Comparison of COVID-19 Vaccine Policies in Italy, India, and South Africa.

(1) Purpose: This study aimed to analyze coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine policies and their effectiveness in Italy, India, and South Africa to provide empirical experience for vaccination and COVID-19 pandemic control. (2) Methods: The study systematically summarized the COVID-19 vaccine policies in Italy, India, and South Africa through public information available on the official websites of the World Health Organization and the ministries of health in these three countries. Total vaccinations, COVID-19 vaccination rates, rates of fully vaccinated, rates of booster-vaccinated, and total confirmed cases were selected for cross-sectional comparison of COVID-19 vaccination in these three countries. Daily cases per million, daily deaths per million, and the effective reproduction rate were calculated to measure the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine policies implementation in each of these three countries. (3) Results: Italy, India, and South Africa differ in the start date of COVID-19 vaccination, vaccine types, vaccine appointments, and whether vaccinations are free. The COVID-19 vaccination rates in these three countries varied widely, with Italy having the highest and South Africa the lowest. COVID-19 vaccination has had a positive effect on reducing daily deaths and stabilizing the effective reproduction rate. The three countries had experienced more than one outbreak spike due to the spread of new mutated strains since the start of COVID-19 vaccination. (4) Conclusions: This study concluded that responding to the COVID-19 pandemic requires active promotion of basic and booster vaccinations to comprehensively build up the population immune barrier. Promoting equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccine internationally and solidarity and cooperation among countries maximizes global common interests. By combining vaccination with non-pharmaceutical interventions, the pandemic can be prevented and controlled comprehensively and systematically in three aspects: detection of the source of infection, reduction of transmission routes, and protection of susceptible populations.

Critical policies disparity of the first and second waves of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to compare the differences in COVID-19 prevention and control policies adopted by the United Kingdom (UK) during the first wave (31 January 2020 to 6 September 2020) and the second wave (7 September 2020 to 12 April 2021), and analyze the effectiveness of the policies, so as to provide empirical experience for the prevention and control of COVID-19. Methods We systematically summarized the pandemic prevention and control policies of the UK from official websites and government documents, collated the epidemiological data from 31 January 2020 to 12 April 2021, and analyzed the effectiveness of the two waves of pandemic prevention and control policies. RESULTS: The main pandemic prevention and control policies adopted by the UK include surveillance and testing measures, border control measures, community and social measures, blockade measures, health care measures, COVID-19 vaccination measure, and relaxed pandemic prevention measures. The new cases per day curve showed only one peak in the first wave and two peaks in the second wave. The number of new cases per million in the second wave was much higher than that in the first wave, and the curve fluctuated less. The difference between mortality per million was small, and the curve fluctuated widely. CONCLUSION: During the first and second waves of COVID-19, the UK implemented three lockdowns and managed to slow the spread of the pandemic. The UK's experience in mitigating the second wave proves that advancing COVID-19 vaccination needs to be accompanied by ongoing implementation of non-pharmacological interventions to reduce the transmission rate of infection. And a stricter lockdown ensures that the containment effect is maximized during the lockdown period. In addition, these three lockdowns featured distinct mitigation strategies and the UK's response to COVID-19 is mitigation strategy that reduce new cases in the short term, but with the risk of the pandemic rebound.

A protein-protein interaction map reveals that the Coxiella burnetii effector CirB inhibits host proteasome activity.

Coxiella burnetii is the etiological agent of the zoonotic disease Q fever, which is featured by its ability to replicate in acid vacuoles resembling the lysosomal network. One key virulence determinant of C. burnetii is the Dot/Icm system that transfers more than 150 effector proteins into host cells. These effectors function to construct the lysosome-like compartment permissive for bacterial replication, but the functions of most of these effectors remain elusive. In this study, we used an affinity tag purification mass spectrometry (AP-MS) approach to generate a C. burnetii-human protein-protein interaction (PPI) map involving 53 C. burnetii effectors and 3480 host proteins. This PPI map revealed that the C. burnetii effector CBU0425 (designated CirB) interacts with most subunits of the 20S core proteasome. We found that ectopically expressed CirB inhibits hydrolytic activity of the proteasome. In addition, overexpression of CirB in C. burnetii caused dramatic inhibition of proteasome activity in host cells, while knocking down CirB expression alleviated such inhibitory effects. Moreover, we showed that a region of CirB that spans residues 91-120 binds to the proteasome subunit PSMB5 (beta 5). Finally, PSMB5 knockdown promotes C. burnetii virulence, highlighting the importance of proteasome activity modulation during the course of C. burnetii infection.

