Going green: Do green bonds act as a hedge and safe haven for stock sector risk?

The paper documents the hedging and safe haven benefits of green bonds in equities using the dynamic conditional correlation approach. Green bonds act as a strong hedge for eleven stock sectors in the USA. Additionally, they demonstrate a strong safe haven property with high-emission sectors for the entire study period and with all sectors except financials during the COVID-19 period. Interestingly, this hedging and safe haven benefit of green bonds is agnostic of the environmental disclosure score of a firm. Hence, investors can add green bonds to hedge their equity portfolios regardless of the environmental consciousness of their portfolio firms. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.

Is bitcoin a diversifier, hedge or safe haven for traditional and alternate asset classes?

Given the skyrocketing returns earned by bitcoin, it has received widespread attention as an investment asset. The shocks experienced by stock and bond markets over time and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an evaluation of bitcoin as a wealth protection asset, a role that gold has played until now. The current paper tests the hedging and safe haven properties of bitcoin in a broad portfolio of both developed and emerging markets stocks, bonds and real estate over a period of 10 years and during COVID-19 pandemic. Using a DCC-GARCH method, the study finds weak hedge and safe haven benefits of bitcoin. The results of the study establish that there is still a long way to go before bitcoin displays a strong safe haven behavior. However, there is a need for portfolio managers to become more cognizant about bitcoin given its potential to protect their portfolios.

Bone, Brain, Heart study protocol: A resilient nested, tripartite prospective cohort study of the role of estrogen depletion on HIV pathology.

PURPOSE: We describe the rationale for and design of an innovative, nested, tripartite prospective observational cohort study examining whether relative estrogen insufficiency-induced inflammation amplifies HIV-induced inflammation to cause end organ damage and worsen age-related co-morbidities affecting the neuro-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (Brain), skeletal (Bone), and cardiovascular (Heart/vessels) organ systems (BBH Study). METHODS: The BBH parent study is the Multicenter AIDS Cohort/Women's Interagency HIV Study Combined Cohort Study (MWCCS) with participants drawn from the Atlanta MWCCS site. BBH will enroll a single cohort of n = 120 women living with HIV and n = 60 HIV-negative women, equally distributed by menopausal status. The innovative multipart nested study design of BBH, which draws on data collected by the parent study, efficiently leverages resources for maximum research impact and requires extensive oversight and management in addition to careful implementation. The presence of strong infrastructure minimized BBH study disruptions due to changes in the parent study and the COVID-19 pandemic. CONCLUSION: BBH is poised to provide insight into sex and HIV associations with the neuro-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, skeletal, and cardiovascular systems despite several major, unexpected challenges.

Neurological Presentations of COVID-19

The plethora of neurological manifestations encountered in severe COVID-19 has been observed since the early days of the pandemic. The understanding that this is a novel condition, the magnitude of symptoms and signs of which is still being unraveled, cannot be overemphasized. This chapter offers a prelude to the rest of the book in which each category of neurological disorders will be discussed individually. © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Healthcare practices and perceptions of The United States population during COVID-19: An immediate and cross-sectional impact study

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Infection control practices and public policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have shifted healthcare practices towards a telemedicine format, and has resulted in delays or cancelations of in-person and non-emergency care. Our objective was to provide an immediate description of healthcare perceptions/practices of the general U.S. population during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to inform public health response. METHODS: This was a survey study with U.S. residents recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing platform recruiting minimally compensated participants. Respondents were asked about demographics, COVID-19 knowledge, and ability to access/seek healthcare for both COVID and non-COVID symptoms. Participants (n=1,960) were 70.4% non-Hispanic, 57.8% Caucasian, 68.9% male, 67.8% married, and 75.9% were employed full-time. 76.2% had a stay-at-home order issued for their area of residence. RESULTS: 80.5% of participants felt quarantine was necessary to stop further spread of COVID-19 and reported feeling 'somewhat knowledgeable' (ps <0.001) about COVID-19, with health care workers feeling most knowledgeable (p=0.001). 55.9% of respondents reported feeling at least one symptom of COVID-19, but only 36% sought medical care for those symptoms. Those who had a stay-at-home order were less likely to seek medical treatment (p=0.027). When asked if they would seek medical care if they were feeling ill (non-COVID), 52.1% said 'no:' older adults (p=0.004) and those who considered themselves healthier (p=0.014) were more likely to seek treatment. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first, largesample cross-sectional description of the health care perceptions and practices of the U.S. general population immediately following the peak onset of this unprecedented pandemic.

