: None. VARIABLES: Variables analyzed were demographic, severity scores and clinical condition. Support therapy, drug and mortality were analyzed. An univariate followed by multivariate Cox regression with propensity score analysis was applied. RESULTS: 495 patients were enrolled, but 73 of them were excluded for incomplete data. Thus, 422 patients were included in the final analysis. Median age was 63 years and 305 (72.3%) were men. ICU mortality: 144/422 34%; 14 days mortality: 81/422 (19.2%); 28 days mortality: 121/422 (28.7%); 6-week mortality 152/422 36.5%. By multivariable Cox proportional analysis, factors independently associated with 42-day mortality were age, APACHE II score, SOFA score at ICU admission >6, Lactate dehydrogenase at ICU admission >470U/L, Use of vasopressors, extrarenal depuration, %lymphocytes 72h post-ICU admission <6.5%, and thrombocytopenia whereas the use of lopinavir/ritonavir was a protective factor. CONCLUSION: Age, APACHE II, SOFA>value of 6 points, along with vasopressor requirements or renal replacement therapy have been identified as predictor factors of mortality at six weeks. Administration of corticosteroids showed no benefits in mortality, as did treatment with tocilizumab. Lopinavir/ritonavir administration is identified as a protective factor.

MetaMap versus BERT models with explainable active learning: Ontology-based experiments with prior knowledge for COVID-19

Emergence of the Coronavirus 2019 Disease has highlighted further the need for timely support for clinicians as they manage severely ill patients. We combine Semantic Web technologies with Deep Learning for Natural Language Processing with the aim of converting human-readable best evidence/ practice for COVID-19 into that which is computer-interpretable. We present the results of experiments with 1212 clinical ideas (medical terms and expressions) from two UK national healthcare services specialty guides for COVID-19 and three versions of two BMJ Best Practice documents for COVID-19. The paper seeks to recognise and categorise clinical ideas, performing a Named Entity Recognition (NER) task, with an ontology providing extra terms as context and describing the intended meaning of categories understandable by clinicians. The paper investigates: 1) the performance of classical NER using MetaMap versus NER with fine-tuned BERT models;2) the integration of both NER approaches using a lightweight ontology developed in close collaboration with senior doctors;and 3) the easy interpretation by junior doctors of the main classes from the ontology once populated with NER results. We report the NER performance and the observed agreement for human audits. Copyright © 2022 for this paper by its authors.

Predictive factors of six-week mortality in critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2: A multicenter prospective study Factores predictivos de la mortalidad a las seis semanas en pacientes críticos con SARS-CoV-2: estudio multicéntrico prospectivo

Objective The objective of the study is to identify the risk factors associated with mortality at six weeks, especially by analyzing the role of antivirals and munomodulators. Design Prospective descriptive multicenter cohort study. Setting 26 Intensive care units (ICU) from Andalusian region in Spain. Patients or participants Consecutive critically ill patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection were included from March 8 to May 30. Interventions None. Variables Variables analyzed were demographic, severity scores and clinical condition. Support therapy, drug and mortality were analyzed. An univariate followed by multivariate Cox regression with propensity score analysis was applied. Results 495 patients were enrolled, but 73 of them were excluded for incomplete data. Thus, 422 patients were included in the final analysis. Median age was 63 years and 305 (72.3%) were men. ICU mortality: 144/422 34%;14 days mortality: 81/422 (19.2%);28 days mortality: 121/422 (28.7%);6-week mortality 152/422 36.5%. By multivariable Cox proportional analysis, factors independently associated with 42-day mortality were age, APACHE II score, SOFA score at ICU admission >6, Lactate dehydrogenase at ICU admission >470 U/L, Use of vasopressors, extrarenal depuration, %lymphocytes 72 h post-ICU admission <6.5%, and thrombocytopenia whereas the use of lopinavir/ritonavir was a protective factor. Conclusion Age, APACHE II, SOFA > value of 6 points, along with vasopressor requirements or renal replacement therapy have been identified as predictor factors of mortality at six weeks. Administration of corticosteroids showed no benefits in mortality, as did treatment with tocilizumab. Lopinavir/ritonavir administration is identified as a protective factor.

YoungRes: a serious game-based intervention to increase youngsters resilience against extremist ideologies

Extremist ideologies are proliferating nowadays in both political and social levels. Considering that youngsters are in a development stage where they are still conforming their own social identity, they become especially vulnerable to these ideologies’influence. Therefore, it becomes critical to provide them with the psychological skills to rationalize and resist those influences. Video games, which are already a technology commonly consumed by these generations, provide a way to motivate and engage youngsters. Therefore, implementing these video games in interventions to increase psychological resilience represents an opportunity to create an innovative learning approach. Following this motivation, this paper has three main objectives: adapting a traditional emotional intelligence training program to a novel serious game based intervention, called YoungRes;providing a metric to measure the student’evolution based on in-game behavioural patterns, instead of indirect measures;and evaluating the impact of the intervention itself after its implementation. To do so, an 11 sessions intervention was applied to 36 students from two primary schools in Spain. Quantitative and qualitative data was extracted from the experience, consisting on data extracted from the player’s behaviour and a final survey. A detailed statistical analysis carried out showed two main outcomes: first, the serious game based intervention was very appreciated by the students, specially by those who frequently play video games;second, the intervention allowed to improve several emotional intelligence competences, such as active listening and controlled breathing, as well as to promote knowledge about the Islamic culture. Finally, the authors discussed about how the game could be improved for future applications in schools. Author

