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Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the burden on patients living with kidney disease. The higher lethality in this population is associated with an increase in 7 to 18-fold mortality compared to patients with chronic kidney disease who were not infected with the virus. This increased toll on patients with kidney disease urges that further studies be performed to understand the extent of the vulnerability of this population. Method(s): Retrospective cohort study. Patients with previous diagnoses of chronic kidney disease ( CKD) hospitalized with acute respiratory failure with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis from January to June 2021 were included. Anonymized data was obtained from the DATASUS public database. Missing data were excluded. Collected data included patients' demographics, clinical characteristics, and outcomes. Patients were stratified on the presence of other comorbidities. P-values < 0.05 were considered significant. Statistical analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel, SPSS IBM e Epi Info 7. Result(s): A total of 18,877 patients were included in the analysis. The majority (59,3 %) were male, and the mean age was 64,5 +/-15,4 years. The most common symptoms or signs in this population were dyspnea (72,5 %) followed by cough (60,9%) and low peripheral O2 saturation(71,0%). Regarding the comorbidities associated with chronic kidney disease, the most prevalent were Cardiovascular disease (55,9%), Diabetes mellitus (42,7%), and Obesity (11%). The presence of each individual comorbidity associated with CKD was noted to increase the risk of death for these patients (Table 1). [Formula presented] 95% C.I.:95 % Confidence Interval Conclusion(s): Cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, and obesity associated with chronic kidney disease significantly increase the risk of poor outcomes in patients hospitalized with acute respiratory failure due to COVID-19. This increased risk should be considered when managing these patients. Furthermore, the interactions between the types of comorbidities must also be worthy of attention due to their risk differences. The simple quantification of the number of comorbidities of each patient or the presence or absence should be replaced and individualized on a patient-by-patient basis. No conflict of interestCopyright © 2023
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The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed numerous restrictions on face-to-face meetings, and one of the most impacted activities was engineering education. Most teaching professionals have adopted diverse solutions based on distance learning techniques. However, practical experiments that require laboratories could not be performed in most cases. One of the subjects studied in modern engineering that has been impacted is related to industrial automation systems. In April 2020, amidst tighter restrictions on social contact, we started cooperating with a local company to train our students on topics of interest to the corporation. Our research group was responsible for dealing with Industry 4.0 and its associated technologies. Over the past two years, we have conducted this interaction with the industry under the pandemic's constraints and obtained very interesting results. In this report, on an innovative experience in engineering education, we will describe our project's syllabus, how the relationship was between students and teachers through online tools, and mainly how we managed to ensure that students had access to experiments close to the industrial reality. © 2022 IEEE.
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Much has been discussed recently about the implications and strategies adopted by higher education institutions concerning the realization of online practical classes due to COVID-19. Some teaching institutions used virtual meetings to reorganize the lesson plan to continue teaching and assessing the students due to the suspension of face-to-face classes due to this epidemic. Although the most adopted strategy among the courses has been direct communication between students and professors through e-mail, telephone, social networks, and message apps, education lives in a time when transitions seem to occur much faster than in recent decades. For example, online engineering courses, specifically robotics, face difficulty implementing practical activities online because the educational tools available remotely are scarce or very expensive, thus becoming an obstacle to circumvent. Given this, this article presents a methodological strategy for the teaching-learning practices of engineering through Learning-IoT. This is a methodology for teaching robotics using the Internet of Industrial Things (IIoT) concepts. It enables the connection of the student to a Physical Objects Framework proposed in practical online activities and by the project method responsible for stimulating critical thinking. Thus, the initial ergonomic interface test experiments and usability of the proposed methodology demonstrated in the experiments in online practical classes that memorization and decision-making fit new possibilities or functionalities. © 2022 IEEE.
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The transmission of respiratory infections has an important role on human health, especially in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this work, we present the assessment of an air purifier that uses ultraviolet-C (UVC) radiation and a "High Efficiency Particulate Air” (HEPA) filter as mechanisms to decontaminate indoor environments with low air circulation. To assess the physicochemical and microbicidal characteristics of the equipment, the irradiance produced by the lamp, the flow rate at the entrance and exit of the device, possible changes in the ozone concentration and the equipment's decontamination potential for Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Candida albicans. The total dose of UVC radiation that the air receives when passing through the equipment was 801.4 μJ cm-2, which would represent an inactivation of up to 80% of SARS-CoV-2 in the air. Furthermore, the filtration efficiency dropped with smaller particle diameter, and reduced to around 60% for particles with less than 1 μm and remained above 90% for PM2.5 and PM10 . In microbiological tests, there was a reduction of 99.4%, 99.9% and 99.5% for S aureus, E. coli and C. albicans, respectively, in 11 minutes. © 2022 Associação Brasileira de Engenharia Sanitária e Ambiental Este é um artigo de acesso aberto distribuído nos termos de licença Creative Commons.
