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The transmission rate is an important indicator for characterizing a virus and estimating the risk of its outbreak in a certain area, but it is hard to measure. COVID-19, for instance, has greatly affected the world for more than 3 years since early 2020, but scholars have not yet found an effective method to obtain its timely transmission rate due to the fact that the value of COVID-19 transmission rate is not constant but dynamic, always changing over time and places. Therefore, in order to estimate the timely dynamic transmission rate of COVID-19, we performed the following: first, we utilized a rolling time series to construct a time-varying transmission rate model and, based on the model, managed to obtain the dynamic value of COVID-19 transmission rate in mainland China;second, to verify the result, we used the obtained COVID-19 transmission rate as the explanatory variable to conduct empirical research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on China's stock markets. Eventually, the result revealed that the COVID-19 transmission rate had a significant negative impact on China's stock markets, which, to some extent, confirms the validity of the used measurement method in this paper. Notably, the model constructed in this paper, combined with local conditions, can not only be used to estimate the COVID-19 transmission rate in mainland China but also in other affected countries or regions and would be applicable to calculate the transmission rate of other pathogens, not limited to COVID-19, which coincidently fills the gaps in the research. Furthermore, the research based on this model might play a part in regulating anti-pandemic governmental policies and could also help investors and stakeholders to make decisions in a pandemic setting.
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[Background] The epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) seriously affects the psychological status of medical staff who directly face the risk of the disease. [Objective] This study investigates the prevalence and related factors of depression, anxiety, and insomnia among medical staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. [Methods] From February 13 to March 1, 2020, a network questionnaire survey was conducted among 482 medical staff selected by convenience sampling. A self-designed questionnaire was used to investigate the basic demographic information and COVID-19-related questions. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) were used to estimate the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and insomnia among the medical staff. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis was performed with PHQ-9 score, GAD-7 score, and ISI score as dependent variables. Multivariate logistic regression analysis (forward-conditional method) on depression, anxiety, and insomnia as dependent variables was performed with basic demographic information and COVID-19-related questions as independent variables. [Results] Among the surveyed medical staff, the prevalence rates of depression, anxiety, and insomnia were 14.3%, 11.2%, and 23.2%, respectively. There were no significant differences in the prevalence rates among different age, gender, local risk level, and occupation groups and those aiding Hubei Province or not. The medical staff who directly contacted fever or diagnosed patients had more serious depression (b=1.73, 95%CI: 0.79-2.66) and insomnia (b=2.43, 95%CI: 1.48-3.39) and a higher risk of insomnia (OR=1.89, 95%CI: 1.21-2.96). The medical staff whose current protective measures cannot prevent infection had more serious depression (b=1.72, 95% CI: 0.65-2.80), anxiety (b=1.75, 95% CI: 0.76-2.75), and insomnia (b=1.73, 95% CI: 0.63-2.82), and had a higher risk of depression (OR=1.97, 95% CI: 1.11-3.49), anxiety (OR=3.00, 95%CI: 1.64-5.46), and insomnia (OR=1.79, 95%CI: 1.08-2.96). [Conclusion] During the COVID-19 epidemic, the risks of depression, anxiety, and insomnia among selected medical staff are increased compared with the non-epidemic period. Occupational exposure to high-risk groups and protective measures would significantly affect mental health of medical staff.Copyright © 2021, Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention. All rights reserved.
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Alopecia areata (AA) is an autoimmune disorder that results in patchy hair loss. There have been increasing reports, though limited, in the medical literature of relapse of AA in affected patients and sudden onset of AA in previously unaffected patients after COVID-19 infection or vaccination. We describe a unique case of a middle-aged woman in the United States with sudden onset of severe AA immediately after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. We explain our case's trichoscopic findings, review the literature surrounding AA and COVID-19, and discuss the pathogenesis of how COVID-19 vaccination and infection may induce AA in patients without previous history of alopecia.
