ABSTRACT
Background: The global outbreak of COVID-19 has prompted reforms in the teaching model of orthopedics. The wide spread of mutant strains such as Omicron has put the epidemic prevention and control in a high-pressure state for a long time in China. Due to the control of people gathering and social distancing restrictions, offline medical training and education have been greatly affected. The traditional spinal endoscopic surgery training mode cannot meet the increasing training needs of spine surgeons. This study aimed to explore the network distance teaching of minimally invasive spinal endoscopic surgery (MISES) videos of orthopedist amid COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: From January 2021 to June 2022, 76 orthopaedical surgeons who were trained in the orthopedics department of Shanghai Changzheng Hospital were selected to do network distance teaching. After the 2-month training, the training effect assessment and the satisfaction survey of trainers were conducted. Results: After an average of 2 months of training, the average examination score of trainees was 87.211±7.278, and the pass rate was 100%, the excellent and good rate was 92.11%. The results of the satisfaction survey showed that the overall satisfaction was as high as 88.184±6.560%. The videos database of MISES, as well as the distance teaching and training mode are continuously improved according to the satisfaction survey.Conclusions: The training mode of MISES network distance teaching can help orthopedic surgeons to quickly master MISES and improve the training effect, especially amid COVID-19.
Subject(s)
COVID-19ABSTRACT
Wastewater monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 allows for early detection and monitoring of COVID-19 burden in communities and can track specific variants of concern. Targeted assays enabled relative proportions of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta variants to be determined across 30 municipalities covering >75% of the province of Alberta (pop. 4.5M) in Canada, from November 2021 to January 2022. Larger cities like Calgary and Edmonton exhibited a more rapid emergence of Omicron relative to smaller and more remote municipalities. Notable exceptions were Banff, a small international resort town, and Fort McMurray, a more remote northern city with a large fly-in worker population. The integrated wastewater signal revealed that the Omicron variant represented close to 100% of SARS-CoV-2 burden prior to the observed increase in newly diagnosed clinical cases throughout Alberta, which peaked two weeks later. These findings demonstrate that wastewater monitoring offers early and reliable population-level results for establishing the extent and spread of emerging pathogens including SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Subject(s)
COVID-19ABSTRACT
Wastewater-based surveillance is emerging as an important tool for COVID-19 pandemic trending. Current methods of wastewater collection, such as grab and auto-composite sampling, have drawbacks that impede effective surveillance, especially from small catchments with limited accessibility. Passive samplers, which are more cost-effective and require fewer resources to process, are promising candidates for monitoring wastewater for SARS-CoV-2. Here, we compared traditional auto sampling with passive sampling for SARS-CoV-2 detection in wastewater. Torpedo-style 3D printed passive sampler device containing both cotton swabs and electronegative filter membranes was used. Between April and June 2021, fifteen passive samplers were placed at a local hospital wastewater outflow alongside an auto sampler. Reverse transcription and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was used to detect SARS-CoV-2 in the samples after processing and RNA extraction. The swab and membrane of the passive sampler showed similar detection rates and Ct values for SARS-CoV-2 RNA for the N1 and N2 gene targets. The passive method performed as well as the grab/auto sampling, with no significant differences between N1 and N2 Ct values. There were discrepant results on two days with negative grab/auto samples and positive passive samples, which might be related to the longer duration of passive sampling in the study. Overall, the passive sampler was rapid, reliable and cost-effective, and could be used as an alternative sampling method for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater.