Red media, blue media, and misperceptions: examining a moderated serial mediation model of partisan media use and COVID-19 misperceptions.

Misinformation and misperceptions about COVID-19 have undermined democratic system. Partisan media are regarded as one of the culprits for facilitating the spread of misinformation. Grounded in the extended communication mediation model, this study analyzes a U.S. survey sample and examines the conditional indirect effects of partisan media use on COVID-19 related misperceptions. Findings show that using conservative and liberal media both have positive effects on misperceptions and message derogation. Conservative media use has a negative impact on perceived response efficacy, whereas liberal media use positively influenced it. Furthermore, the effect of liberal media use on misperceptions became negative when serially mediated by perceived response efficacy and message derogation. Lastly, discussion network heterogeneity was a significant moderator, such that the indirect effects of partisan media use on misperceptions became weaker among those with a more heterogeneous discussion network. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03772-x.

Knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward COVID-19: A cross-sectional study during normal management of the epidemic in China.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is striking the world with serious public health and economic losses. Complying with precautionary measures is affected by knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) toward COVID-19 among the general public, so it is urgent to know the public's awareness of COVID-19 as to promote the epidemic management of COVID-19 in China. Methods: An online sample of Chinese residents was recruited. We administered a self-developed online KAP survey comprising 39 questions regarding awareness of COVID-19, transmission mode, symptoms, preventive measures, and respondents' attitudes and practices with respect to COVID-19. The total score of each item (knowledge, attitudes, and practices) adopts the ten points system, score of KAP is 30 points. Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and binomial logistic regression were used in the statistical analysis. Results: Among respondents, average scores for COVID-19-related knowledge, attitudes, and practice were 8.94 ± 0.79, 5.97 ± 1.58, and 7.03 ± 3.14, respectively. 91.2% were aware that COVID-19 is an acute viral infection and 99.95% knew that wearing a mask is one way to prevent COVID-19 infection. Participants correctly identified the symptoms of COVID-19 with a high accuracy rate of over 85%. Conclusion: Many adults in the present study had adequate knowledge, a positive attitude and engaged in correct practices against COVID-19. People in China have a high awareness of epidemic prevention and control. However, conducting KAP surveys among people with different demographic characteristics at different stages of the epidemic is important to improve public health education and implement proper COVID-19 prevention and control measures.

Red media, blue media, and misperceptions: examining a moderated serial mediation model of partisan media use and COVID-19 misperceptions

Misinformation and misperceptions about COVID-19 have undermined democratic system. Partisan media are regarded as one of the culprits for facilitating the spread of misinformation. Grounded in the extended communication mediation model, this study analyzes a U.S. survey sample and examines the conditional indirect effects of partisan media use on COVID-19 related misperceptions. Findings show that using conservative and liberal media both have positive effects on misperceptions and message derogation. Conservative media use has a negative impact on perceived response efficacy, whereas liberal media use positively influenced it. Furthermore, the effect of liberal media use on misperceptions became negative when serially mediated by perceived response efficacy and message derogation. Lastly, discussion network heterogeneity was a significant moderator, such that the indirect effects of partisan media use on misperceptions became weaker among those with a more heterogeneous discussion network. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03772-x.

Knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward COVID-19: A cross-sectional study during normal management of the epidemic in China

Background The COVID-19 pandemic is striking the world with serious public health and economic losses. Complying with precautionary measures is affected by knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) toward COVID-19 among the general public, so it is urgent to know the public's awareness of COVID-19 as to promote the epidemic management of COVID-19 in China. Methods An online sample of Chinese residents was recruited. We administered a self-developed online KAP survey comprising 39 questions regarding awareness of COVID-19, transmission mode, symptoms, preventive measures, and respondents' attitudes and practices with respect to COVID-19. The total score of each item (knowledge, attitudes, and practices) adopts the ten points system, score of KAP is 30 points. Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and binomial logistic regression were used in the statistical analysis. Results Among respondents, average scores for COVID-19-related knowledge, attitudes, and practice were 8.94 ± 0.79, 5.97 ± 1.58, and 7.03 ± 3.14, respectively. 91.2% were aware that COVID-19 is an acute viral infection and 99.95% knew that wearing a mask is one way to prevent COVID-19 infection. Participants correctly identified the symptoms of COVID-19 with a high accuracy rate of over 85%. Conclusion Many adults in the present study had adequate knowledge, a positive attitude and engaged in correct practices against COVID-19. People in China have a high awareness of epidemic prevention and control. However, conducting KAP surveys among people with different demographic characteristics at different stages of the epidemic is important to improve public health education and implement proper COVID-19 prevention and control measures.