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Aim: This study aimed to verify the relationship between personality traits and commitment to vaccination against COVID-19. Material and methods: The sample consisted of 595 Brazilian adults aged 18-72 years, who answered the Big Five Inventory 2 Short (BFI-2-S) and a COVID-19 Vaccine Questionnaire. Results and discussion: Higher scores in agreeableness and openness were associated with a higher probability of adhering to the vaccination program, and higher scores in extroversion and lower scores in agreeableness were associated with poor adherence to the vaccination, anti-vaccine movement, and conspiracy beliefs against the vaccine (p <= .01). These results show the agreeableness and openness traits seem to be crucial for adherence to the vaccination program. Conclusion: The findings indicate the importance of acknowledging agreeableness and openness traits as relevant in the adherence to the public policies programs against the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Aim: This study aimed to verify the relationship between personality traits and commitment to vaccination against COVID-19. Material and methods: The sample consisted of 595 Brazilian adults aged 18-72 years, who answered the Big Five Inventory 2 Short (BFI-2-S) and a COVID-19 Vaccine Questionnaire. Results and discussion: Higher scores in agreeableness and openness were associated with a higher probability of adhering to the vaccination program, and higher scores in extroversion and lower scores in agreeableness were associated with poor adherence to the vaccination, anti-vaccine movement, and conspiracy beliefs against the vaccine (p ≤ .01). These results show the agreeableness and openness traits seem to be crucial for adherence to the vaccination program. Conclusion: The findings indicate the importance of acknowledging agreeableness and openness traits as relevant in the adherence to the public policies programs against the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022 Polish Psychiatric Association. All rights reserved.
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Due to the unprecedented and ongoing nature of the coronavirus outbreak, the development of rapid immunoassays to detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its highly contagious variants is an important and challenging task. Here, we report the development of polyclonal antibody-functionalized spherical gold nanoparticle biosensors as well as the influence of the nanoparticle sizes on the immunoassay response to detect the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein by dynamic light scattering. By monitoring the increment in the hydrodynamic diameter (ΔDH) by dynamic light scattering measurements in the antigen-antibody interaction, SARS-CoV-2 S-protein can be detected in only 5 min. The larger the nanoparticles, the larger ΔDH in the presence of spike protein. From adsorption isotherm, the calculated binding constant (K D ) was 83 nM and the estimated limit of detection was 13 ng/mL (30 pM). The biosensor was stable up to 90 days at 4 °C. Therefore, the biosensor developed in this work could be potentially applied as a fast and sensible immunoassay to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection in patient samples.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has given cause for serious restrictions of fundamental liberty rights. In the legal doctrine of fundamental rights, the classical tool for the assessment of the material constitutionality of interferences with fundamental rights is the principle of proportionality. Indeed, the material determinant of the principle of proportionality is the intensity of the intervention in the fundamental right. One preliminary question, however, is often underestimated: the question as to the constitutional status of the interests protected or promoted by the intervening measures. After outlining the structure of the principle of proportionality, this article investigates the constitutional status that the interests protected by Covid-19 measures might have: is the protection of people's health merely a legitimate purpose or a right? Finally, this article shows, with recourse to decisions of the German and Brazilian Constitutional Courts, the implications that different classifications have for the principle of proportionality.
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The social isolation instituted as a way of narrowing the transmission of Covid-19 is closely related to the increase in cases of domestic violence. The elaborated article aims to highlight factors that favor violent acts in the pandemic, with no intention of justifying any type of crime. The groups most affected by the context of confinement and violence are children, women and the elderly, as the existing fragility has gained elements susceptible to oppression, among them, the distance from the support network. The method included bibliographic searches in several databases, mainly in articles published from 2020 associated with Covid-19. In short, it highlights the need for information on actions capable of minimizing or extinguishing abusive acts in vulnerable populations.
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Covid-19's pandemic expansion to more than 100 countries around the world has prompted several governments to enact restrictive social mobility measures, known as 'social isolation'. Associated with this fact, a disease with the possibility of causing serious complications generates fear, anxiety and stress. This new scenario, as a side effect, could cause the development or worsening of several psychiatric syndromes. The entire population is touched by the context of a pandemic, but the frontline professionals is a group at risk for the development of psychopathologies associated with exhaustion, frustrations and feelings of helplessness in the face of the increased demands imposed on the health area. Although the relationship between the pandemic and the repercussions for mental health proposed in this work is an extremely relevant topic, it is known that further studies are still needed. This information can be corroborated by the fact that it is still a new disease, which needs further studies in several aspects. Due to this lack, the present study searched for relevant information in several digital libraries, in order to integrate data on the theme addressed.
