Characteristics of Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndromes and Treatments of COVID-19 Patients from Two Hospitals Based on "Treatment of Disease in Accordance with Three Conditions".

Objective: To explore the guidance value of "treatment of disease in accordance with three conditions" theory in the prevention and treatment of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) based on the differences of syndromes and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatments in COVID-19 patients from Xingtai Hospital of Chinese Medicine of Hebei province and Ruili Hospital of Chinese Medicine and Dai Medicine of Yunnan province and discuss its significance in the prevention and treatment of the unexpected acute infectious diseases. Method(s): Demographics data and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients from the two hospitals were collected retrospectively and analyzed by SPSS 18.0. The information on formulas was obtained from the hospital information system (HIS) of the two hospitals and analyzed by the big data intelligent processing and knowledge service system of Guangdong Hospital of Chinese Medicine for frequency statistics and association rules analysis. Heat map-hierarchical clustering analysis was used to explore the correlation between clinical characteristics and formulas. Result(s): A total of 175 patients with COVID-19 were included in this study. The 70 patients in Xingtai, dominated by young and middle-aged males, had clinical symptoms of fever, abnormal sweating, and fatigue. The main pathogenesis is stagnant cold-dampness in the exterior and impaired yin by depressed heat, with manifest cold, dampness, and deficiency syndromes. The therapeutic methods highlight relieving exterior syndrome and resolving dampness, accompanied by draining depressed heat. The core Chinese medicines used are Poria, Armeniacae Semen Amarum, Gypsum Fibrosum, Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium, and Pogostemonis Herba. By contrast, the 105 patients in Ruili, dominated by young females, had atypical clinical symptoms, and most of them were asymptomatic patients or mild cases. The main pathogenesis is dampness obstructing the lung and the stomach, with obvious dampness and heat syndromes. The therapeutic methods are mainly invigorating the spleen, resolving dampness, and dispersing Qi with light drugs. The core Chinese medicines used are Poria, Atractylodis Macrocephalae Rhizoma, Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma, Coicis Semen, Platycodonis Radix, Lonicerae Japonicae Flos, and Pogostemonis Herba. Conclusion(s): The differences in clinical characteristics, TCM syndromes, and medication of COVID-19 patients from the two places may result from different regions, population characteristics, and the time point of the COVID-19 outbreak. The "treatment of disease in accordance with three conditions" theory can help to understand the internal correlation and guide the treatments.Copyright © 2022, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences Institute of Chinese Materia Medica. All rights reserved.

Systematic Transformations of Entrepreneurship in the New Era: The Commitment to Benefit Corporation Entrepreneurship

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was held in 2012, China has comprehensively started shifting economic and social development from the traditional way of extensive growth, driven by labor, land, and capital, to innovation-driven high-quality development. During the transformation process, intricate economic and social contradictions have arisen one after another. Thus, the effective participation of entrepreneurs as market players is indispensable in promoting high-quality social and economic development and modernizing China's governance system and capacity. In particular, the global COVID-19 pandemic has had a vast and lasting impact on production and social order. It is all the more necessary to make the best of the endogenous capability of entrepreneurship to energize market vitality and address the complicated challenges in social and market governance in the face of a major social crisis. In his report to the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping said, "We will inspire and protect entrepreneurship, and encourage more entities to make innovations and start businesses. We will build an educated, skilled, and innovative workforce, foster respect for model workers, and promote quality workmanship." On July 21, 2020, when presiding over a roundtable with entrepreneurs, Xi once again stressed the great value of entrepreneurship in improving the socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics and accelerating innovation-driven development in the post-COVID-19 era. He pointed out, "Since the reform and opening up, the socialist market economy system has steadily developed and constantly improved;various market entities are thriving;facing the huge attacks on domestic and global economies caused by COVID-19, it is needed to make every effort to protect market entities, spur vitality of market entities, carry forward entrepreneurship, and enable enterprises to play bigger roles and achieve greater development, to accumulate fundamental strength for economic growth."