Analysis of COVID-19 Spread in Tokyo through an Agent-Based Model with Data Assimilation.

In this paper, we introduce an agent-based model together with a particle filter approach to study the spread of COVID-19. Investigations are mainly performed on the metropolis of Tokyo, but other prefectures of Japan are also briefly surveyed. A novel method for evaluating the effective reproduction number is one of the main outcomes of our approach. Other unknown parameters are also evaluated. Uncertain quantities, such as, for example, the probability that an infected agent develops symptoms, are tested and discussed, and the stability of our computations is examined. Detailed explanations are provided for the model and for the assimilation process.

Modifications of mRNA vaccine structural elements for improving mRNA stability and translation efficiency.

BACKGROUND: mRNA vaccines hold great potential as therapeutic techniques against viral infections due to their efficacy, safety, and large-scale production. mRNA vaccines offer flexibility in development as any protein can be produced from mRNA without altering the production or application process. OBJECTIVE: This review highlights the iterative optimization of mRNA vaccine structural elements that impact the type, specificity, and intensity of immune responses leading to higher translational potency and intracellular stability. RESULTS: Modifying the mRNA structural elements particularly the 5' cap, 5'-and 3'-untranslated regions (UTRs), the coding region, and polyadenylation tail help reduce the excessive mRNA immunogenicity and consistently improve its intracellular stability and translational efficiency. CONCLUSION: Further studies regarding mRNA-structural elements and their optimization are needed to create new opportunities for engineering mRNA vaccines.

Association of COVID-19 Lockdown during the Perinatal Period with Postpartum Depression: Evidence from Rural Areas of Western China.

COVID-19 lockdown has posed unique challenges to postpartum women, but its association with postpartum depression is not well understood in the Global South. This study aims to evaluate the association between COVID-19 lockdown and postpartum depression in rural areas of western China. A multi-stage random cluster sampling method was used to select a cohort of pregnant and postpartum women with infants aged 0-6 months. We conducted an in-person survey before the COVID-19 lockdown and a phone survey right after the lockdown ended. We used multivariate regression models to evaluate the association between lockdown and postpartum depression. Subgroup analysis was performed to explore the role of social support. The overall prevalence of postpartum depression was 13.3%. Postpartum women who experienced the lockdown were less likely to be depressed than those who did not (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = .43, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [.27, .70]). Lockdown was negatively associated with postpartum depression among postpartum women with low level of social support (aOR = .30, 95% CI = [.18, .51]). COVID-19 lockdown was associated with lower likelihood of postpartum depression, potentially due to increased support from family. Future research is needed to explore targeted interventions to prevent postpartum depression among women from migrant worker families in rural China.

What Prompted the Adoption of Self-Protective Behaviors in Response to COVID-19? Evidence From Women Living in the Rural Areas of Western China.

