ABSTRACT
Objective To understand the knowledge of COVID-19 and plague prevention and control in Qinghai Province, so as to carry out targeted health education and improve people's ability to prevent and control COVID–19, plague and other publichealth emergencies. Methods Six counties were randomly selected from three cities (states) by two-stage sampling. A self- designed questionnaire was randomly distributed to the public to investigate the awareness and behavior of COVID-19 and plague prevention and control. The Chinese version of Epidate was used for database construction and data entry. After checking and verifying, the data was exported as an Excel file and analyzed by SPSS 21.0 software. Results Accordign to the recovered questionnaires, the passing rate of knowledge of COVID-19 prevention and control was 78.46%, and the average score was (75. 82±16.43). The passing rate of plague prevention and control knowledge was 91.89%, and the average score was (86.46±15.94). The survey area, occupation category, gender and education level affected the knowledge of COVID-19 prevention and control. The average score was statistically significant (P<0.05). The survey area, occupation category, age and education level affected the knowledge of plague prevention and control, and the average score was statistically significant (P<0. 05). Conclusion People in Qinghai have poor knowledge of COVID - 19 prevention and control, but have good knowledge of plague prevention and control. Health education and health promotion activities on COVID - 19 and plague prevention and control should be increased in the future. © 2023, Editorial Department of Medical Pest Control. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) featuring composition and bandstructure diversity, are an emerging class of photoresponsive disinfectants. In this study, we demonstrated the superiority of core–shell arranged photoactive MOFs (prussian blue (PB) and zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8)) for pathogen inactivation in terms of biocidal efficiency and broad-spectrum sensitivity. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) production was significantly promoted after the integration of PB due to the photosensitization effect and initiation of in situ Fenton reaction. Favorably, another inactivation channel was also opened owing to the unique photothermal effect of PB. Attributed to the facilitated ROS intracellular penetration by heat, the composite outperforms not only individual component but anatase TiO2 in pathogen elimination. Specifically, the Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) inactivation efficiency of the composite (6.6 log) is 2, 1.8 and 5.1 times higher than that of PB (3.3 log), ZIF-8 (3.7 log) and TiO2 (1.3 log) over 45 min of simulated sunlight illumination. Significantly, the infectivity of Bacillus anthracis and murine coronavirus in droplets on composite-coated filter surface could be greatly reduced (approximately 3 log reduction in colony number/coronavirus titer) within few minutes of solar exposure, indicative of the great potential of MOF composites toward life-threatening microbial infection prevention. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.
ABSTRACT
The growing demand for disposable gloves, especially from the healthcare industry amidst the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and rising awareness about Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs). One of the ways to produce disposable gloves is using cast LDPE film machine. The quality of the products depends on material resin used, machine casting film design, part design and the selection of process parameters. However, the part design and casting film design are done at the initial stage of product development, it cannot be change easily. To manufacture a better quality of cast LDPE gloves, the best LDPE casting film parameters have to be identified. This research aims to identify the best LDPE casting film parameters in producing disposable gloves in terms of strong sealed but edges failed defect rate in production line. The three LDPE casting film parameters such as tensile strength, melt flow index (MFI) and load weight of resin were chosen to study their effect on the defect rate. In this research, the Taguchi method is used to optimize the best process parameters. On the other hand, an orthogonal array (OA), signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, and ANOVA were employed to investigate the strong sealed but edges failed defect rate. According to the results obtained, the tensile strength of 34 MPa, melt flow index of 3 g/10 min and load weight of 2 kg were found to be the best combination of LDPE casting film parameters to fabricate the better performance of LDPE disposable gloves which give the lowest strong sealed but edges failed defect rate with 2%. Based on the statistical ANOVA analysis results, the most significant parameter affecting the strong sealed but edges failed defect rate of LDPE disposable gloves is tensile strength, which is indicated by the percentage contribution of P = 55.56%, followed by melt flow index with 38.89%. The load weight of LDPE resin is the least significant parameter with 5.55%. To conclude, Taguchi and ANOVA method show that tensile strength is the most significant parameter to get the least strong sealed but edges failed defect rate. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
Aim: To report pathologic findings in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Material and Methods: we evaluated clinical and GI tract histologic findings in six COVID-19 patients that presented with GI symptoms like diarrhea, and abdominal pain. This study includes surgical resection specimens from five patients and two sets of biopsy specimens from one patient. Results: Idiopathic inflammatory bowel disease was considered in three of six cases based on clinical, radiologic, and endoscopic presentation. Histologically, the enteric mucosa had a spectrum of histologic changes, including active enteritis, chronic active enteritis, and transmural necrosis. Extensive thrombi in vessels and/or vasculitis were identified in three out of the six cases. The presence of extensive vascular thrombi is associated with poor prognosis, and the three patients deceased in a short period of time (ranges from 7-67 days, median 14 days) after admission for GI symptoms. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2) RNA was detected in bowel tissue of one case. The other three patients recovered and were discharged and free of GI symptoms (follow-up period ranges from 235 days to 270 days, median 237 days). Conclusion: COVID-19 associated enteritis may mimic Crohn's disease clinically, radiologically and endoscopically, and these two entities can be differentiated by pathologic findings. COVID-19 patients with GI symptoms may warrant a workup to evaluate for pathologic changes, as the presence of vasculitis and microthrombi may predict poor clinical outcome.
ABSTRACT
We compare the importance of market factors against that of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) dynamics and policy responses in explaining Eurozone sovereign spreads. First, we estimate a multifactor model for changes in credit default swap (CDS) spreads over 2014 to June 2019. Then, we apply a synthetic control-type procedure to extrapolate model-implied changes in CDS. The factor model does very well over the rest of 2019 but breaks down during the pandemic, especially during March 2020. We find that the March 2020 divergence is well accounted for by COVID-specific risks and associated policies, mortality outcomes, and policy announcements, rather than traditional determinants. Daily CDS widening ceased almost immediately after the European Central Bank announced the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme, but the divergence between actual and model-implied changes persisted. This points to COVID-19 Dominance-widening spreads during the pandemic has led to unconventional monetary policies that primarily aim to mitigate short-run fears, temporarily pushing away concerns over fiscal risk.
ABSTRACT
This paper introduced a best practice on personal health data management on blockchain technology. When the global community is dealing with COVID-19 pandemic and economy reopen strategy, a solid solution is needed to cover various aspects: health data collection and monitoring, data privacy control, immutable data record, global identity and cross region collaboration. By using distributed ledger technology, decentralized identity, verifiable credential, and distributed storage, we built the GreenPass solution to address COVID-19 mitigation and economy reopen issues at the community level. We also envision GreenPass solution as the personal data vault with data ownership and permission management, as a green passport for a person to the future of "data as a personal property right" new world.