Named Entity Recognition and Relation Extraction for COVID-19: Explainable Active Learning with Word2vec Embeddings and Transformer-Based BERT Models

Deep learning for natural language processing acquires dense vector representations for n-grams from large-scale unstructured corpora. Converting static embeddings of n-grams into a dataset of interlinked concepts with explicit contextual semantic dependencies provides the foundation to acquire reusable knowledge. However, the validation of this knowledge requires cross-checking with ground-truths that may be unavailable in an actionable or computable form. This paper presents a novel approach from the new field of explainable active learning that combines methods for learning static embeddings (word2vec models) with methods for learning dynamic contextual embeddings (transformer-based BERT models). We created a dataset for named entity recognition (NER) and relation extraction (REX) for the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The COVID-19 dataset has 2,212 associations captured by 11 word2vec models with additional examples of use from the biomedical literature. We propose interpreting the NER and REX tasks for COVID-19 as Question Answering (QA) incorporating general medical knowledge within the question, e.g. “does ‘cough’ (n-gram) belong to ‘clinical presentation/symptoms’ for COVID-19?”. We evaluated biomedical-specific pre-trained language models (BioBERT, SciBERT, ClinicalBERT, BlueBERT, and PubMedBERT) versus general-domain pre-trained language models (BERT, and RoBERTa) for transfer learning with COVID-19 dataset, i.e. task-specific fine-tuning considering NER as a sequence-level task. Using 2,060 QA for training (associations from 10 word2vec models) and 152 QA for validation (associations from 1 word2vec model), BERT obtained an F-measure of 87.38%, with precision = 93.75% and recall = 81.82%. SciBERT achieved the highest F-measure of 94.34%, with precision = 98.04% and recall = 90.91%. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Características epidemiológicas de los pacientes atendidos por COVID-19 en el Servicio de Emergencia del Hospital Militar Central Luis Arias Schreiber

Objective: To determine the epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 patients treated at the Emergency Department of the Hospital Militar Central Luis Arias Schreiber from July to October 2020. Materials and methods: A descriptive, observational and cross-sectional study was carried out with 89 patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 on molecular and/or rapid tests. The information was collected from the daily progress report of the patients treated at the hospital’s Emergency Department from July to October 2020. The results were processed using the IBM SPSS Statistics V25.0. Results: Males were more likely to test positive for COVID-19 (84.27 %). Most cases occurred in patients aged between 50 and 59 (34.83 %). The highest percentage of deaths was found in patients older than 70 years, out of whom 71.43 % were females. Comorbidities were reported in patients aged 40 and older, out of whom 67.41 % had at least one of them. Obesity was the most frequent comorbidity, followed by hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Sixty-seven point four one percent (67.41 %) of the patients required non-invasive ventilation and most of them were hospitalized. Twenty-one point three four percent (21.34 %) of the patients required mechanic ventilation and 68.42 % were admitted to the intensive care unit. Conclusions: The most common characteristics of COVID-19 patients are male sex, ages between 50 and 59 years old, and obesity. Additionally, using non-invasive ventilation had a better prognosis than using mechanical ventilation.

Immune Assessment of BNT162b2 m-RNA-Spike Based Vaccine Response in Adults

Vaccine efficacy is based on clinical data. Currently, the assessment of immune response after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination is scarce. A total of 52 healthcare workers were immunized with the same lot of BNT162b2 vaccine. The immunological response against the vaccine was tested using a T-specific assay based on the expression of CD25 and CD134 after stimulation with anti-N, -S, and -M specific peptides of SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, IgG anti-S2 and -RBD antibodies were detected using ELISA. Furthermore, the cell subsets involved in the response to the vaccine were measured in peripheral blood by flow cytometry. Humoral-specific responses against the vaccine were detected in 94% and 100% after the first and second doses, respectively. Therefore, anti-S T-specific responses were observed in 57% and 90% of the subjects after the first and second doses of the vaccine, respectively. Thirty days after the second dose, significant increases in T helper 1 memory cells (p < 0.001), peripheral memory T follicular helper (pT(FH)) cells (p < 0.032), and switched memory (p = 0.005) were observed. This study describes the specific humoral and cellular immune responses after vaccination with the new mRNA-based BNT162b2 vaccine. A mobilization of T-FH into the circulation occurs, reflecting a specific activation of the immune system.