Swine nutrition and environment

Evidently, pathogens and swine herd health are regarded as the top risk factors that can potentially disrupt normal pork production. Since the last edition of the Sustainable Swine Nutrition edited by Chiba, unprecedented global COVID-19 pandemic challenges and disruptive cell-based new meat production technologies have emerged, which need to be touched on in the context. COVID-19 has been causing enormous damages in losses of a large number of human lives and disruption of global social and economic activities, being regarded as the most severe pandemic occurred within the past century ever since the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. Carbon is fundamental in metabolic energy-contributing ingredients, namely starch, proteins, oils and fats, and nonstarch polysaccharides, and is an essential component measured during indirect calorimetry experimentation. Gut microbiota contributes to digestion and degradation of dietary carbon nutrients in pigs. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Maritime Disruption Impact Evaluation Using Simulation and Big Data Analytics

Disruptions in maritime networks may cause significant financial burden and damage to business. Recently, some international ports have been experiencing unprecedented congestions due to the COVID19 pandemic and other disruptions. It is paramount for the maritime industry to further enhance the capability to assess and predict impacts of disruptions. With more data available from industrial digitization and more advanced technologies developed for big data analytics and simulation, it is possible to build up such capability. In this study, we developed a discrete event simulation model backed with big data analytics for realistic and valid inputs to assess impacts of the Suez Canal blockage to the Port of Singapore. The simulation results reveal an interesting finding that, the blockage occurred in the Suez Canal can hardly cause significant congestion in the Port of Singapore. The work can be extended to evaluate impacts of other types of disruptions, even occurring concurrently. © 2022 IEEE.

Evaluating the Covid-19 Screening Regime for Cross-Border Workers

Global travel and trade have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Border closures have impacted both leisure and business travel. The socioeconomic costs of border closure are particularly severe for individuals living and working across state lines, for which previously unhindered passage has been curtailed, and daily commute across borders is now virtually impossible. Here, we examine how the periodic screening of daily cross-border commuters across territories with relatively low COVID-19 incidence will impact the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 across borders using agent-based simulation. We find that periodic testing at practical frequencies of once every 7, 14 or 21 days would reduce the number of infected individuals crossing the border. The unique transmission characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 suggest that periodic testing of populations with low incidence is of limited use in reducing cross-border transmission and is not as cost-effective as other mitigation measures for preventing transmission. © 2022 IEEE.

Prevalence of COVID-19 in connective tissue diseases

Propose: Due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV- 2), novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) is a systemic viral disease that mostly affects the respiratory tract. Studies have shown that COVID-19 may increase the risk of autoantibody development in patients with connective tissue diseases (CTD) .However, data regarding the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on patients with CTD and drug use were relatively scarce. The prevalence of COVID-19 in CTD patients was estimated by means of meta-analysis, and the effect of the use of anti-rheumatic drugs on the clinical outcome of CTD patients with COVID-19 was investigated. Method(s): Cross-sectional investigations and case series on CTD and COVID-19 published by CBM, CNKI, China Science and Technology Journal Database, Wan Fang Data, PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and Medline from its establishment to April 5, 2022 were searched. A random effects model was used to pool data. Heterogeneity and risk of bias was examined with I-squared index (I2) statistic. Inconsistency was evaluated with the I2. Egger tests were used for the evaluation of potential publication bias (STATA v.12.0). Result(s): A total 11 studies involving 75908 participants were included in the meta-analysis (Table 1). The overall prevalence of COVID-19 among CTD patients was 3.3% (95%CI: 2.3%-4.3%) (Figure 1A), the hospitalization rate was 17.6% (95%CI: 7.5%-27.6%;Figure 1B), with the rate of 4.4% (95%CI: 2.8%-6.0%;Figure 1C)in ICU admission, and the mortality rate was 4.5% (95%CI: 2.5%-6.4%;igure 1D). Six of the studies included patients who used hydroxychloroquine as part of their treatment regimen, with 15.5% (95%CI: 5.6%-25.3%) adverse outcome rates (Figure 1E). Conclusion(s): Patients with CTD had a higher risk of COVID-19. Hydroxychloroquine might increase adverse outcome rate of COVID-19.