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Respiratory viruses can cause a variety of serious respiratory infections and diseases of tissues and organs outside the respiratory tract, raising a potentially severe threat to the society.Virus replication and survival rely on the internal mechanism of host cells, and the latter also produce a variety of restriction factors that target viral invasion, genome transcription and replication, and assembly and release to block viral infection.Herein, this study reviewed the research progress of the antiviral effects of the host restriction factors of common respiratory viruses and their underlying mechanisms.Copyright © 2021 Chinese Medical Journals Publishing House Co.Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Previous studies extensively examined the role of accessibility to metro in shaping house prices but largely overlooked the contribution of accessibility by metro. In addition, limited studies examined the moderating effect of COVID-19 on the price effects of to-metro and by-metro accessibility. Based on multilevel hedonic price and quantile regression models, this study scrutinizes the association between to-metro accessibility, by-metro accessibility, and house prices in Chengdu, China, and examines the moderating role of COVID-19 in this association. We show that by-metro accessibility significantly influences house prices. COVID-19 significantly influences the value of to-metro accessibility but marginally affects that of by-metro accessibility. The value of to-metro accessibility is disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Specifically, small or low-priced houses are less affected than big or high-priced houses. In other words, the flattening of the to-metro price gradient is more discernible for big or high-priced houses. The changing preference of residents has also been verified by the decreases in house transaction volume in metro-adjacent areas. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
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With the COVID-19 pandemic, one critical measure against infection is wearing masks. This measure poses a huge challenge to the existing face recognition systems by introducing heavy occlusions. In this paper, we propose an effective masked face recognition system. To alleviate the challenge of mask occlusion, we first exploit RetinaFace to achieve robust masked face detection and alignment. Secondly, we propose a deep CNN network for masked face recognition trained by minimizing ArcFace loss together with a local consistency regularization (LCR) loss. This facilitates the network to simultaneously learn globally discriminative face representations of different identities together with locally consistent representations between the non-occluded faces and their counterparts wearing synthesized facial masks. The experiments on the masked LFW dataset demonstrate that the proposed system can produce superior masked face recognition performance over multiple state-of-the-art methods. The proposed method is implemented in a portable Jetson Nano device which can achieve real-time masked face recognition. © 2022 IEEE.
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The advent of the 5G era has promoted the popularization of informatization education, and it has become more convenient for people to use the Internet to obtain knowledge. Since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the use of the Internet for online education by educational institutions has become a trend, and the use of the Internet for online teaching has become the most important teaching mode. At the same time, the transformation of teaching methods has also brought huge challenges and opportunities to dance teaching. China Dance Net is an important APP for Chinese dance lovers and professionals to learn dance. At present, there are few relevant studies on the acceptance of dance students’ online use. This research aims to discover outstanding problems in online dance learning, to improve the organizational efficiency of dance online teaching and student learning participation rate, to improve the quality of online teaching operation, and to promote the connotative development of Chinese dance education online classrooms. This research takes the dance teaching sharing platform of China Dance Network as the research object and researches professional students who use China Dance Network. It uses a quantitative research method that combines qualitative research and quantitative research, distributes questionnaires to students, and analyzes the results. The results of the research show that students’ attitudes towards dance are positively correlated with the ease of use, perceived practicality of China Dance Network, students’ attitudes towards China Dance Network, and students’ willingness to use China Dance Network. © 2022, Scibulcom Ltd.. All rights reserved.
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The current study aims to investigate the mediating effect of perceived control over the future and the moderating effect of empathy on the association between stressful experiences and PTSD symptoms among college students in China in response to COVID-19. A sample of 1,225 college students (70.69% were female, M age = 20.22 years, SD = 2.02) were recruited using web-based surveys at wave 1 (W1) and wave 2 (W2) longitudinally. Results showed that COVID-19-related stressful experiences were significantly associated with PTSD symptoms. Perceived control over the future partially mediated the relationship between these two variables (indirect effect size = 0.09, p < 0.01). Empathy significantly moderated the path from perceived control over the future to PTSD symptoms, suggesting that the association was stronger for individuals with higher levels of empathy. Findings suggest a protective effect of perceived control over the future on college students' PTSD symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such a protective effect was intensified by empathy. Future intervention to manage PTSD symptoms should be tailored to positive future expectations and empathy.