Comparison Between China and Brazil in the Two Waves of COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

OBJECTIVE: This study analyzes the effectiveness of COVID-19 prevention and control in China and Brazil from the perspectives of policy and meteorological conditions, and provides experience for epidemic prevention and control. METHODS: This study collects data on meteorological conditions, vaccination and mutant strains in the two countries to analyze the reasons for the differences in epidemic status between the two countries and extracts public data on COVID-19 through various official websites, summarizes the prevention and control policies implemented by the two countries, and evaluates their effectiveness. RESULTS: As of August 12, 2021, the total number of COVID-19 cases and the daily number of new COVID-19 cases in China have been growing steadily, showing remarkable results in epidemic control. The total number of confirmed cases and the daily number of new confirmed cases in Brazil have continued to increase rapidly. The total death case in Brazil has reached 560,000, far exceeding that in China, and the effect of epidemic prevention and control is not satisfactory. CONCLUSIONS: Multiple factors, such as meteorological conditions, policies and strategies, and economic conditions, can influence the spread of COVID-19, and therefore, the situation varies greatly from country to country. China and Brazil have chosen different interventions in the fight against COVID-19. The policy measures taken by China are typical containment measures and Brazil has a mitigation strategy. From the perspective of the current situation of the epidemic development in both countries, the cumulative death rate and daily new confirmed cases in Brazil are much higher than those in China, which indicates that the containment strategy is more effective than mitigation strategy in preventing and controlling COVID-19. Fighting the epidemic is a global long-lasting battle, and the two countries should learn from each other with the premise of respecting their national conditions. Countries should deepen cooperation and not let up prematurely.

Strategies comparison in response to the two waves of COVID-19 in the United States and India.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to compare the prevention and control strategies adopted by the United States and India in the COVID-19 outbreak and analyze the effectiveness of their strategies, in order to provide empirical experience for the prevention and control of the epidemic. METHODS: This study extracted official data on COVID-19 from various official websites, summarized the policies in place in the United States and India, and evaluated the effectiveness of their policies. RESULTS: The United States has adopted a series of mitigation strategies to control the two waves of epidemic, including strengthening virus detection, calling on the people to wear masks and so on. As of May 30, 2021, although the daily new cases there decreased to some extent, the effect was not ideal. The US's daily new cases ranked fourth and the cumulative number of confirmed cases ranked first in the world. India has adopted containment strategies in the initial stage of the outbreak, making the epidemic relatively stable. In the later stage, India has turned to adopt mitigation strategies. In addition, many factors including the lack of medical resources and premature relaxation measures led to the rapid deterioration of the epidemic situation. As of May 30, 2021, although the daily new cases in India has a downward trend, it ranked first in the world, and the cumulative number of confirmed cases ranked second. CONCLUSION: There are differences between the epidemic prevention strategies adopted by the United States and India, especially India's containment strategies which helped it better control the epidemic in the early stage. However, the epidemic in the two countries is still severe. With the advent of virus mutants and the absence of immune barriers, it is meaningful that the two countries continue to take non-pharmacotherapy intervention measures and accelerate vaccination, according to specific national conditions adopt containment strategies that can control the epidemic more quickly when necessary, and pay attention to the risk of epidemic rebound caused by premature relaxation of epidemic prevention policies.

Containment strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic among three Asian low and middle-income countries.

Background: COVID-19 has not been effectively controlled, seriously threatening people's health and socioeconomic development. This study aims to summarise the successful experiences and lessons in containment strategy learned from Asian Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) during the COVID-19 pandemic and analyse the effectiveness of their measures to provide lessons for LMICs in general. Methods: This is a retrospective study on the effectiveness of China, India, and Vietnam's containment strategies. The objective was to assess the effectiveness of measures taken for COVID-19 and provide lessons for wider LMICs in controlling and preventing the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: As of June 16, 2021, the Indian epidemic was in the declining part of the rebound stage, with a total of 21 521.900 cases per million and 276.740 deaths per million - both the highest among the three countries. Entering the normalised prevention and control stage, China stably remained at a total of 63. 615 cases per million and 3.211 deaths per million. Vietnam's number of new cases per million was very low in the first stage and almost stagnant except for cluster epidemics. In May 2021, the number of new cases per million started to rapidly increase, but the total of deaths per million was at the low level of 0.627. Conclusions: A high attention to epidemics at early stages, strict border control measures, and synchronization of government and population on COVID-19 prevention and control opinions and behaviours play important roles in designing containment strategies. In addition, rapid close contact tracing and large-scale nucleic testing are good options for response to cluster epidemics.