Study of pregnancy with covid-19 and its clinical outcomes in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Western India

Objectives: To study cases of pregnancy with coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) and its clinical outcome. To study evidence of the vertical transmission in pregnant women infected with COVID-19. Materials and methods: A prospective study was performed in BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad, one of the biggest designated (1200 beds) COVID hospitals in India. It was carried out from June 2020 to mid-October 2020. A total of 50 pregnant patients who were COVID-19 positive and admitted to the labor room were studied. Results: The mean age of the mothers was 27.40 ± 4.76 years (range: 19–36 years) and mean gravidity was 1.67 ± 1.41 (range: 1–4). The mean gestational age was 38.31 ± 1.67 weeks. The main complaint was fever in 22 (44%), followed by dry cough in 9 (18%), sore throat in 4 (8%), headache in 2 (4%), malaise in 7 (14%), and diarrhea in 2 (4%) patients. Twenty-two (44%) patients showed an elevated C-reactive protein level, 17 (34%) had lymphopenia, 19 (38%) had mild elevation of the D-dimer level, and 16% of the patients had increased interleukin 6 levels. Most of the patients had normal renal function test (RFT) and liver function test (LFT) results. A majority of them (86%) had normal chest X-ray, whereas rest of them (14%) had haziness in bilateral lung fields. Twenty-six (52%) patients underwent C-section, and 23 (46%) delivered vaginally. Four (8%) babies required the admission in the newborn intensive care unit for mild birth asphyxia but were discharged well. Five babies developed physiological jaundice and required single surface phototherapy (SSPT). Forty-eight (96%) out of 50 had negative vaginal swab by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), 48 (96%) did not show any evidence of the virus in the expressed breast milk by RT-PCR. We collected the cord blood sample of 35 patients after delivery which was found to be negative in all (100%). The nasopharyngeal swab of all the babies was negative on the very first day. Day 7 repeat swab was found positive only in one baby. This transmission was mostly via respiratory droplets during intermittent assisted breastfeeding. Most of the cases were having mild disease without acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which responded to the supportive treatment. Four patients (8%) had severe anemia and required blood transfusion. Conclusion: Most of the cases were having mild disease without ARDS, which responded to supportive treatment. Reassuringly, there was no evidence of poor fetal outcome, intrauterine fetal deaths, or premature deliveries. We did not find any evidence of the virus in the vaginal fluid, cord blood, or breast milk supporting vertical transmission of COVID-19 in the third trimester of pregnancy, even if patient delivered vaginally. © Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers. 2021.

In Silico Drug Repurposing of Penicillins to Target Main Protease M-pr(o) SARS-CoV-2

Background: SARS coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection causes Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19). It is a respiratory tract infection and currently becoming pandemic worldwide affecting more than 50 lakh people. As of now, there is no treatment or vaccine developed for disease management. The main protease, M-pro in SARS-CoV-2 is a druggable target explored by many scientists. We targeted this with the well-known approach of drug repurposing by using computational tools. Methods: Schrodinger software was used for the study. Ligands were prepared from US-FDA drug-bank by importing it to Maestro graphical user interphase, optimised using LigPrep, and molecular geometry minimized using OPLS3e force-field. M-pro crystal structure 6LU7 was downloaded from PDB and optimised. Molecules were docked using CovDock module in Glide docking. Further, molecular dynamics simulations were carried out for 100 ns using Desmond module. Results: In docking and molecular interactions studies, penicillins emerged as hits with consistent binding pattern by forming hydrophilic, hydrophobic, electrostatic interactions. The molecular dynamics simulations confirmed the interactions. Phenoxymethylpenicillin and Carbenicillin were found to interact consistently and appeared to be the most promising. Conclusion: Usually, antibiotics are discouraged from using in the viral pandemic because of the development of resistance. Azithromycin was combined with hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. Penicillins are less potent and first-line antibiotics for most of the bacterial infections. This study suggests Phenoxymethylpenicillin and Carbenicillin can be tried along with hydroxychloroquine. Further, this study shows the possible exploration by drug repurposing using computer-aided docking tools and the potential roles of beta-lactams in COVID-19.

Management of Coronavirus 2019

Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) disease is the most recent global public health problem. It is caused by SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome related coronavirus 2), which is a RNA virus with a high mutation rate, belonging to the genus Coronavirus. The objective of this communication is to provide an initial understanding regarding pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, management, and prevention of this devastating disease.