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Emergencies such as the COVID-19 and natural disasters have brought severe ordeals to the current grid emergency dispatch system, and there is an urgent need to improve and consummate the existing backup dispatch system. This paper firstly analyzes the existing three kinds of backup dispatch systems and their advantages and disadvantages, and then compares in detail the construction of national dispatch, provincial dispatch, and prefectural dispatch, and points out several existing problems of backup dispatch at all levels under the current emergency system. In order to gradually solve these problems, a backup dispatch system combining emergency and disaster recovery has been proposed based on the two-place three-center mode, it gradually realizes the prevention of risks from social security incidents such as public health incidents and serious natural disasters. © 2022 IEEE.
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[Background] The epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) seriously affects the psychological status of medical staff who directly face the risk of the disease. [Objective] This study investigates the prevalence and related factors of depression, anxiety, and insomnia among medical staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. [Methods] From February 13 to March 1, 2020, a network questionnaire survey was conducted among 482 medical staff selected by convenience sampling. A self-designed questionnaire was used to investigate the basic demographic information and COVID-19-related questions. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) were used to estimate the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and insomnia among the medical staff. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis was performed with PHQ-9 score, GAD-7 score, and ISI score as dependent variables. Multivariate logistic regression analysis (forward-conditional method) on depression, anxiety, and insomnia as dependent variables was performed with basic demographic information and COVID-19-related questions as independent variables. [Results] Among the surveyed medical staff, the prevalence rates of depression, anxiety, and insomnia were 14.3%, 11.2%, and 23.2%, respectively. There were no significant differences in the prevalence rates among different age, gender, local risk level, and occupation groups and those aiding Hubei Province or not. The medical staff who directly contacted fever or diagnosed patients had more serious depression (b=1.73, 95%CI: 0.79-2.66) and insomnia (b=2.43, 95%CI: 1.48-3.39) and a higher risk of insomnia (OR=1.89, 95%CI: 1.21-2.96). The medical staff whose current protective measures cannot prevent infection had more serious depression (b=1.72, 95% CI: 0.65-2.80), anxiety (b=1.75, 95% CI: 0.76-2.75), and insomnia (b=1.73, 95% CI: 0.63-2.82), and had a higher risk of depression (OR=1.97, 95% CI: 1.11-3.49), anxiety (OR=3.00, 95%CI: 1.64-5.46), and insomnia (OR=1.79, 95%CI: 1.08-2.96). [Conclusion] During the COVID-19 epidemic, the risks of depression, anxiety, and insomnia among selected medical staff are increased compared with the non-epidemic period. Occupational exposure to high-risk groups and protective measures would significantly affect mental health of medical staff. © 2021, Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention. All rights reserved.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread throughout China. However, information about COVID-19 in cities and regions outside Wuhan is limited and the indicators that predict the length of hospital stay for patients with COVID-19 are unclear. Therefore, we collected clinical data from 47 patients with COVID-19 in Quanzhou City. The median age was 38 years [interquartile range (IQR): 31-50 years], and 24 (51%) were male. There were 8 mild, 36 moderate, and 3 severe/critical cases. The median interval from exposure to disease onset was 13 days (IQR: 8-18 days). The incidence of severe/critical cases was 33% (3/10) in patients with hypertension. Common symptoms included fever (83%), cough (77%), fatigue (40%), a sore, dry throat (28%), and diarrhea (21%). One patient (2%) developed respiratory distress syndrome on day 13 of inpatient treatment. Six patients had leukopenia, 17 had elevated C-reactive protein (CRP), and 8 had lymphocytopenia and elevated lactate dehydrogenase (LDH). The median length of hospitalization was 22 days (IQR: 16-30 days). Dynamic monitoring of LDH, CRP, and neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio predicted whether length of hospitalization would exceed 21 days. Most patients presented with mild and moderate disease. Patients with hypertension were more likely to become severe or critical. Dynamic monitoring of LDH, CRP, and neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio levels can help predict delayed discharge from the hospital. © 2022 Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. All rights reserved.
