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Combatting misinformation is an important part of the global effort to fight against COVID-19. In this paper, we first present a large-scale, publicly available dataset named COVMIS for research on COVID-19 misinformation. COVMIS was constructed to support the misinformation identification approach that mimics the act of fact checking by human for truth labelling. COVMIS is collected from November 2019 to March 2021, this dataset contains 14, 384 claims (statements), 134, 320 related articles, and many features associated with the claims such as claimants, news sources, dates, truth labels (true, partly true or false) and justifications for the truth labels. Each claim is associated with a set of related articles that were collected from reputable sources and serve as the ground truth to assess the validity of the claim. We provide statistics and a detailed analysis of the dataset, and discuss a variety of its potential use cases. Using COVMIS, we then obtained new experimental results illustrating methods that can be used to significantly improve the performance of the fact checking approach for misinformation identification. © 2022 IEEE.
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Scattering of topologically structured light is highly sensitive to the position of a scattering object. We show that the position of a coronavirus-like 100 nm polystyrene sphere can be measured optically with deeply subwavelength accuracy. © Optica Publishing Group 2022, © 2022 The Author(s)
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Purpose: Describe associations between changes in employment during the COVID-19 pandemic and financial toxicity among adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer patients and survivors. Methods: Eligible individuals were diagnosed between 15-39 years of age, currently age ≥18, and recruited through the Huntsman-Intermountain Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Care Program. We sent the survey to N=709. Survey questions included demographics, employment, and the 11-item COmprehensive Score for financial Toxicity (COST) which captures financial toxicity in the last four weeks. COST is scored from 0 to 44 with lower scores indicating greater financial toxicity. Scores were dichotomized as high (0-21) or low (22-44). Changes in employment since March 2020 were categorized as no change, increase in hours, and decrease in hours/lost job. We calculated descriptive statistics and fit a multivariable logistic regression to examine the association between employment change and financial toxicity controlling for current age, gender, and treatment status. Results: Of 280 respondents (39.5% participation), 198 (70.7%) were employed prior to the pandemic and were thus included in analyses. Employed individuals were a mean of 29.4 years of age (range 18-58), 64.3% were female, and 50.5% had received cancer treatment since March 2020. Nearly a third (31.3%) had lost their job or reported reduced hours;50.3% reported high financial toxicity. Among those previously employed, participants who lost their job or had their hours reduced had nearly six times the odds of high financial toxicity than those who reported no change in hours (Odds Ratio [OR]=5.8, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 2.6-12.9). In the same model, the odds of reporting high financial toxicity was over twice as high among females than males (OR=2.3, 95% CI: 1.2-4.5). Treatment status and age were not significant. Conclusions: Employment changes during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in increased financial toxicity among a population already susceptible to high financial hardship. Societal gender inequity appears to be mirrored in participants' financial toxicity during the pandemic. Employment interventions for patients and survivors of AYA cancers who have experienced job loss or reduction in work hours during the pandemic are needed and may particularly benefit females.
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Purpose: To describe adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer patients' and survivors' experiences with telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Eligible participants were identified through the Huntsman Intermountain Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Care Program, which provides age-specific programming and patient navigation to AYA cancer patients and survivors in Utah and surrounding Mountain West states. Participants were emailed an online survey if they were currently age 18 or older and had been diagnosed with cancer between the ages of 15-39 years. We applied descriptive statistics to summarize demographics, comfortability with technology, access to reliable internet connection, and perceived quality of care while using telehealth. Results: AYAs (N=280) were an average of 29.4 years old at survey (range 18-58);65.2% were female and 82.4% non-Hispanic white. Over half (54.2%) had received cancer treatment since March 2020. All participants reported owning a computer, tablet, and/or smart phone they could use for telehealth appointments. The majority (93.5%) reported almost always or always having a reliable internet connection. AYAs felt most comfortable having a telehealth appointment in their own home (96.4%);only 12.5% felt comfortable using telehealth at work. Since March 2020, (N=183) 65.4% had a health care visit moved to a telehealth platform due to COVID-19. Of those who recently moved to telehealth, 60.1% had an oncology visit, 33.9% had a primary care visit, and 31.1% had a mental health visit. Additionally over one-third (35.2%) reported the quality of their medical care had decreased since moving to telehealth. This was most commonly due to 1) troubles with audio, video, or connecting through telehealth platforms;2) telehealth visits feeling impersonal;and 3) feeling that providers more easily dismissed or did not fully address their symptoms. Conclusions: Although AYAs are digital natives, over one third of AYAs feel the quality of their medical care has decreased since moving to telehealth for COVID-19. Further research should explore medical provider training in using telehealth systems and encourage telehealth practices that help AYAs feel more supported and understood.
