ABSTRACT
The coronavirus pandemic is an ongoing global crisis that has profoundly harmed public health. Although studies found exposure to green spaces can provide multiple health benefits, the relationship between exposure to green spaces and the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate is unclear. This is a critical knowledge gap for research and practice. In this study, we examined the relationship between total green space, seven types of green space, and a year of SARS-CoV-2 infection data across 3,108 counties in the contiguous United States, after controlling for spatial autocorrelation and multiple types of covariates. First, we examined the association between total green space and SARS-CoV-2 infection rate. Next, we examined the association between different types of green space and SARS-CoV-2 infection rate. Then, we examined forest–infection rate association across five time periods and five urbanicity levels. Lastly, we examined the association between infection rate and population-weighted exposure to forest at varying buffer distances (100m to 4km). We found that total green space was negative associated with the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate. Furthermore, two forest variables (forest outside park and forest inside park) had the strongest negative association with the infection rate, while open space variables had mixed associations with the infection rate. Forest outside park was more effective than forest inside park. The optimal buffer distances associated with lowest infection rate are within 1,200m for forest outside park and within 600m for forest inside park. Altogether, the findings suggest that green spaces, especially nearby forest, may significantly mitigate risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
ABSTRACT
Background：The emergence of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019 is a major public health issue, causing to a large global outbreak. However, the information regarding the clinical characteristic and progression of severe and critically ill patients with COVID-19 is scarce.Methods: We conducted a single-center, retrospective, observational study and enrolled 126 severe and critically ill adult patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of Tongji hospital, between Feb 1 and Feb 20, 2020.Results: Of 126 patients, 85 patients with the positive of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were included. The mean age of 85 patients was 68.3 (SD 10.5) years. More than half were men, 55 (62.4%) had chronic illness. 57 (66.3%) patients had died before Feb 28, 2020. the median duration from onset of illness to death, hospitalization to death and ICU admission to death were 22 (17.0-26.0) days, 9.0 (6.0-13.0) days and 5.0 (2.0-6.0) days, respectively. Compared with survivors, non-survivors were more likely old (69.6 [SD 10.22] vs 65.6 [10.9]). Furthermore, the non-survivors had higher white blood cell (WBC) and neutrophil count, neutrophil percentage, high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and lower lymphocyte and platelet count, lymphocyte percentage and albumin. Notably, arbidol may improve the survival of severe and critically ill patients.Conclusions: Our study reveals the non-survivors had worse blood routine and other clinical monitors. Additionally, arbidol may play useful role in the survival of severe and critically ill patients, which needs further validation.