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Respiratory viruses can cause a variety of serious respiratory infections and diseases of tissues and organs outside the respiratory tract, raising a potentially severe threat to the society.Virus replication and survival rely on the internal mechanism of host cells, and the latter also produce a variety of restriction factors that target viral invasion, genome transcription and replication, and assembly and release to block viral infection.Herein, this study reviewed the research progress of the antiviral effects of the host restriction factors of common respiratory viruses and their underlying mechanisms. © 2021 Chinese Medical Journals Publishing House Co.Ltd. All rights reserved.
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BACKGROUND: The femoral nerve block (FNB) may be used for analgesia in hip fracture surgery. The pericapsular nerve group (PENG) block is a novel regional technique and may provide better pain reduction while preserving motor function, but these blocks have not been directly compared. METHODS: In a single-center double-blinded randomized comparative trial, patients presenting for hip fracture surgery received analgesia with either FNB or PENG block. The primary outcome measure was pain scores (Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) 0 to 10). Secondary outcomes were postoperative quadriceps strength, opiate use, complications, length of hospital stay, and patient-reported outcomes. RESULTS: Sixty patients were randomized and equally allocated between groups. Baseline demographics were similar. Postoperatively in recovery (day 0), the PENG group experienced less pain compared with the FNB group. (In the PENG group, 63% experienced no pain, 27% mild pain, and 10% moderate to severe pain. In comparison, 30% of the FNB group reported no pain, 27% mild pain, and 36% moderate to severe pain; p=0.04). This was assessed using an 11-point Likert NRS. Quadriceps strength was better preserved in the PENG group in the recovery unit (assessed using Oxford muscle strength grading, 60% intact in the PENG group vs none intact in the FNB group; p<0.001) and on day 1 (90% intact vs 50%, respectively; p=0.004). There was no difference in other outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Patients receiving a PENG block for intraoperative and postoperative analgesia during hip fracture surgery experience less postoperative pain in the recovery room with no difference detected by postoperative day 1. Quadriceps strength was better preserved with the PENG block. Despite the short-term analgesic benefit and improved quadriceps strength, there were no differences detected in the quality of recovery.
Subject(s)
Analgesia , Nerve Block , Femoral Nerve , Humans , Pain Management , Pain, Postoperative/diagnosis , Pain, Postoperative/etiology , Pain, Postoperative/prevention & controlABSTRACT
Introduction: During the 1st wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020, restrictions and 'lockdowns' impacted how healthcare was provided to many patients in Europe and the US. Objective: To understand the impact of COVID-19 on consultations between neurologists and Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS) patients in Europe and US during the 1st wave of the pandemic. Methods: A multi-centre online retrospective chart-review study of patients with MS was conducted in Q2 2020 (04/2020-06/2020) and Q4 2020 (10/2020-12/2020) in Europe (UK, FR, DE, IT, ES) and US amongst neurologists (MS Nurses included in the UK). Respondents screened for duration of practice in specialty (≥3yrs) and caseload (≥15 MS patients/mo). De-identified patient charts were recorded for the next 10 eligible patients seen during the consultation period. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. Results: 321 and 101 (Q2), 324 and 101 (Q4) respondents were recruited in Europe and US respectively, reporting on 2244 and 709 (Q2), 2264 and 704 (Q4) RRMS patients, respectively. In Q2 2020, 39% (Europe) and 31% (US) reported RRMS patients saw their neurologist (or MS Nurse in the UK) in person, compared to 50% (Europe)/19% (US) where the consultation was conducted by phone, 6% (Europe)/ 42% (US) by telemedicine and 6% (Europe)/ 8% (US) via internet. By Q4 2020, the proportion of reported RRMS patients seen in person significantly increased to 71% in Europe and 68% in the US [p<0.01]. Reported patients seen in person were directionally more likely to have active or highly active MS and be suffering from a relapse vs those seen virtually (active or highly active: Europe: Q2 51% vs 35%, Q4 44% vs 36%;US Q2 47% vs 39%;Q4 46% vs 42%. Currently suffering a relapse: Europe: Q2 18% vs 6%, Q4 15% vs 8%;US: Q2 16% vs 7%;Q4 16% vs 5%). In Europe, consultations were significantly more likely [p<0.01] to be in person vs. virtual for reported patients who had initiated or switched disease-modifying therapy in the previous 12 mo. (Q2 36% vs 26%, Q4 30% vs 22%). Conclusions: In the sample surveyed, in person consultations were significantly lower [p<0.01] in the first wave of the pandemic vs. the latter half of 2020. Reported patients with more active disease who started treatment recently were directionally more likely to be seen in person. Further research is needed to understand the impact of virtual appointments on the care of RRMS patients with lower disease burden.
