Once upon a time in quarantine: Exploring the memorable quarantine hotel experiences of Chinese student returnees during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the pandemic, many hotels convert into isolation centres for the purpose of quarantine. However, the memorable experience in the context of quarantine hotel (quarantel) remains unexplored. Thus, the purpose of this research was to explore the memorable quarantel experiences of Chinese student returnees during the COVID-19 outbreak. The research was qualitative in nature, involving 26 in-depth interviews conducted through snowballing. The data was then analysed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed six themes – (1) staff, (2) room, (3) hygiene and disinfection, (4) food, (5) healthcare and (6) location – with 20 underlying attributes pertaining their experiences. Some themes (e.g. hygiene and disinfection and healthcare) and attributes (e.g. ventilation and Chinese food therapy) were found to be unique experiences with significant functions that newly added in the context of quarantine hotels. Besides, differences existed between operational guidelines of quarantine hotels and actual guests’ quarantine experience. The research allows hotel operators to better understand guests’ concerns during the quarantine period and offers managerial implications to improve hotels’ performance during and after the pandemic.

Engineering SARS-CoV-2 cocktail antibodies into a bispecific format improves neutralizing potency and breadth (preprint)

One major limitation of neutralizing antibody-based COVID-19 therapy is the requirement of costly cocktails to reduce antibody resistance. We engineered two bispecific antibodies (bsAbs) using distinct designs and compared them with parental antibodies and their cocktail. Single molecules of both bsAbs block the two epitopes targeted by parental antibodies on the receptor-binding domain (RBD). However, bsAb with the IgG-(scFv)2 design (14-H-06) but not the CrossMAb design (14-crs-06) increases antigen-binding and virus-neutralizing activities and spectrum against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants including the Omicron, than the cocktail. X-ray crystallography and computational simulations reveal distinct neutralizing mechanisms for individual cocktail antibodies and suggest higher inter-spike crosslinking potentials by 14-H-06 than 14-crs-06. In mouse models of infections by SARS-CoV-2 and the Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants, 14-H-06 exhibits higher or equivalent therapeutic efficacy than the cocktail. Rationally engineered bsAbs represent a cost-effective alternative to antibody cocktails and a promising strategy to improve potency and breadth.

Using Geotagged Social Media Data to Explore Sentiment Changes in Tourist Flow: A Spatiotemporal Analytical Framework

Understanding sentiment changes in tourist flow is critical in designing exciting experiences for tourists and promoting sustainable tourism development. This paper proposes a novel analytical framework to investigate the tourist sentiment changes between different attractions based on geotagged social media data. Our framework mainly focuses on visualizing the detailed sentiment changes of tourists and exploring the valuable spatiotemporal pattern of the sentiment changes in tourist flow. The tourists were first identified from social media users. Then, we accurately evaluated the tourist sentiment by constructing a Chinese sentiment dictionary, grammatical rule, and sentiment score. Based on the location information of social media data, we built and visualized the tourist flow network. Last, to further reveal the impact of attractions on the sentiment of tourist flow, the positive and negative sentiment profiles were generated by mining social media texts. We took Beijing, a famous tourist destination in China, as a case study. Our results revealed the following: (1) the temporal trend of tourist sentiment has seasonal characteristics and is significantly influenced by government control policies against COVID-19;(2) due to the impact of the attraction's historical background, some tourist flows with highly decreased sentiment strength are linked to attractions;(3) on the long journey to the attraction, the sentiment strength of tourists decreases;and (4) bad traffic conditions can significantly decrease tourist sentiment. This study highlights the methodological implications of visualizing sentiment changes during collective tourist movement and provides comprehensive insight into the spatiotemporal pattern of tourist sentiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information is the property of MDPI Publishing 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 abstract 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 abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Inpatient Use of Metformin and Acarbose Is Associated with Reduced Mortality of COVID-19 Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (preprint)

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a strong risk factor for complications of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The effect of T2DM medications on COVID-19 outcomes remains unclear. In a retrospective analysis of a cohort of 131 patients with T2DM hospitalized for COVID-19 in Wuhan, we have previously found that metformin use prior to hospitalization is associated with reduced mortality. Here we continue to investigate the effects of inpatient use of T2DM medications, including metformin, acarbose, insulin, and sulfonylureas, on the mortality of COVID-19 patients with T2DM during hospitalization. We found that patients using metformin and acarbose, alone or both together, after admission were significantly more likely to survive than those who did not use either metformin or acarbose. Thus, our analyses suggest that inpatient use of metformin and acarbose together or alone during hospitalization should be studied in randomized trials.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 among Asymptomatic Workers Screened for Work Resumption, China.

After the outbreak in Wuhan, China, we assessed 29,299 workers screened for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 by reverse transcription PCR. We noted 18 (0.061%) cases of asymptomatic infection; 13 turned negative within 8.0 days, and 41 close contacts tested negative. Among 6 contacts who had serologic tests, none were positive.

The clinical implication of secondary pulmonary bacterial infection for the outcome of critically ill patients with Covid-19 (preprint)

Background Covid-19 is an emerging and evolving infectious and communicable diseases which gravely endanger the lives of critically ill patients with it. It is crucial to determine the clinical implication of secondary pulmonary bacterial infection for the outcome of critically ill patients with severe Covid-19.Methods All critically ill patients with Covid-19(30 deceased and 35 discharged) between January 26, 2020 and March 15, 2020 in two ICUs of Jinyintan Hospital, Wuhan, China, were retrospectively reviewed, to investigate the clinical implication of secondary pulmonary bacterial infection in the prognosis of critically ill patients with severe Covid-19.Results The fatality rate between patients with positive and negative sputum bacterial culture is 75.0%vs 33.3% (P = 0.003). The ROC analyses demonstrate that NLR[0.921(0.858–0.984)P༜0.001], CRP[0.908(0.837–0.978)P༜0.001],neutrophil[0.832(0.728–0.937)P༜0.001],lymphocyte[0.858(0.755–0.960)P༜0.001],leucocyte[0.753(0.626–0.879)P༜0.001] and PCT [0.733(0.605–0.860)P = 0.001] have the discrimination power for the fatality. The Kaplan-Meier analyses show that the patients with negative sputum bacterial culture(P༜0.001) have higher cumulative overall survival rates, in comparison with the opposite. The positive sputum bacterial culture is positively correlated with leukocyte(r = 0.706), CRP(r = 0.733), NLR(r = 0.554) and PCT(r = 0.549)(all P༜0.001). A multivariate Cox regression analysis shows that sputum bacterial culture[15.36(4.291–54.980) P༜0.001], CRP[2.022(2.013–2.030) P༜0.001] and NLR[2.012(2.000-2.024) P = 0.045] are positively correlated with the fatality of the patients.Conclusions The critically ill patients with severe Covid-19 who are complicated with secondary pulmonary bacterial infection may have an unfavorable outcome, in comparison with those who are not. Secondary pulmonary bacterial infection is an independent factor for the fatality of critically patients with Covid-19.