Migration Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of New England Showing Movements down the Urban Hierarchy and Ensuing Impacts on Real Estate Markets

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the United States, the media began reporting stories of people leaving cities for rural destinations, setting off frenzied real estate activity in receiving communities. This article builds a case study of New England using nonconventional data collected from mobile devices as a proxy for population to explore the temporal and spatial patterns of movement down the urban hierarchy since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two research questions guide the analysis: (1) How have urban–rural migration systems in New England shifted since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) In what ways have real estate markets been affected by these apparent migration shifts? The analysis reveals shifts of population away from metropolitan core areas of the region and into micropolitan and noncore counties. These population shifts were most pronounced in late summer and fall 2020 with loosening travel restrictions. By the end of 2020, migration systems in New England once more resembled prepandemic patterns. Further, these places down the urban hierarchy consistently showed more substantial increases in real estate activity as reflected in rising prices, reduced inventories, and increased sales volume. These real estate dynamics suggest urban to rural migration during the COVID-19 pandemic might be initiating new waves of rural gentrification. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] A medida que la pandemia del COVID-19 afectó por todo lado los Estados Unidos, los medios empezaron a informar sobre historias de gente que dejaban atrás las ciudades por destinos rurales, desencadenando una frenética actividad inmobiliaria en las comunidades receptoras. Este artículo construye un estudio de caso de Nueva Inglaterra, usando datos no convencionales recogidos de dispositivos móviles, como un proxy por la población para explorar los patrones temporales y espaciales del movimiento descendente desde la jerarquía urbana a partir de la aparición de la pandemia del COVID-19. El análisis se guía por dos preguntas de investigación: (1) ¿Cómo han cambiado los sistemas de migración ciudad–campo en Nueva Inglaterra desde el comienzo de la pandemia del COVID-19? (2) ¿De qué manera se han visto afectados los mercados inmobiliarios por estos cambios aparentes de migración? El análisis revela desplazamientos de población fuera de las áreas del núcleo metropolitano de la región hacia condados micropolitanos y no nucleados. (Spanish) [ FROM AUTHOR] 随着COVID-19流行病席卷美国, 媒体开始报道人们离开城市前往农村、在农村引发疯狂的房地产活动。本文构建了美国新英格兰地区（New England）案例, 使用来自移动设备的非常规数据替代人口数据, 探索了COVID-19流行病发生以来由城市迁移到农村的时空模式。研究分析了两个问题：（1）自COVID-19发生以来, 新英格兰地区的城乡迁移体系如何变化？（2）这些显著的迁移变化, 对房地产市场产生了哪些影响？分析表明, 人口从新英格兰大都市核心区域迁移到小城镇和非核心县。随着旅行限制的放松, 人口迁移在2020年夏末和秋季最为显著。到2020年底, 新英格兰地区的迁移体系, 再次呈现出类似于COVID-19之前的模式。处于城市等级体系底层的地区, 房地产活动持续大幅增长, 这反映在价格上涨、库存减少和销售量增加。房地产变化表明, 在COVID-19流行病期间, 城市到农村迁移可能会引发新一轮的农村中产阶级化。 (Chinese) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Professional Geographer is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd 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 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 . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Impacts on Students' Academic Performance Due to Emergency Transition to Remote Teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Financial Engineering Course Case Study

The COVID-19 pandemic has enforced higher education institutions to adopt emergency remote teaching (ERT) as the substitution for traditional face-to-face (F2F) classes. A lot of concerns have been raised among education institutions, faculty, and students regarding the effectiveness of this sudden shift to online learning. This study aims to statistically investigate the impacts of such a transition on the academic performance of undergraduate students enrolled in the Financial Engineering course. A novel rank percentage measure is proposed and employed to compare the academic performance of around 500 students who attended the course during the four semesters, including the transitional disrupted semester by the pandemic, two consecutive online semesters, and the traditional face-to-face classroom. Our analysis emphasizes the significance of the differences between specific subgroups of the students. In particular, academically average to good students with cumulative GPAs greater than 2.90 have been negatively impacted by the transition to online learning, whereas the results for students with cumulative GPAs less than 2.90 are not very conclusive. Realizing the effects of such closures on the academic performance of students is considered important, since the results might have some merits for other courses and instructors. The template model can be transferred to other courses, and employed by the university administrators, specifically for developing policies in emergency circumstances that are not limited to pandemics.