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To reduce the risk of infecting or being infected by the recent COVID-19 virus, wearing mask is enforced or recommended by many countries. AI based system for automatically detecting whether individuals are wearing face mask becomes an urgent requirement in high risk facilities and crowded public places. Due to lacking of existing masked face datasets and the urgent low-cost application requirement, we propose a progressive semi-supervised learning method - called maskedFaceNet to minimize the efforts on data annotation and letting deep models to learn by using less annotated training data. With this method, the detection accuracy is further improved progressively while adapting to various application scenarios. Experimental results show that our maskedFaceNet is more efficient and accurate compared to other methods. Furthermore, we also contribute two masked face datasets for benchmarking and for the benefit of future research.
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Objective: To describe the difference in clinical presentation, including race, of ischemic stroke between patients with and without novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and the association of inflammatory response with stroke severity. Background: An inflammatory response to the virus has been a suggested mechanism of etiology for ischemic stroke in COVID-19 patients with limited evidence from prior studies. Neutrophilto-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is an easily calculated lab measure indicating an underlying inflammatory process. Design/Methods: This is a retrospective, observational, cross-sectional study of patients (n=60) admitted with ischemic stroke between late March and early May 2020. All patients were tested for COVID-19 during admission. Demographic, clinical, and laboratory data was collected through electronic medical record review. Results: Nine out of the 60 stroke patients were positive for COVID-19. African-Americans comprised of 55.6% of those that had COVID-19 and stroke and 37.7% of those with only stroke. Stroke patients with COVID-19 had a significantly higher NIHSS [18.4 (8.8)] and NLR [7.3 (4.2) vs 3.8 (2.8);P=0.0137] than those without. Those with COVID-19 also had a significantly higher mortality rate (44.4% vs. 7.6%;p<0.001). Conclusions: We observed a cohort of patients, including a large proportion of AfricanAmericans, who developed ischemic stroke with or without COVID-19. An exaggerated inflammatory response, as indicated by NLR, likely plays a role in stroke severity among COVID-19 patients that concurrently develop ischemic stroke.
