Comparison of Safety of Different Vaccine Boosters Following Two-Dose Inactivated Vaccines: A Parallel Controlled Prospective Study.

A vaccine booster to maintain high antibody levels and provide effective protection against COVID-19 has been recommended. However, little is known about the safety of a booster for different vaccines. We conducted a parallel controlled prospective study to compare the safety of a booster usingfour common vaccines in China. In total, 320 eligible participants who had received two doses of an inactivated vaccine were equally allocated to receive a booster of the same vaccine (Group A), a different inactivated vaccine (Group B), an adenovirus type-5 vectored vaccine (Group C), or a protein subunit vaccine (Group D). A higher risk of adverse reactions, observed up to 28 days after injection, was found in Groups C and D, compared to Group A, with odds ratios (OR) of 11.63 (95% confidence interval (CI): 4.22-32.05) and 4.38 (1.53-12.56), respectively. Recipients in Group C were more likely to report ≥two reactions (OR = 29.18, 95% CI: 3.70-229.82), and had a higher risk of injection site pain, dizziness, and fatigue. A gender and age disparity in the risk of adverse reactions was identified. Despite the majority of reactions being mild, heterologous booster strategies do increase the risk of adverse reactions, relative to homologous boosters, in subjects who have had two doses of inactive vaccine.

Delta infection following vaccination elicits potent neutralizing immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (preprint)

Since the initial detection of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) in November 2021 in South Africa, it has caused a rapid increase in infections globally. The Omicron variant encodes 37 amino acid substitutions in its spike protein, and early reports have provided evidence for extensive immune escape and reduced vaccine effectiveness. We assessed serum neutralizing activity in sera from Delta infection following vaccination of CoronaVac or ZF2001 and Delta infection only against SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan-Hu-1 (WA1), Beta, Delta, and Omicron. We found that sera from Delta infection only could neutralize WA1 and Delta pseudoviruses but nearly completely lost capacity to neutralize Beta and Omicron pseudoviruses. However, Delta infection following vaccination resulted in a significant increase of serum neutralizing activity against WA1, Beta, and Omicron. This study demonstrates that breakthrough infection of Delta in previously vaccinated individuals substantially induced high potency humoral immune response against the Omicron variant and other emerged variants.

Relationships between Psychopathology, Psychological Process Variables, and Sociodemographic Variables and Comparison of Quarantined and Non-Quarantined Groups of Malaysian University Students in the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had considerable psychological health impacts across the globe. This study aimed to establish the psychological process variables underlying psychopathology in Malaysian public university students during the national Movement Control Order (MCO). The aim was to craft structured and sustainable psychological support programs with these students. We conducted a cross-sectional study involving Malaysian university students subjected to the Malaysian MCO. Structured questionnaires measuring sociodemographic factors, measures of depression, anxiety, stress, psychological mindedness, psychological flexibility and state mindfulness were employed. A total of 515 students participated in this study with 12 students (2.3%) being quarantined at the time. Many of them scored 'moderate' or above on the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) with 20.2%, 25.0% and 14.2%, respectively. Quarantined students had higher depressive symptoms, with female students scoring significantly higher for depression, anxiety, and stress. Multiple regressions suggested gender and quarantine status predicted depression scores. However, only gender significantly predicted anxiety and stress. Psychological flexibility and psychological mindedness (Insight subscale) are significantly correlated with depression, anxiety, and stress, with psychological mindedness predicting all three psychopathologies. This study demonstrates that gender, psychological flexibility, and psychological mindedness are key demographic and psychological factors impacting students. Targeting psychological flexibility and psychological mindedness may enable timely prevention and intervention programs for our students to support their mental and physical health as we move through, and out of, the pandemic.

Fear of COVID-19 and COVID-19 Stress and Association with Sociodemographic and Psychological Process Factors in Cases under Surveillance in a Frontline Worker Population in Borneo.

COVID-19 stress and fear of COVID-19 is an increasingly researched construct in the general population. However, its prevalence and association with sociodemographic factors and psychological process variables has not been explored in frontline workers under surveillance in a Bornean population. This study was a cross-sectional study using a sociodemographic questionnaire incorporating two specific epidemiological risk variables, namely specific questions about COVID-19 surveillance status (persons under investigation (PUI), persons under surveillance (PUS), and positive cases) and the nature of frontline worker status. Furthermore, five other instruments were used, with three measuring psychopathology (namely depression, anxiety and stress, fear of COVID-19, and stress due to COVID-19) and two psychological process variables (namely psychological flexibility and mindfulness). Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were performed to assess if there were significant differences in psychopathology and psychological process variables between sociodemographic and epidemiological risk variables. Hierarchical multiple regression was further performed, with depression, anxiety, and stress as dependent variables. There were significant differences in the fear of COVID-19 between positive cases, PUI, and PUS. The fear of COVID-19 scores were higher in positive cases compared to in PUS and PUI groups. Upon hierarchical multiple regression, mindfulness and psychological flexibility were significant predictors of depression, anxiety, and stress after controlling for sociodemographic and epidemiological risk factors. This study demonstrates that exposure to COVID-19 as persons under investigation or surveillance significantly increases the fear of COVID-19, and brief psychological interventions that can positively influence mindfulness and psychological flexibility should be prioritized for these at-risk groups to prevent undue psychological morbidity in the long run.