Background: Self-protective behaviors, such as handwashing and mask-wearing, are effective to reduce the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), but few studies have focused on women living in rural areas who bear the brunt of the impacts of the pandemic due to their economic and social vulnerabilities. This study explores what prompted the adoption of self-protective behaviors in response to COVID-19 among women living in rural areas of western China. Methods: The study sample consisted of 1,524 women from 116 townships across 10 counties in rural western China. We collected data in May and August 2020 on women's socioeconomic characteristics, exposure to COVID-19-related information, psychological response to COVID-19, and adoption of self-protective behaviors. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses were conducted to analyze the relations among the variables. Results: During the lockdown, 1,221 (80.12%) of the 1,524 women in the study sample reported wearing a mask every time when they went outside and 1,021 (66.99%) reported handwashing with soap every time after they came home. Perceived efficacy had the strongest association with self-protective behaviors (ß = 0.38; p < 0.001). Receiving public health guidance (ß = 0.18; p < 0.001) was indirectly associated with more self-protective behaviors via greater perceived efficacy. Higher socioeconomic status was also directly associated with increased adoption of self-protective behaviors (ß = 0.24; p < 0.001). Other variables, such as receiving surveillance and risk information, communication channels, perceived risks, and fear, were indirectly associated with the adoption of self-protective behaviors with smaller effect sizes (all ß were lower than 0.10). Conclusions: Not all women were able to adopt self-protective behaviors, such as mask-wearing and handwashing, during the COVID-19 pandemic in western China. To further encourage behavioral changes in response to public health crises, the government should develop clear and actionable guidelines and adopt targeted health communication strategies to reach the most disadvantaged groups of society. These findings may inform tailored responses to COVID-19 in other low- and middle-income countries.

Rapid Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Using Duplex Reverse Transcription-Multienzyme Isothermal Rapid Amplification in a Point-of-Care Testing.

In December 2019, a severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by SARS-CoV-2 spread rapidly worldwide. Portable nucleic acid tests of SARS-CoV-2 are critically important for diagnostics. In this study, we used an isothermal amplification method-Multienzyme Isothermal Rapid Amplification (MIRA)-for rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2. We designed the primers and probes in ORF1ab and N gene of SARS-CoV-2. The amplicons could be monitored by lateral flow dipsticks (LFDs). The reaction temperature, time, concentrations of primers and probes, and working volume were optimized. Four commercial swab collection buffers were used to test the amplification efficacy of our assay without RNA extraction. Our assay was able to amplify duplex targets of SARS-CoV-2 in one single reaction using one-step RT-MIRA. The assay worked well in a low volume of 10 µl at 38°C for 20 min. Using three collection buffers without guanidinium, our assay was able to amplify efficaciously without RNA extraction. The 95% limit of detection (LoD) of the RT-MIRA assay was 49.5 (95% CI, 46.8-52.7) copies/ml for ORF1ab gene and 48.8 (95% CI, 46.5-52.6) copies/ml for N gene. There is no cross-reaction with other human respiratory pathogens, such as SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, influenza A virus, influenza B virus, human adenovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, human parainfluenza virus, and coronavirus 229E in our assay. The precision evaluation revealed that the C50-20% to C50+20% range bounds the C5-C95 interval. This assay also showed high anti-interference ability. The extraction-free RT-MIRA and qPCR detection results of 243 nucleic acid specimens from suspected patients or national references showed a 100.0% (95% confidence interval, 94.2%-100.0%) positive predictive value and a 100.0% (95% confidence interval, 92.7%-100.0%) negative predictive value. Compared with qPCR, the kappa value of the two assays was 1.00 (P < 0.0001). In conclusion, we provide a portable and visualized method for detection of SARS-CoV-2 without RNA extraction, allowing its application in SARS-CoV-2 on-site detection.

Antibody response in COVID-19 patients with and without re-positive RT-PCR results during the convalescent phase.

Nucleic acid testing and antibody testing data from 143 recovered COVID-19 patients during the convalescent phase were retrospectively analyzed. A total of 23 (16.1%) recovered patients re-tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA by RT-PCR. Three months after symptom onset, 100% and 99.3% of the patients remained positive for total and IgG antibodies, and the antibody levels remained high. IgM antibodies declined rapidly, with a median time to seroconversion of 67 (95% CI: 59, 75) days after onset. Approximately 25% of patients were seronegative for IgA antibodies at three months after onset. There was no statistically significant difference in antibody kinetics between patients with and without re-positive RT-PCR results during the convalescent phase.

Characteristics and potential sources of wintertime air pollution in Linfen, China.