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Background: Due to the growing demand for hematooncology inpatient beds, on February 12th a new twentybed ward was opened at our center. By that time, the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona (HCB) admitted the first COVID-19 patient who tested positive in Catalonia. Then, the pandemic spread, reaching its peak in April, in Spain. The restrictions where implemented all over to contain the virus. The hematology ward sealed up: visits strictly limited, all having to wear day long surgical masks, one-way valve patients' masks avoided, and staff PCR periodically performed. In this context, aiming to provide specialized cancer care for those who contracted the virus, it was decided that the brand-new hospitalization ward will treat hemato-oncology patients with suspected or diagnosed COVID-19. This would allow to continue usual activity at the Hematology and Oncology units, including highly specialized cancer care such as Stem cell transplantation (SCT), acute leukemia or palliative care. Methods: All Arrangements were aimed to contain the virus in the "COVID-19 specific ward": only cancer COVID-19+ and doubtful patients were admitted. Exclusive personnel, cancer trained, assigned to work in that unit and nowhere else. All the ward common areas were considered "clean" and rooms "dirty", so the processes for donning and doffing personal protective equipment (PPE) was mandatory for all entering each patient' room. Regular treatment route adjustments and schedules were made to minimize nurse-patient exposure. Premade material kits were prepared to facilitate procedures, and patients were empowered from monitor some of their own vital signs to flushing their ports were promoted. Results: During Spanish lockdown due to SARS-CoV-2, from March 16th to May 10th, 2020, 12 SCT were performed at the HCB, being six of them allogenic, the same number as the same period in 2019. Six CAR-T infusions were performed, one more compared to the same period the year before. COVID-19 patient suffering from hemato-oncology disease received care by oncology nurses, continuing their care plans and even being able to administer chemotherapy if needed even with the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 virus. Conclusions: Having a COVID-19 hemato-oncology monographic ward was determinant, allowing to actively treat the underlying cancer condition during pandemic restrictions, such experience and service reorganization may help to face future situations. The previous knowledge of oncology nurses on protective isolation measures against opportunistic infections has been a great advantage to face COVID. At the same time hematologic patients and caregivers were also used to deal with infection prevention having hygienic habits integrated into their everyday routine. It also made easier for them to assimilate new care provision and preventive measures to prevent COVID-19. Patient isolation increased patient care needs during hospitalization so nurses' ratios should be revised to decrease exposure and not having to rush. Lockdown measures and fear of being infected, keep patients at home avoiding essential hospital visits, highlights once more the need for a specific emergency pathway only used by oncologic patients.
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The COVID-19 pandemic and response measures, including lockdowns and the reorientation of health services, have disrupted essential health services for other diseases, including TB, HIV and malaria. For TB, reductions in case detection due to the COVID-19 pandemic are projected to result in increased TB transmission, morbidity and mortality. Active case-finding (ACF) for TB using community-based approaches is a potential strategy to offset reductions in TB detection by obviating the need for patients to seek care at a health facility. A number of approaches can be used to conduct TB ACF safely and screen designated target populations while managing the risks of SARS-CoV-2 transmission for staff, individuals and the community. We present a framework of options for and experience of adapting TB ACF services in response to the challenges of COVID-19 in our programme in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Key changes have included revised prioritisation of target populations focusing on household contacts, reducing case-finding throughput, implementation of additional infection control measures and precautions, and integration of COVID-19 screening among those being screened for TB. Our approach could inform other programmes seeking to adapt TB ACF services to mitigate the negative impact of COVID-19 on TB case detection.
La pandémie de COVID-19 et les mesures de riposte incluant des confinements et une réorientation des services de santé ont perturbé les services de santé essentiels destinés aux autres maladies comme la TB, le VIH et le paludisme. En ce qui concerne la TB, les réductions de la détection des cas dues à la pandémie de COVID-19 devrait entraîner une augmentation de la transmission, morbidité et mortalité de la TB. La recherche active des cas (ACF) de TB grâce à des approches communautaires est une stratégie potentielle visant à compenser pour les réductions de détection de la TB en écartant le besoin pour les patients de solliciter des soins dans un structure de santé. Plusieurs approches peuvent être utilisées pour réaliser l'ACF TB de façon sûre et de dépister des populations cibles désignées tout en gérant les risques de transmission du SARS-CoV-2 pour le personnel, les individus et la communauté. Nous présentons un cadre d'options et d'expériences d'adaptation des services TB ACF en réponse aux défis du COVID-19 dans notre programme à Yogyakarta, Indonésie. Les changements majeurs ont inclus une révision des priorités des populations cibles focalisée sur les contacts domiciliaires ; une réduction de la cadence de la recherche de cas ; la mise en Åuvre de mesures supplémentaires de lutte contre l'infection et de précautions ; et l'intégration du dépistage de COVID-19 parmi ceux dépistés pour la TB. Notre approche pourrait informer d'autres programmes voulant adapter les services TB ACF afin d'atténuer l'impact négatif du COVID-19 sur la détection des cas de TB.