Double-edged sword effect of anticoagulant in COVID-19 infection.

Coagulation predominant-type coagulopathy such as microthrombosis and macrothrombosis is a well-known recognised complication found in COVID-19 infected critically ill patients. In the context of high incidence of thrombotic events in patients with COVID-19, supplementation with anticoagulant therapy has been routinely recommended and shown to reduce mortality. However, the recommended type, dose, duration and timing of anticoagulant has not been determined yet. Spontaneous retroperitoneal haematoma secondary to anticoagulant therapy is one of the well-known but self-limiting conditions. We report a 51-year-old COVID-19 positive woman, who was taking intermediate-intensity heparin therapy for venous thromboembolism prophylaxis and died from complication of retroperitoneal bleeding. Further studies are needed to verify the risk-benefit ratio of anticoagulant therapy in patients with COVID-19. Although anticoagulant deems appropriate to use in patients with COVID-19, clinicians should be cautious about major bleeding complication such as retroperitoneal haemorrhage even when full therapeutic dosage is not used.

Cross-Modal Alignment with Mixture Experts Neural Network for Intral-City Retail Recommendation (preprint)

In this paper, we introduce Cross-modal Alignment with mixture experts Neural Network (CameNN) recommendation model for intral-city retail industry, which aims to provide fresh foods and groceries retailing within 5 hours delivery service arising for the outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic around the world. We propose CameNN, which is a multi-task model with three tasks including Image to Text Alignment (ITA) task, Text to Image Alignment (TIA) task and CVR prediction task. We use pre-trained BERT to generate the text embedding and pre-trained InceptionV4 to generate image patch embedding (each image is split into small patches with the same pixels and treat each patch as an image token). Softmax gating networks follow to learn the weight of each transformer expert output and choose only a subset of experts conditioned on the input. Then transformer encoder is applied as the share-bottom layer to learn all input features' shared interaction. Next, mixture of transformer experts (MoE) layer is implemented to model different aspects of tasks. At top of the MoE layer, we deploy a transformer layer for each task as task tower to learn task-specific information. On the real word intra-city dataset, experiments demonstrate CameNN outperform baselines and achieve significant improvements on the image and text representation. In practice, we applied CameNN on CVR prediction in our intra-city recommender system which is one of the leading intra-city platforms operated in China.

Widespread Pandemic, Wide-Ranging Response: Student-Led Virtual Telemedicine and Digital Community-Based Healthcare Provision in A University Healthcare Centre in Response to Coronavirus Quarantine Measures

Introduction: Isolation and border control measures, with home quarantine measures, are essential to stem the spread of the newly emergent novel Covid-19. Such measures are doomed to fail if reliant on traditional isolation methods, which entail small numbers of overworked healthcare staff screening and surveilling large numbers of well individuals who are potential false positives. Innovative method employed by Hospital UMS to overcome these logistics difficulties. Methods: A total of 440 returning China students to UMS were planned for home quarantine measures for 14 days. In the intervening 14 days, groups of ten quarantined individuals were assigned to 1 Mandarin-speaking medical student liaison officer (LO). LOs performed assessment toolkit for 14 consecutive days virtually via WhatsApp and WeChat and reported back to NCOV central command if any symptoms ensued. Results: 45 China students have been put on home quarantine. Two (2) students with symptoms were monitored virtually till resolution of symptoms. Also, five (5) students with uncontactable phone numbers required tracking down, using various methods eg: retrieval from close contacts through wide-bore virtual search. No cases so far have been positive for NCOV or have required referral to tertiary hospitals. Qualitatively, such methods are a vital public health intervention, as task shifting happens to semi-professionals. Hospital UMS first trial of two cherished founding principles: community-based rather than healthcare-facility center healthcare delivery, and judicious use of digital health communications, applications, and rudimentary telemedicine. Conclusion: Student-led virtual telemedicine and digital health delivery has potential in public health crises like NCOV, freeing frontline healthcare staff to devote energies to their specialties of screening and treatment. Integration of video and biometrics to incorporate true telemedicine, allowing individuals to be "hospitalized" in a community setting in situations of low risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Malaysian Journal of Medicine & Health Sciences is the property of Universiti Putra Malaysia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)