Comparison of Public Health Containment Measures of COVID-19 in China and India.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to make a comparative analysis of the public health containment measures between China and India, explore the causes of the serious COVID-19 epidemic in India, and eventually to improve global infectious disease control. METHODS: We extracted publicly available data from official websites, summarized the containment measures implemented in China and India, and assessed their effectiveness. RESULTS: China has responded to the COVID-19 outbreak with strict public health containment measures, including lockdown of Wuhan city, active case tracing, and large-scale testing, ultimately preventing a large increase in daily new cases and maintaining a low mortality rate per million population (as of May 5, 2021, daily new cases were 11 and mortality rate per million population was 3.37). India, although imposing a national lockdown to control the pandemic, has not implemented strict testing, tracking, and quarantine measures due to the overburdened healthcare system. Combined with massive lockdown, it has accelerated human mobility and exacerbated the epidemic, resulting in a rapid increase in daily new cases and a high mortality rate per million population (as of May 5, 2021, daily new cases were 412,431 and mortality rate per million population was 166.79). CONCLUSION: China and India implemented public health containment measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic based on their national situations. Meanwhile, daily new cases and mortality of COVID-19 also were affected by environmental and socioeconomic. Countries make a comprehensive strategy not only in terms of the biological, pharmaceutical, health, and sanitation sectors but also based on sustainability science and environmental science.

Core policies disparity response to COVID-19 among BRICS countries.

OBJECTIVE: To provide experience for formulating prevention and control policies, this study analyzed the effectiveness of the Coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) prevention and control policies, and evaluated health equity and epidemic cooperation among BRICS countries. METHODS: This study summarized the pandemic prevention and control policies in BRICS countries and evaluated the effectiveness of those policies by extracting COVID-19 related data from official websites. RESULT: As of May 4, 2021, responding to COVID-19. China adopted containment strategies. China's total confirmed cases (102,560) were stable, without a second pandemic peak, and the total deaths per million (3.37) were much lower than others. India and South Africa who adopted intermediate strategies have similar pandemic curves, total confirmed cases in India (20,664,979) surpassed South Africa (1,586,148) as the highest in five countries, but total deaths per million (163.90) lower than South Africa (919.11). Brazil and Russia adopted mitigation strategies. Total confirmed cases in Brazil (14,856,888) and Russia (4,784,497) continued to increase, and Brazil's total deaths per million (1,936.34) is higher than Russia (751.50) and other countries. CONCLUSION: This study shows BRICS countries implemented different epidemic interventions. Containment strategy is more effective than intermediate strategy and mitigation strategy in limiting the spread of COVID-19. Especially when a strict containment strategy is implemented in an early stage, but premature relaxation of restrictions may lead to rebounding. It is a good choice to combat COVID-19 by improving the inclusiveness of intervention policies, deepening BRICS epidemic cooperation, and increasing health equities.

A Comparative Retrospective Study of COVID-19 Responses in Four Representative Asian Countries.

PURPOSE: This study compared the government policies and non-pharmaceutical interventions adopted by South Korea, Japan, India, and China in response to COVID-19 during 2020-2021 and assessed their effectiveness. We hope that our research will help control the COVID-19 waves and a future crisis of this nature. METHODS: COVID-19 case data were obtained from Our World in Data database. Combined with case data, we made a retrospective study by analyzing the government policies and non-pharmaceutical interventions taken during this pandemic in these four representative Asian countries (South Korea, Japan, India, and China). RESULTS: From January 2020 to May 18, 2021, South Korea and Japan experienced three waves of COVID-19 outbreaks, but the number of daily new confirmed cases per million people was relatively small in both countries, and South Korea had fewer daily new confirmed cases per million than Japan. Following the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019, China successfully contained the first wave of the outbreak and was not currently experiencing a large-scale resurgence of the epidemic (Until May 18, 2021). India is experiencing a grim second wave of the epidemic, with far more daily new confirmed cases per million people than South Korea and Japan. CONCLUSION: Successful practices in China and South Korea show that case identification and management, coupled with close contact tracing and isolation, is a powerful strategy. The lessons of Japan and India show that social distancing is an effective measure, but only if it is rigor and persistent. Finally, in both developed and developing countries, the development of health care systems and coordinated government leadership play a key role in overcoming epidemics.

Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Comparison of Strategies in Six Countries.

Objective: This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of containment strategies and mitigation strategies to provide a reference for controlling the ongoing global spread of the pandemic. Methods: We extracted publicly available data from various official websites between January 1 and December 31, 2020, summarized the strategies implemented in China, South Korea, Singapore, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, and assessed the effectiveness of the prevention and control measures adopted by these countries with the daily new cases and mortality rate per 100,000 population. Results: China, South Korea, and Singapore adopted containment strategies, which maintained a proactive approach by identifying and managing cases, tracking and isolating close contacts. China and Singapore had a similar epidemic curve and the new daily cases. As of December 31, 2020, the new daily cases of China and Singapore were below 100 with the mortality rates per 100,000 population of 0.3 and 0.5, respectively. But the new daily case of South Korea was as high as 1,029, with a mortality rate per 100,000 population of 1.8. In contrast, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France responded with mitigation strategies that focus on treating severe cases and those with underlying conditions. They had similar epidemic curves and mortality rates per 100,000 population. The United States had up to 234,133 new confirmed cases per day, and the mortality rate per 100,000 population was 107, while the United Kingdom had 56,029 new confirmed cases per day and the mortality rate per 100,000 population was 108, and France had 20,042 new cases per day, with a mortality rate per 100,000 population of 99. Conclusions: China, Korea, and Singapore, which implemented strict containment measures, had significant outbreak control. Meanwhile, the successful practices in China, Singapore, and South Korea show that the containment strategies were practices that work especially at the individual level identifying and managing the infected patients and their close contacts. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, which implemented the mitigation policies, the effect of epidemic prevention and control was not significant that the epidemic continued or even increased epidemic relatively quickly.

Clinical and computed tomographic (CT) images characteristics in the patients with COVID-19 infection: What should radiologists need to know?

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinical and computed tomographic (CT) features in the patients with COVID-19 pneumonia confirmed by the real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) amplification of the viral DNA from a sputum sample. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Clinical information and CT findings of a total of 14 patients with COVID-19 infection (age range, 12-83 years; females 6) were analyzed retrospectively. The clinical information includes the history of exposure, laboratory results, and the symptoms (such as fever, cough, headache, etc.); CT findings of chest include the extension and distribution of lesion, the ground-glass opacity (GGO), consolidation, bronchovascular enlarged, irregular linear appearances, pleural effusion, and lymphadenopathy. RESULTS: Eight patients had the exposure history for recent travel to Wuhan of Hubei province (8/14, 57%), 6 had the exposure to patients with COVID-19 infection. Significant statistical differences were observed in lymphocyte percentage decreased and C-reactive protein elevated (p = 0.015). Seven patients had fever, 7 had cough, 2 had headache, 3 had fatigue, 1 had body soreness, 3 had diarrhea, and 2 had no obvious symptoms. In chest CT examination, 10 patients were positive (10/14, 71.43%). Among these patients, 9 had lesions involving both lungs (9/10, 90%), 8 had lesions involving 4 to 5 lobes (8/10, 80%). Most of lesions were distributed peripherally and the most significant lesions were observed in the right lower lobe in 9 patients (9/10, 90%). Nodules were observed in 5 patients (5/10, 50%); GGO, consolidation, and bronchovascular enlarged were shown in 9 patients (9/10, 90%); irregular linear appearances were revealed in 7 patients (7/10, 70%); and pleural effusions were exhibited in 2 patients (2/10, 20%). Last, no patients showed lymphadenopathy. CONCLUSION: There were some typical CT features for diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia. The radiologists should know these CT findings and clinical information, which could help for accurate analysis in the patients with 2019 novel coronavirus infection.