Humoral immune response to omicron infection in long-term Wuhan-Hu-1-imprinted population (preprint)

Recent WHO vaccination guidance no longer recommends COVID-19 vaccination beyond the first booster in low risk population, citing high population-level hybrid immunity due to widespread omicron infections.1 Although SARS-CoV-2 infection confers durable protection against reinfection,2-4 it may also produce immune imprinting, which skews subsequent immune response to variant antigens toward the first-exposed antigen based on the antigenic distance.5,6 China has the earliest and exclusively Wuhan-Hu-1(WH1)-imprinted population before the 2022 nation-wide omicron outbreak,7 which offers a unique opportunity to study long-term immune imprinting between most antigenically distant strains. Here, we assessed pseudovirus neutralization activity and anti-WH1 receptor binding domain (RBD) antibodies in 4 Chinese cohorts with hybrid or vaccine-only imprinting, or naïve to SARS-CoV-2 prior to omicron BF.7 infection. Both hybrid and vaccine-only imprinting augmented post-infection serum neutralization of WH1 and omicron sub-variants BF.7/BQ.1.1/XBB.1.5 comparing to naïve background. Feedback from pre-existing high-affinity antibodies limited the magnitude of humoral immune response to omicron infection without compromising protection, while antigenic seniority of pre-existing cross-reactive B cells only slightly reduces forward neutralization breadth in hybrid- and RBD vaccine-imprinted participants. Our results support the effectiveness of hybrid immunity against omicron reinfection in long-term imprinted population and provide immunological basis for similar epidemiological findings.8-10

Higher Education Perceived Stress and Physical Stress: Big Data Analysis. (preprint)

Like other countries, China has suffered severe consequences as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and pandemic. The lockdown, physical distancing, social isolation has disrupted the day-to-day activities of its citizens. The higher education sector has had to adopt state-of-the-art technologies and use online platforms to hold classes in order to engage students and ensure the continuity of education for an effective learning process. The second wave and Delta variant of the virus compelled numerous Higher Educational Institutes (HEIs) to start offline and remote work for both academic and non-academic staff; a stressful ordeal for them. Teaching has always been a stressful career path, and the stress faced by teachers has adverse consequences on the learning and performance of students. In this paper, we aim to identify and study the stress HEIs staff perceive and its impact on their physical stress and wellbeing. The resilient coping mechanism was evaluated as a moderator in the relationship between the staff and faculty’s perceived and physical stress. Using a standard survey questionnaire, 500 responses were collected. The findings revealed that the staff with the highest perceived stress also showed high symptoms of physical stress. It also indicated that resilience copers experienced reduced or very inconsequential symptoms of physical stress regardless of high perceived stress, thus validating the important moderating function of resilience in the relationship between the physical and perceived stress of the employees.