Linfen in China's Shanxi Province suffers severe air pollution in winter. Understanding the characteristics of air pollution and providing scientific support to mitigate such pollution are urgent matters. This study investigated the variations of PM2.5, PM10, NO2, SO2, O3, and CO in Linfen between December 1, 2019 and February 29, 2020. The mean concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, NO2, SO2, MDA8 (the maximum daily 8-h average) O3, and CO were 106.2, 139.4, 47.2, 41.0, 57.0 µg m-3, and 1.8 mg m-3, respectively. Large amounts of pollutants emitted by coal burning, industry, vehicles, and residents contributed to air pollution. Unfavorable meteorological conditions, such as lower temperature, weaker wind, higher relative humidity, and reduced planetary boundary layer height, made the situation worse. Fireworks and firecrackers set off to celebrate traditional Chinese festivals caused the concentration of PM pollutants to spike, with the maximum daily mean concentration of PM2.5 reached 314 µg m-3 and the peak hourly value reached 378.0 µg m-3. Suspensions of commercial and social activities due to COVID-19 reduced anthropogenic emissions, mainly from industry and transportation, which decreased the level of air pollutants other than O3. Analyses involving backward trajectory cluster, the potential source contribution function, and concentration weighted trajectory demonstrated that PM2.5 pollution mainly came from local emissions in Shanxi Province and regional transport from Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, and Gansu provinces. Shanxi and its surrounding provinces should adopt measures such as tightening environmental management standards, promoting the use of renewable energy, and adjusting the transportation structure to reduce regional emissions. This study will help policy-makers draft plans and policies to reduce air pollution in Linfen.

Clinical characteristics and follow-up analysis of 324 discharged COVID-19 patients in Shenzhen during the recovery period.

Objectives: Research on recovering COVID-19 patients could be helpful for containing the pandemic and developing vaccines, but we still do not know much about the clinical features, recovery process, and antibody reactions during the recovery period. Methods: We retrospectively analysed the epidemiological information, discharge summaries, and laboratory results of 324 patients. Results: In all, 15 (8.62%) patients experienced chest distress/breath shortness, where 8 of the 15 were severely ill. This means severely ill patients need an extended amount of time to recover after discharge; next, 20 (11.49%) patients experienced anxiety and 21 (12.07%) had headache/insomnia and a small fraction of them complained of anosmia/ageusia, indicating that these patients need treatment for mental and psychological health issues. Regarding the re-positive patients, their CT and laboratory test results showed no obvious evidence of illness progress or infectivity but a high anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody expression. Conclusion: Recovered COVID-19 patients need psychological and physiological care and treatment, re-positivity can occur in any person, but juveniles, females, and patients with mild/moderate existing symptoms have higher rates of re-positivity, While there is no evidence that turning re-positive has an impact on their infectivity, but it still alerted us that we need differentiate them in the following managements.

High-coverage SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences acquired by target capture sequencing.

In this study, we designed a set of SARS-CoV-2 enrichment probes to increase the capacity for sequence-based virus detection and obtain the comprehensive genome sequence at the same time. This universal SARS-CoV-2 enrichment probe set contains 502 120 nt single-stranded DNA biotin-labeled probes designed based on all available SARS-CoV-2 viral sequences and it can be used to enrich for SARS-CoV-2 sequences without prior knowledge of type or subtype. Following the CDC health and safety guidelines, marked enrichment was demonstrated in a virus strain sample from cell culture, three nasopharyngeal swab samples (cycle threshold [Ct ] values: 32.36, 36.72, and 38.44) from patients diagnosed with COVID-19 (positive control) and four throat swab samples from patients without COVID-19 (negative controls), respectively. Moreover, based on these high-quality sequences, we discuss the heterozygosity and viral expression during coronavirus replication and its phylogenetic relationship with other selected high-quality samples from the Genome Variation Map. Therefore, this universal SARS-CoV-2 enrichment probe system can capture and enrich SARS-CoV-2 viral sequences selectively and effectively in different samples, especially clinical swab samples with a relatively low concentration of viral particles.

Epidemiology, causes, clinical manifestation and diagnosis, prevention and control of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during the early outbreak period: a scoping review.