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Objective To analyze the epidemiological characteristics and laboratory tests of coro-navirus diseases 2019(COVID-19) cases in Fujian province and to explore the risk factors for their progression to severe cases. Methods The clinical and epidemiological data of COVID-19 confirmed patients with clinical final outcome (including recovery death, etc.) from January 22 to March 7 in 2020 in Fujian were collected. The risk factors of the severe cases were analyzed by univariate and multivariate Logistic regression. Results Up to March 7, 2020, a total of 231 patients were collected in Fujian province, among which, 39(16.88%) were severe and critical cases. The univariate analysis showed that most patients in the severe group had underlying diseases (71. 80%), which was significantly higher than that in the non-severe group (34. 40%) (%2 = 18. 808, P<0. 001). Among them, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, lung disease, other chronic diseases and other factors were statistically different between the two groups (all P<0. 05). Then, numbers of hematological tests were statistical differences between the two groups. Multivariate Logistic regression analysis revealed that age =5 65 years old (OR =17. 067, 95%CI: 2. 640-110. 327), low level of lymphocyte (OR = 4. 731, 95%>CI: 1. 175-19. 046), liver dysfunction (OR = 12. 458, 95% CI: 2. 559-60. 649), high level of calcitonin (OR = 3. 577, 95% CI: 1. 733-7. 384) and high level of C-reaction protein (OR = 2. 354, 95%CI:1. 012-5. 478) were risk factors for the progression of COVID-19 patients to severe illness. The obtained regression equation fits the training sample well (AUC = 0. 941). Conclusions Low level of lymphocyte,liver dysfunction, high level of calcitonin and high level of C-reaction protein could be used as the early warning indicators for severe cases. More attention should be paid to elderly patients age
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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has posed an extraordinary threat to global public health, wealth, and well-being. As the carriers of human life and production, infrastructures need to be upgraded to mitigate and prevent the spread of viral diseases. Developing multifunctional/smart civil engineering materials to fight viruses is a promising approach to achieving this goal. In this Perspective, a basic introduction on viruses and their structure is provided. Then, the current design principles of antiviral materials and structures are examined. Subsequently, the possibility of developing active/passive antiviral civil engineering materials (including cementitious composites, ceramics, polymers, and coatings) is proposed and envisioned. Finally, future research needs and potential challenges to develop antiviral civil engineering materials are put forward. The proposed strategies to develop multifunctional/smart antiviral civil engineering materials will aid in the construction of smart infrastructures to prevent the spread of viruses, thus improving human life and health as well as the sustainability of human society.
