SARS-CoV-2 load in exhaled end-tidal breath fine aerosol condensates among acutely symptomatic COVID-19 cases

SARS-CoV-2 infectious virions have been reported in exhaled breath, but their source remains elusive: breath sampling systems used to date do not separate breath aerosols by size, fail to prevent salivary/fomite contamination, or aerosol size evolution before sample capture. We hypothesised that sampling end-tidal, oral exhaled breath condensate (EBC), after separating large droplets by inertial impaction 4cm from the lips, would quantify viral loads in distal lung-derived fine aerosols (FA). We used a collector (PBM-HALE ) that captures mechanically aerosolised viruses to sample adult participants for <30 min under informed consent;cases symptomatic for <5 days (n=30) or >5 days (n=12), positive by nasopharyngeal swab RT-PCR (Ct>=13.1), were sampled in clinical triage 'red zones', or COVID-19 wards with no mechanical ventilation or open windows. Salivary alpha amylase activity (Salimetrics LLC), or SARS-CoV-2 viral load (VIASURE SARS-CoV-2 (ORF1ab and N gene)) after QIAsymhpony DSP midi extraction, was quantified in 0.2mL FA EBC fractions. No salivary alpha amylase activity was detected in healthy participant FA EBC (>1:1,750 dilution of paired saliva vs assay detection limit (n=300)). No SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in FA EBC (1.18mL +/- 0.32 total volume) among any COVID-19 cases (Aug 2020-Jan 2022) at limits of detection of 120 genomes/mL FA EBC or 4.72 genomes/min exhalation. No pre-extraction spike-in control reaction inhibition was observed. No ambient contamination of the alveolar FA EBC was detected with this sampling device. The alveolar fraction of orally exhaled tidal breath lacks detectable SARS-CoV-2 viral load.

Children Suffer Too: Emotional Suffering in Children during the Covid-19 Pandemic

This research aimed to investigate how students in the Initial Years of Ensino Fundamental feel in the pandemic context. The objectives were to identify the frequency of situations in which there are signs of emotional distress in children and to verify whether there is a significant relationship between emotional distress and sociodemographic aspects (race, gender, own cell phone). A total of 1041 children from the 4th and 5th grades of Ensino Fundamental participated in the research. The instrument used for this verification was a questionnaire, containing sociodemographic aspects (ethnic-racial origin, gender, economic profile and access to communication resources) and situations related to emotional distress. The data found show that children have shown both feelings and behaviors that indicate emotional distress (fear, anxiety, loneliness, self-mutilation) and also that there are significant differences in emotional distress scores related to gender and ethnic-racial origin.