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China beginning in December 2019. As of 31 January 2020, this epidemic had spread to 19 countries with 11 791 confirmed cases, including 213 deaths. The World Health Organization has declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. METHODS: A scoping review was conducted following the methodological framework suggested by Arksey and O'Malley. In this scoping review, 65 research articles published before 31 January 2020 were analyzed and discussed to better understand the epidemiology, causes, clinical diagnosis, prevention and control of this virus. The research domains, dates of publication, journal language, authors' affiliations, and methodological characteristics were included in the analysis. All the findings and statements in this review regarding the outbreak are based on published information as listed in the references. RESULTS: Most of the publications were written using the English language (89.2%). The largest proportion of published articles were related to causes (38.5%) and a majority (67.7%) were published by Chinese scholars. Research articles initially focused on causes, but over time there was an increase of the articles related to prevention and control. Studies thus far have shown that the virus' origination is in connection to a seafood market in Wuhan, but specific animal associations have not been confirmed. Reported symptoms include fever, cough, fatigue, pneumonia, headache, diarrhea, hemoptysis, and dyspnea. Preventive measures such as masks, hand hygiene practices, avoidance of public contact, case detection, contact tracing, and quarantines have been discussed as ways to reduce transmission. To date, no specific antiviral treatment has proven effective; hence, infected people primarily rely on symptomatic treatment and supportive care. CONCLUSIONS: There has been a rapid surge in research in response to the outbreak of COVID-19. During this early period, published research primarily explored the epidemiology, causes, clinical manifestation and diagnosis, as well as prevention and control of the novel coronavirus. Although these studies are relevant to control the current public emergency, more high-quality research is needed to provide valid and reliable ways to manage this kind of public health emergency in both the short- and long-term.

Maximum entropy approach to reliability analysis based epidemic disease model

This study analyzes the dynamic model of epidemic disease system based on the maximum entropy approach to reliability. The epidemic disease system is assumed to be composed of several classes, namely susceptible class, infective class, resistance class, exposed class and so on. The dynamics of the populations in each class are depicted by a number of differential equations, where the populations transmitting between the classes are the averages of transmitting populations in microscopic stochastic transmission process. In microscopic transmission process, several basic variables are assumed to be random, such as incubation period, hospitalization duration and so on. To infer the probability distributions of these variables is a main task of this study. Inspired by the recent study of reliability, the maximum entropy based approach is applied to determine the parameters in the dynamic model. The basic idea of this study is presented below. In this study, degrade (hazard) function, which is a fundamental quantity in the disciplines of risk and reliability analysis, is associated with death rate, incidence rate and healing rate. Specifically, death rate and healing rate of the infective people are associated with hazard rate and repair rate of the repaired system in reliability theory, respectively;the incidence rate is associated to the hazard rate during incubation period. By means of the maximum entropy principle, the moments of the period from onset to death, the period from onset to recovery and the incubation period are fused to infer the most probable death rate, incidence rate and healing rate. Applying the maximum-entropy based statistical inference, the information of macroscopic transmission process is fused, such as average values, fluctuations and median values. To the best of our knowledge, the traditional fitting approaches to determine parameters usually rely on the information of macroscopic phenomenon. It is different from these fitting approaches that the maximum-entropy based approach applied in this study relies on the information of microscopic process. Thus this approach is adapted to practice scenario where the limitations of information access and number of samples both exist. And the parameter determination is independent on the choice of the macroscopic epidemic disease dynamic model. After applying the maximum entropy principle based inference and the SEIR (susceptible-infective-exposed-removed) model, several discussions associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are made. With the help of recent information of microscopic transmission process, the parameters in SEIR model are determined directly by the maximum-entropy principle. Then with numerical calculation, dynamics of the populations in infective class, resistance class and exposed class are obtained. Besides, some typical phenomena are revealed by the analytical and numerical results. For example, the calculation shows that the peak of the infectious ratio in transmission process is unique;the infectious ratio of steady state tends to zero when the immunity duration is much larger than the healing period. Additionally, limited immunity duration model is also considered. The relationship between the infectious ratio of steady state and the proportion of immunization duration to healing period is presented.