Effects of antirheumatic drugs on prevalence and clinical outcome of COVID-19 in systemic lupus erythematosus: a meta-analysis

Purpose: Novel Coronavirus pneumonia 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the novel coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus- 2 (CoV-2) is a highly contagious infection with high morbidity and mortality1. Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are considered to be susceptible to coronavirus due to impaired immune function2. This study aims to systematically evaluate the prevalence of COVID-19 in SLE patients, and futher explore the impact of antirheumatic drug on the clinical outcome of COVID-19 in SLE patients. Method(s): Systematic searches of PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library and Medline, CNKI, CBM, China Science and Technology Journal Database and Wan Fang Data were performed. Cross-sectional investigations and case series on SLE and COVID-19 were included. Random effects model was used to pool data. Heterogeneity and risk of bias was examined with I squared index (I2) statistic and Egger tests were used for the evaluation of potential publication bias (STATA v.12.0). Result(s): A total of 14 studies comprising 5115 SLE patients and 698 COVID-19 patients were identified. Overall prevalence of COVID-19 in SLE patients was 6.7% (95%CI: 4.4-9.1%). The hospitalization rate was 31.6% (95%CI: 15.8%-47.3%), with the rate of 22.2% (95%CI: 6.2-38.2%) of patients were admitted to ICU, and the death rate was 19.3% (95%CI: 2.7%-35.9%). Eight of the studies included patients who used hydroxychloroquine as part of their treatment regimen, with 5.7% (95%CI: 3.3%-8.0%) prevalence rate. The hospitalisation rates for SLE patients with COVID-19 infection who received glucocorticoid was 69.2% (95%CI: 46.8%-91.6%). The rates of hospitalisation in patients who received hydroxychloroquine was 59.2% (95%CI: 45.8%-72.6%), and in patients who received biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (b-DMARD) was 61.8% (95%CI: 32.7%-90.9%). The adverse outcome rate due to COVID-19 in patients with SLE was 34.1% (95% CI: 4.3%-64%). The rate of adverse outcome in SLE patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who received glucocorticoid was 22.9% (95%CI: 9%-31.5%), and in patients who received hydroxychloroquine was 22.9% (95%CI: 0.1%-45.7%, Figure 1). Conclusion(s): Patients with SLE had a higher risk of COVID-19. Anti-rheumatic drugs may help reduce the prevalence and overall rate of adverse outcomes of COVID-19. Figure 1.

Prevalence and anti-rheumatic drugs on the clinical outcome of COVID-19 in autoimmune rheumatic diseases

Purpose: The pandemic of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the emerging severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov- 2) has become a global health crisis (WHO, 2020b), leading to large number of infections and deaths. Autoimmune rheumatic diseases (ARD) are characterized by immune dysfunction and more susceptible to infection. The prevalence of COVID-19 in ARD patients was estimated by means of meta-analysis, and the effect of the use of anti-rheumatic drugs on the clinical outcome of ARD patients with COVID-19 was investigated. Method(s): Cross-sectional investigations and case series on ARD and COVID-19 published by CBM, CNKI, China Science and Technology Journal Database, Wan Fang Data, PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and Medline from its establishment to June 26, 2022 were searched. Random effects model was used to pool data. Heterogeneity and risk of bias was examined with I-squared index (I2) statistic. Egger tests were used for the evaluation of potential publication bias (STATA v.12.0). Result(s): A total of 65 studies comprising 135 515 patients were identified. Overall prevalence of COVID-19 in ARD patients was 5.4% (95%CI: 4.3%-6.5%). The hospitalisation rate due to COVID-19 was 35.9% (95% CI: 28.3%-43.4%). The hospitalisation rates for ARD patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who received glucocorticoid was 35.9% (95%CI: 31.4%-40.4%). The rates of hospitalisation in patients who received hydroxychloroquine was 39.9% (95%CI: 34.5%-45.3%), and in patients who received biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (b-DMARD) was 38.1% (95%CI: 33.6%-42.5%), which were both higher than total hospitalisation. The mortality due to COVID-19 in patients with ARD was 6.0% (95% CI: 5.1%-6.8%). The mortality in ARD patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who received glucocorticoid was 5.3% (95%CI: 4.3%-6.2%), and in patients who received b-DMARD was 5.8% (95%CI: 4.9%-6.7%). Mortality rates for patients who received hydroxychloroquine was 5.2% (95%CI: 4.2%-6.2%) (Figure 1). Conclusion(s): Patients with ARD had a higher risk of COVID-19. Use of glucocorticoids decrease mortality in these patients suffered from COVID-19 infection. Though patients had a higher hospitalisation rates but lower mortality among patients prescribed b-DMARD or hydroxychloroquine. (Figure Presented).