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The global economy is facing a serious recession due to COVID-19, with implications for CO2 emissions. Here, using a global adaptive multiregional input–output model and scenarios of lockdown and fiscal counter measures, we show that global emissions from economic sectors will decrease by 3.9 to 5.6% in 5 years (2020 to 2024) compared with a no-pandemic baseline scenario (business as usual for economic growth and carbon intensity decline). Global economic interdependency via supply chains means that blocking one country’s economic activities causes the emissions of other countries to decrease even without lockdown policies. Supply-chain effects contributed 90.1% of emissions decline from power production in 2020 but only 13.6% of transport sector reductions. Simulations of follow-up fiscal stimuli in 41 major countries increase global 5-yr emissions by −6.6 to 23.2 Gt (−4.7 to 16.4%), depending on the strength and structure of incentives. Therefore, smart policy is needed to turn pandemic-related emission declines into firm climate action. © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
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This study explores airline corporations’ crisis communication by underscoring how they capitalized on public relation campaigns to fortify favourable corporate image by conveying positive message frames during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study employed corpus linguistics to assess the evolution of corporate communication with respect to pre/early-crisis and during-crisis stages, based on a large volume of corpus data retrieved from press releases from major aviation enterprises. Message frames changed from business-as-usual with emphasis on business success and optimistic future prospects in the pre/early-crisis phase to corporate image fortification with emphasis on organizational resilience, social responsibility, and empathy. This study introduces a framework of process response, which highlights a mechanism in which resource endowments of organizational capabilities shape the extent to which organizations react to major disturbances through the aforementioned impression management frames. Discussions along with means to reframe business models are presented to identify what airline corporations could do when facing severe adversity. This study contributes to the literature by statistically comparing lexical items from a large corpus of textual contents in different crisis stages to illustrate changes in management’s crisis response tactics and focus through an evolution of framing mechanism. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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Objective: To explore the expressions of multiple inflammation markers in the patients with COVID-19 and their clinical values, and to provide theoretical basis for clinical diagnosis and treatment. Methods: A total of 164 patients, diagnosed with COVID-19 and admitted to Guangzhou Eighth People's Hospital from January to February 2020, were selected as the research group and divided into three groups (ordinary, severe, and critically severe pneumonia) according to the disease severity. Meanwhile 66 non-infected patients during the same period were selected as negative control group. The expressions of white blood cell (WBC), lymphocyte (LYM), C-reactive protein (CRP), serum amyloid A protein (SAA), and procalcitonin (PCT) were retrospective studied and compared between groups. The diagnostic values of WBC, CRP, SAA and the combination of these three markers in all patients with COVID-19 and in different severity groups were analyzed by receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve. Results: Compared with control group [WBC count:8.13(6.51,9.42)×109/L, LYM count:2.00(1.28,2.43)×109/L], WBC count [4.94(4.05, 6.67) ×109/L] and LYM count [1.33(0.94, 1.96) ×109/L] of COVID-19 patients were significantly reduced (Z=-7.435, P<0.01;Z=-4.906, P<0.01). Compared with the control group [CRP: 1.36 (0.57~5.67) mg/ml;SAA:4.98 (4.80-15.75) mg/ml], CRP [7.93 (2.45-23.98) mg/ml] and SAA [34.13 (4.83-198.40) mg/ml] were increased in research group (Z=-5.72, P<0.01;Z=-4.166, P<0.01). PCT in the control group and the research group were 0.100 0(0.030 6-0.100 0)ng/ml and 0.044 5(0.031 6-0.077 0)ng/ml, respectively. There was no statistical difference between two groups (Z=-1.451, P=0.147). The areas under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC) of WBC, CRP and SAA in patients with COVID-19 were 0.814, 0.742, 0.673, respectively (P<0.01), while the AUC of the combination of three indexes for COVID-19 diagnosis was 0.882, with 83.33%(55/66) specificity and 84.76% (139/164) sensitivity, P<0.01.The AUCs of WBC, CRP, and SAA for predicting severe and critically severe COVID-19 were 0.799, 0.779, and 0.886, respectively (P<0.01).The AUC of the combination of three indexes for the diagnosis of severe and critically severe COVID-19 was 0.924, with 78.67% (118/150) specificity and 14/14 sensitivity (P<0.01). Conclusion: Combining detection of WBC, CRP and SAA can improve the specificity and sensitivity of COVID-19 diagnosis, with a high diagnostic value for severe and critically severe COVID-19.