Incorporating Molecular Biophysics in the Undergraduate Curriculum

The traditional introductory physics sequence doesn't work for life-science students. They don't find the traditional introductory topics - kinematics and Newton's laws to be relevant to their interests. That, combined with the well-known student misconceptions concerning describing motion mathematically, suggests that there's a need for a new starting point for the introductory physics sequence for life-science students. This presentation outlines a new active-learning approach that starts with the ?marble game?, which simulates diffusion - a topic that students already know is fundamental to the life sciences. Students first learn how to play the game using a hands-on activity. They then implement the game in Excel producing a live graph of diffusion that leads them to discover that Fick's law of diffusion can be explained by unbiased random jumping between two boxes. In a guided-inquiry environment, students then apply the modeling techniques they learned from the marble game to drug elimination;radioactive decay;osmosis;ligand binding;enzyme kinetics;the Boltzmann factor;thermodynamics, phase equilibrium and entropy;random walks;membrane voltage, RC circuits and the action potential;models of the spread of COVID-19;Newtonian mechanics and biomechanics. The materials focus on engaging students in computational activities using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations and finite difference methods. These Excel activities allow them to discover for themselves the consequences and significance of model assumptions by reading and interpreting graphs, and by comparing model predictions with real data using linear regression and non-linear least-squares fits. A central theme of the materials is ?thermodynamics from kinetics.? I've been successfully using this active-learning approach with undergraduate students for over 15 years. It provides a guided-inquiry environment that allows students to discover for themselves that science is an evidence-based endeavor with testable hypotheses that are supported by experiment. See http://circle4.com/biophysics for free textbook chapters and instructional videos.

Treatment of COVID-19 with remdesivir in the absence of humoral immunity: a case report.

The response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been hampered by lack of an effective severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antiviral therapy. Here we report the use of remdesivir in a patient with COVID-19 and the prototypic genetic antibody deficiency X-linked agammaglobulinaemia (XLA). Despite evidence of complement activation and a robust T cell response, the patient developed persistent SARS-CoV-2 pneumonitis, without progressing to multi-organ involvement. This unusual clinical course is consistent with a contribution of antibodies to both viral clearance and progression to severe disease. In the absence of these confounders, we take an experimental medicine approach to examine the in vivo utility of remdesivir. Over two independent courses of treatment, we observe a temporally correlated clinical and virological response, leading to clinical resolution and viral clearance, with no evidence of acquired drug resistance. We therefore provide evidence for the antiviral efficacy of remdesivir in vivo, and its potential benefit in selected patients.

Anticoagulation use and Hemorrhagic Stroke in SARS-CoV-2 Patients Treated at a New York Healthcare System.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: While the thrombotic complications of COVID-19 have been well described, there are limited data on clinically significant bleeding complications including hemorrhagic stroke. The clinical characteristics, underlying stroke mechanism, and outcomes in this particular subset of patients are especially salient as therapeutic anticoagulation becomes increasingly common in the treatment and prevention of thrombotic complications of COVID-19. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients with hemorrhagic stroke (both non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage and spontaneous non-aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage) who were hospitalized between March 1, 2020, and May 15, 2020, within a major healthcare system in New York, during the coronavirus pandemic. Patients with hemorrhagic stroke on admission and who developed hemorrhage during hospitalization were both included. We compared the clinical characteristics of patients with hemorrhagic stroke and COVID-19 to those without COVID-19 admitted to our hospital system between March 1, 2020, and May 15, 2020 (contemporary controls), and March 1, 2019, and May 15, 2019 (historical controls). Demographic variables and clinical characteristics between the individual groups were compared using Fischer's exact test for categorical variables and nonparametric test for continuous variables. We adjusted for multiple comparisons using the Bonferroni method. RESULTS: During the study period in 2020, out of 4071 patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19, we identified 19 (0.5%) with hemorrhagic stroke. Of all COVID-19 with hemorrhagic stroke, only three had isolated non-aneurysmal SAH with no associated intraparenchymal hemorrhage. Among hemorrhagic stroke in patients with COVID-19, coagulopathy was the most common etiology (73.7%); empiric anticoagulation was started in 89.5% of these patients versus 4.2% in contemporary controls (p ≤ .001) and 10.0% in historical controls (p ≤ .001). Compared to contemporary and historical controls, patients with COVID-19 had higher initial NIHSS scores, INR, PTT, and fibrinogen levels. Patients with COVID-19 also had higher rates of in-hospital mortality (84.6% vs. 4.6%, p ≤ 0.001). Sensitivity analyses excluding patients with strictly subarachnoid hemorrhage yielded similar results. CONCLUSION: We observed an overall low rate of imaging-confirmed hemorrhagic stroke among patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Most hemorrhages in patients with COVID-19 infection occurred in the setting of therapeutic anticoagulation and were associated with increased mortality. Further studies are needed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of therapeutic anticoagulation in patients with COVID-19.