Research update on association of physical activity with physical and mental health among children and adolescents

In recent decades, there is a decreasing trend in physical activity, which might be associated with decline in physical and mental health among children and adolescents in China. The outbreak and spread of the COVID-19 further aggravated this trend. Under the background of normalized epidemic prevention and control, in order to deeply understand the relationship between physical activity and physical and mental health of children and adolescents, this study sorted out relevant domestic and foreign literatures, and analyzed the effects of physical activity on children and adolescents' health and fitness. The positive effects of physical activity, cognition, and mental health were found to be significantly different in the type, intensity, and time of physical activity in the related health effects. © 2022 Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Improving physical activity levels of children and adolescents is an important guarantee for Healthy China

The health of children and adolescents is of great significance to the realization of a "Healthy China". However, the current health problems of children and adolescents are showing a trend of frequent, high incidence and younger age. Complex and diverging characteristics of the environment, family and personal life behavior patterns contribute to risks and problems for children and adolescent health prevention and improvement. The outbreak and spread of COVID-19 epidemic has brought even more severe challenges to the health promotion of children and adolescents. In view of the connection between physical activity and the health benefits, consistent focus on "Physical Activity" and innovative ways and methods of health promotion through physical activity, can help provide an important guarantee for achieving the goal of "Healthy China". © 2022 Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

[Application of combined detection of multiple pathogens in diagnosis and treatment of coronavirus disease 2019].

Due to the wide variety of pathogens causing respiratory tract infection and the close symptoms, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) needs to be differentiated from other common infections. Early comprehensive detection and accurate identification of respiratory infection pathogens is of great value for early diagnosis, curative effect, as well as monitor of the diseases. Combined detection of multiple pathogens can quickly and accurately detect and distinguish the pathogens, then provide rapid and reliable laboratory diagnostic basis for further treatment. This article elaborates the application and development of multiplex detection assay in the diagnosis of COVID-19 according to the recent research.

Fear of cancer recurrence is related to the efficacy of immunotherapy and quality of life in patients with NSCLC during the COVID-19 pandemic in China

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), making the fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) more pronounced. We explored the effects of FCR on immunotherapy efficacy and quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic in China among the 124 NSCLC patients enrolled in this study. Quality of life and immunotherapy efficacy were compared between high- and low-FCR groups after completing 4-6 courses of treatment or cancer progression. Worse immunotherapy efficacy and quality of life were reported for the high-FCR group than for the low-FCR group. These findings emphasize the need to pay close attention to the level of FCR in NSCLC patients. Efforts should be taken to alleviate FCR levels among NSCLC patients. Moreover, research is needed to investigate the possible link between immunotherapy efficacy and FCR. Copyright © 2022 E-Century Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

On the improvement of family services in public health events：a qualitative case study based on COVID-19 responses