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Aim: The study aimed to investigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Brazilian healthcare workers who work directly with patients diagnosed with COVID-19. Material and methods: 634 individuals divided into three groups. Non-health workers (n = 372) with a mean age of 36.6 years (SD = 9.14) and 85.5% female;Health Workers (n = 94) with a mean age of 37 years (SD = 7.97) and 90% female;COVID-19 Health Workers (n = 168) with a mean age of 36.23 years (SD = 7.97) and 90% female. We administer the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist – Civilian Version, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7, and Burnout Inventory. We conduct data collection via Google Forms. Results: Health workers working in the front line in the fight against COVID-19 showed higher levels of anxiety and psychological distress when compared to health professionals who do not deal directly with COVID-19 and professionals who are not in the area of health. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that health professionals who work on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19 tend to have higher levels of concern and anguish about the future, a high level of stress, mental tiredness, irritation, and fatigue. The findings indicate that these public demands psychological and psychiatric support to face the pandemic’s challenges. © 2021 Polish Psychiatric Association. All rights reserved.
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Background/Case Studies: It is not clear which individual characteristics can determine susceptibility and intensity of symptoms, however, age, sex, ethnicity, hypertension and some haematological biomarkers, as Ddimer, thrombocytopenia and lymphopenia were associated with a worse outcome. Recently, it has been hypothesized that ABO blood groups can be related to susceptibility to the SARS-CoV-2 infection. Considering that the first studies reported A group as a risk factor and O group as a protection, some authors have been suggesting that the anti-A antibodies, and not the blood group, could be responsible for the findings. Study Design/Methods: A retrospective study with 430 COVID-19 individuals (268 COVID-19 convalescent plasma donors-CCPD and 162 COVID-19 inpatients-CIP) from two Brazilian reference hospitals, confirmed by RTPCR, and 2,212 healthy volunteer blood donors (VBD) as control group, that were evaluated and divided into two groups: one with anti-A (O/B blood groups) and one without anti-A group (A/AB blood groups). Immunoglobulins and neutralizing antibody titres were measured for CCPD and CIP. Multivariate logistic regression and nonparametric tests were performed. Results/Findings: Although O blood group was the most frequent ABO group among VBD, A blood group was more frequent among COVID-19 individuals (CCPD 47.8%, CIP 43.2%, VBD 35.5%, p<0.001). There was no statistical difference in blood groups distribution between CCPD and CIP (p=0.268). In our cohort, for each increased age year there was 6% more chance for COVID-19 (OR: 1.06;CI 95%: 1.05-1.06, p<0.001), males showed 27% more chance for the disease (OR: 1.27;CI 95%:1.02-1.59, p=0.035) and O/B blood groups showed 38% less infection prevalence (OR: 0.62;CI 95%: 0.5-0.7, p<0.001). Considering the fact that higher anti-A is usually described in the O blood group, data from O versus B blood groups individuals were analysed and the former showed 34% less chance for COVID-19 (OR: 0.66;CI 95%:0.46-0.95, p=0.026). There was no difference regarding ABO group found when COVID-19 inpatients of all blood types were analysed. Immunoglobulins A, M and G (IgA, IgM and IgG) and neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) for SARS-CoV-2 were lower in COVID-19 individuals O/B blood groups (NAbs p=0.008, IgM p=0.03, IgG p=0.02, IgA p=0.03). Conclusions: In our retrospective cohort, the COVID-19 individuals O/B blood groups (which produces anti-A) had 38% less chance to have a diagnosis of COVID-19 (p<0.001) and the same groups showed lower titers of neutralizing antibodies, IgM, IgG and IgA. Groups O/B showed a protective factor against the SARS-CoV-2 infection, but it was not associated to COVID-19 inpatients (versus COVID-19 convalescent plasma donors) suggesting that blood type is not associated to SARSCoV- 2 infection severity.
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This paper establishes the relationship between education, work and the pandemic. The goal was to reflect on the covid-19 impact in the life of a rural school educators, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The base research for the discussion was perfmormed using data colected by the Google Forms questionnaire tool, and by the multiplatform messaing application Whatsapp, where seventeen (17) workers participated. It becomes evident trough this text the reality to wich these workers/educators are inserted, as well as the working conditions. However, the importance of education and school as a training space is reaffirmed.