Maximizing Safety in the Conduct of Alzheimer's Disease Fluid Biomarker Research in the Era of COVID-19.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to an abrupt halt of many Alzheimer's disease (AD) research studies at sites spanning the world. This is especially true for studies requiring in-person contact, such as studies collecting biofluids. Since COVID-19 is likely to remain a threat for an extended period, the resumption of fluid biomarker studies requires the development and implementation of procedures that minimize the risk of in-person visits to participants, staff, and individuals handling the biofluid samples. Some issues to consider include structuring the visit workflow to minimize contacts and promote social distancing; screening and/or testing participants and staff for COVID-19; wearing masks and performing hand hygiene; and precautions for handling, storing, and analyzing biofluids. AD fluid biomarker research remains a vitally important public health priority and resuming studies requires appropriate safety procedures to protect research participants and staff.

Acute stroke care in a New York City comprehensive stroke center during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused unprecedented demand and burden on emergency health care services in New York City. We aim to describe our experience providing acute stroke care at a comprehensive stroke center (CSC) and the impact of the pandemic on the quality of care for patients presenting with acute ischemic stroke (AIS). METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed data from a quality improvement registry of consecutive AIS patients at New York University Langone Health's CSC between 06/01/2019-05/15/2020. During the early stages of the pandemic, the acute stroke process was modified to incorporate COVID-19 screening, testing, and other precautionary measures. We compared stroke quality metrics including treatment times and discharge outcomes of AIS patients during the pandemic (03/012020-05/152020) compared with a historical pre-pandemic group (6/1/2019-2/29/2020). RESULTS: A total of 754 patients (pandemic-120; pre-pandemic-634) were admitted with a principal diagnosis of AIS; 198 (26.3%) received alteplase and/or mechanical thrombectomy. Despite longer median door to head CT times (16 vs 12 minutes; p = 0.05) and a trend towards longer door to groin puncture times (79.5 vs. 71 min, p = 0.06), the time to alteplase administration (36 vs 35 min; p = 0.83), door to reperfusion times (103 vs 97 min, p = 0.18) and defect-free care (95.2% vs 94.7%; p = 0.84) were similar in the pandemic and pre-pandemic groups. Successful recanalization rates (TICI≥2b) were also similar (82.6% vs. 86.7%, p = 0.48). After adjusting for stroke severity, age and a prior history of transient ischemic attack/stroke, pandemic patients had increased discharge mortality (adjusted OR 2.90 95% CI 1.77 - 7.17, p = 0.021) CONCLUSION: Despite unprecedented demands on emergency healthcare services, early multidisciplinary efforts to adapt the acute stroke treatment process resulted in keeping the stroke quality time metrics close to pre-pandemic levels. Future studies will be needed with a larger cohort comparing discharge and long-term outcomes between pre-pandemic and pandemic AIS patients.

TMPRSS2 and COVID-19: Serendipity or Opportunity for Intervention?

TMPRSS2 is both the most frequently altered gene in primary prostate cancer and a critical factor enabling cellular infection by coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2. The modulation of its expression by sex steroids could contribute to the male predominance of severe infections, and given that TMPRSS2 has no known indispensable functions, and inhibitors are available, it is an appealing target for prevention or treatment of respiratory viral infections.