Objective To understand the status of family services and residents’demands for services in Shanghai in order to construct and improve the key elements of family services in public health events. Methods We used a combining method of individual in-depth interviews and focused group interviews. The informants were domestic and foreign experts in public health, health services, education, safety, etc., community workers and residents. The interview questions were as follow：problems in family services, residents’demands and suggestions for family services, etc. Results We found 7 major family services problems in Shanghai’s response to public health events：The boundary of authorities and responsibilities were not clearly defined between the upper and lower departments. The team construction of public health professions at the community level was flawed. There were miscommunications between upper and lower medical institutions during the epidemic outbreaks. Residents were not aware of the available family services provided by their communities. Unnoticed insanitary spots still existed in public spaces, and the maintenance of residential emergence equipment needs to be strengthened. The public opinion guidance required further strengthening, and the elderly people lack an effective medium for information acquisition. The emergency plan of closed management to solve practical problems after Shanghai’s COVID lockdown was insufficient. The residents’demands included the following 6 aspects：comprehensive family services, supply and guarantee of basic living materials and special materials, professionals providing family services as a means of support, emergency medical services, receiving psychological intervention and understanding knowledge of mental health, security of food and food supply chain security. Conclusion ‘Government led’‘cross-border cooperation’‘clear executive body’and ‘based on the needs of residents’were key factors. Therefore, we suggest family services are included in the normalizing construction of government. © 2022 Fudan University. All rights reserved.

POINT-OF-CARE ISOTHERMAL NUCLEIC ACID AMPLIFICATION PLATFORM FOR COVID-19 DIAGNOSTICS IN RESOURCE-LIMITED SETTINGS

The demand for scalable, rapid and sensitive COVID-19 diagnostics is particularly pressing at present to help contain the spread of infection and prevent overwhelming the capacity of health systems. While high-income countries have managed to rapidly expand diagnostic capacities, such is not the case in resource-limited settings of low- to medium-income countries. We report the development of an integrated modular centrifugal microfluidic platform costing less than 250 USD to perform loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) of viral RNA directly from heat-inactivated nasopharyngeal swab samples. The platform was validated with a panel of 131 nasopharyngeal swab samples collected from symptomatic COVID-19 patients. © 2021 MicroTAS 2021 - 25th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences. All rights reserved.

PREVALENCE of COVID-19 in SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS: A META-ANALYSIS

Background: Novel Coronavirus pneumonia 2019 (COVID-19) is a systemic infectious disease with prominent involvement of the respiratory tract, due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)[1]. Systemic lupus erythematosus is charcterized by an aberrant immune response with the presence of circulating autoantibodies, lymphopenia, and proinfammatory[2]. They are immune-compromised and vulnerable to infections with immune-suppressants treatment. However, data regarding the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in patients with SLE and drug use were relatively scarce. Objectives: The prevalence of COVID-19 in SLE patients was estimated by means of meta-analysis, and the effect of the use of anti-rheumatic drugs on the clinical outcome of SLE patients with COVID-19 was investigated. Methods: Cross-sectional investigations and case series on SLE and COVID-19 published by CBM, CNKI, China Science and Technology Journal Database, Wan Fang Data, PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and Medline from its establishment to November 10, 2021 were searched. Random effects model was used to pool data. Heterogeneity and risk of bias was examined with I-squared index (I2) statistic. Inconsistency was evaluated by using the I2. Egger tests were used for the evaluation of potential publication bias (STATA v.12.0). Results: A total of 14 studies comprising 5365 patients were identifed (Table 1). Overall prevalence of COVID-19 in SLE patients was 1.5% (95%CI: 1.2%-1.8%). Eight of the studies included patients who used hydroxychloroquine as part of their treatment regimen, with 29.8% (95%CI: 25.8%-33.8%) hospitalization rates and 14.6% (95%CI: 11.5%-17.8%) adverse outcome rates. Among patients treated with hydroxychloroquine throughout the course of disease, the prevalence was 0.7% (95%CI: 0.4%-1.0%, Figure 1). Conclusion: Patients with SLE had a higher risk of COVID-19. Hydroxychloro-quine might beneft to reduce the overall hospitalization rate and prevalence rate of COVID-19, and alleviate infammatory damage in the chronic stage of viral infection by inhibiting over activation of the immune system.

Anti-PD-1 antibody plus regorafenib in refractory microsatellite stable metastatic colorectal cancer: A retrospective study

Background: To investigate the efficacy and safety of anti-PD-1 antibody plus regorafenib in refractory microsatellite stable (MSS) metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the efficacy and safety of 103 MSS mCRC patients treated with anti -PD-1 antibodies(including nivolumab, pembrolizumab, camrelizumab, sintilimab, and toripalimab) combined with regorafenib(80 mg once daily for 21 days on/7 days off)between July 2019 and June 2021 in Hunan Cancer Hospital. Results: 103 patients had received at least one dose of regorafenib plus anti -PD-1 antibody. Due to COVID-19 pandemics, economic or other reasons, 48 patients (46.6%) did not return to hospital for second cycle of combination treatment .With a median follow-up of 5.30 months (range 0.50-22.50), the median overall survival (mOS) and progression-free survival (mPFS) were 8.40 months (95%CI:6.40-12.70) and 2.50 months (95%CI:2.27-3.47) in the entire cohort, respectively. The mOS and mPFS were significantly longer in patients who received more than 1 cycle (n = 55, 53.4%) compared to those who received just 1 cycle(n = 48, 46.6%). (16.07 vs. 4.37 months, HR 0.21;95%CI:[0.12-0.38];P<0.001;3.10 vs. 1.11 months, HR 0.12;95%CI: [0.05-0.31];P<0.001). Further analyses revealed that sintilimab (n = 66, 64.1%) significantly improved mPFS from 1.61 months to 3.30 months, compared to other anti-PD-1 antibodies (n = 37, 35.9%) (HR 0.55;95%CI:[0.31-0.99];P = 0.044). Cox multivariate regression analysis demonstrated that cycles of regorafenib plus PD-1 was a significant independent risk factor for the OS and PFS(P0.001).Patients who had previously undergone surgery were better than those who had not (P= 0.029).Sintilimab plus regorafenib had a better PFS benefit(P= 0.044.)Seven patients were diagnosed as partial response and another 16 cases were diagnosed as stable disease in the 55 patients who were evaluated, but no complete response. Thus the objective response rate was 12.7% and the disease control rate was 41.8%.Treatment-related adverse events of grade 3 or higher occurred in 13 (12.6%) patients. Conclusions: The combination of regorafenib plus anti-PD-1 antibody had a manageable safety profile and promising efficacy in MSS mCRC patients, especially in patients who received more than one cycle. Compared with the other anti-PD-1 antibodies, sintilimab may have more encouraging efficacy, which needs further prospective studies.

Identifying and testing cancer-derived synthetic-lethal anti-SARS-CoV-2 targets

Introduction: Despite the development of two mRNA vaccines, there is an urgent unmet need of finding new antiviral strategies. One such potential antiviral strategy is to target the synthetic lethal (SL) partners of transcriptionally altered genes in infected host cells, thereby selectively killing them to halt the infection at its heels (Mast FD, JCB, 2020). Methods: Here we conduct a first proof-of-concept SL inference approach to predict anti-SARS-CoV-2 targets in a systematic genome-wide manner. This effort capitalizes on our recently published pipeline for inferring clinically relevant SL interactions in cancer (Lee et al, Cell, 2021). Based on the latter, we comprehensively analyzed multiple in vitro and in vivo bulk and single-cell RNA-sequencing datasets of SARS-CoV-2 infection to predict candidate antiviral targets that are SL with altered host genes. Importantly, as our predictions are fine-tuned based on the analysis of patients' data, they are more likely to be of translational value. Results: Our key results are twofold:1) The predicted SL-based targets are highly enriched for genes that are reported in four SARS-CoV-2 CRISPR-Cas9 genome-wide genetic screens to inhibit growth of infected cells. 2) A subset of top predicted 26 genes were experimentally tested in a targeted siRNA screen conducted in both infected and non-infected human Caco-2 cells. Remarkably, as expected given that these targets were predicted to be SL specific with genes upregulated in infected cells, indeed, knocking down these targets reduced viral replication and cell viability only under the infected condition without harming non-infected cells. Conclusion: In summary, this study is the first to demonstrate the potential of a synthetic lethality approach to identify viral (specifically anti-SARS-CoV-2) targets. Importantly, as both single cell and bulk transcriptomics patients' data is considered from both infected people and controls, they are more likely to be of clinical relevance. Targeting host genes identified via an SL-based approach is probably more suitable when the infection is at the early stage and host can still tolerate the loss of infected host cells.

Characteristics of Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndromes and Treatments of COVID-19 Patients from Two Hospitals Based on “Treatment of Disease in Accordance with Three Conditions”

Objective: To explore the guidance value of “treatment of disease in accordance with three conditions” theory in the prevention and treatment of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) based on the differences of syndromes and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatments in COVID-19 patients from Xingtai Hospital of Chinese Medicine of Hebei province and Ruili Hospital of Chinese Medicine and Dai Medicine of Yunnan province and discuss its significance in the prevention and treatment of the unexpected acute infectious diseases. Method: Demographics data and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients from the two hospitals were collected retrospectively and analyzed by SPSS 18.0. The information on formulas was obtained from the hospital information system (HIS) of the two hospitals and analyzed by the big data intelligent processing and knowledge service system of Guangdong Hospital of Chinese Medicine for frequency statistics and association rules analysis. Heat map-hierarchical clustering analysis was used to explore the correlation between clinical characteristics and formulas. Result: A total of 175 patients with COVID-19 were included in this study. The 70 patients in Xingtai, dominated by young and middle-aged males, had clinical symptoms of fever, abnormal sweating, and fatigue. The main pathogenesis is stagnant cold-dampness in the exterior and impaired yin by depressed heat, with manifest cold, dampness, and deficiency syndromes. The therapeutic methods highlight relieving exterior syndrome and resolving dampness, accompanied by draining depressed heat. The core Chinese medicines used are Poria, Armeniacae Semen Amarum, Gypsum Fibrosum, Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium, and Pogostemonis Herba. By contrast, the 105 patients in Ruili, dominated by young females, had atypical clinical symptoms, and most of them were asymptomatic patients or mild cases. The main pathogenesis is dampness obstructing the lung and the stomach, with obvious dampness and heat syndromes. The therapeutic methods are mainly invigorating the spleen, resolving dampness, and dispersing Qi with light drugs. The core Chinese medicines used are Poria, Atractylodis Macrocephalae Rhizoma, Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma, Coicis Semen, Platycodonis Radix, Lonicerae Japonicae Flos, and Pogostemonis Herba. Conclusion: The differences in clinical characteristics, TCM syndromes, and medication of COVID-19 patients from the two places may result from different regions, population characteristics, and the time point of the COVID-19 outbreak. The “treatment of disease in accordance with three conditions” theory can help to understand the internal correlation and guide the treatments. © 2022, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences Institute of Chinese Materia Medica. All rights reserved.

Rising through the pandemic: a scoping review of quality improvement in public health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic generated a growing interest in and need for evidence-based tools to facilitate the implementation of emergency management strategies within public health practice. Quality improvement (QI) is a key framework and philosophy to guide organizational emergency response efforts; however, the nature and extent to which it has been used in public health settings during the COVID-19 pandemic remains unclear. METHODS: We conducted a scoping review of literature published January 2020 - February 2021 and focused on the topic of QI at public health agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The search was conducted using four bibliographic databases, in addition to a supplementary grey literature search through custom Google search engines and targeted website search methods. Of the 1,878 peer-reviewed articles assessed, 15 records met the inclusion criteria. An additional 11 relevant records were identified during the grey literature search, for a total of 26 records included in the scoping review. RESULTS: Records were organized into five topics: 1) collaborative problem solving and analysis with stakeholders; 2) supporting learning and capacity building in QI; 3) learning from past emergencies; 4) implementing QI methods during COVID-19; and 5) evaluating performance using frameworks/indicators. CONCLUSIONS: The literature indicates that QI-oriented activities are occurring at the organizational and program levels to enhance COVID-19 response. To optimize the benefits that QI approaches and methodologies may offer, it is important for public health agencies to focus on both widespread integration of QI as part of an organization's management philosophy and culture, as well as project level activities at all stages of the emergency management cycle.