Education and EdTech during COVID-19: Evidence from a Large-Scale Survey during School Closures in China

In response to the COVID-19 epidemic, many education systems have relied on distance learning and educational technologies to an unprecedented degree. However, rigorous empirical research on the impacts on learning under these conditions is still scarce. We present the first large-scale, quantitative evidence detailing how school closures affected education in China. The data set includes households and teachers of 4,360 rural and urban primary school students. We find that although the majority of students engaged in distance education, many households encountered difficulties including barriers to learning (such as access to appropriate digital devices and study spaces), curricular delays, and costs to parents equivalent to between 3.5 and 6 months of income. We also find significant disparities across rural and urban households.

An improved voterank algorithm to identifying a set of influential spreaders in complex networks

Identifying a set of critical nodes with high propagation in complex networks to achieve maximum influence is an important task in the field of complex network research, especially in the background of the current rapid global spread of COVID-19. In view of this, some scholars believe that nodes with high importance in the network have stronger propagation, and many classical methods are proposed to evaluate node importance. However, this approach makes it difficult to ensure that the selected spreaders are dispersed in the network, which greatly affects the propagation ability. The VoteRank algorithm uses a voting-based method to identify nodes with strong propagation in the network, but there are some deficiencies. Here, we solve this problem by proposing the DILVoteRank algorithm. The VoteRank algorithm cannot properly reflect the importance of nodes in the network topology. Based on this, we redefine the initial voting ability of nodes in the VoteRank algorithm and introduce the degree and importance of the line (DIL) ranking method to calculate the voting score so that the algorithm can better reflect the importance of nodes in the network structure. In addition, the weakening mechanism of the VoteRank algorithm only weakens the information of neighboring nodes of the selected nodes, which does not guarantee that the identified initial spreaders are sufficiently dispersed in the network. On this basis, we consider all the neighbors nodes of the node's nearest and next nearest neighbors, so that the crucial spreaders identified by our algorithm are more widely distributed in the network with the same initial node ratio. In order to test the algorithm performance, we simulate the DILVoteRank algorithm with six other benchmark algorithms in 12 real-world network datasets based on two propagation dynamics model. The experimental results show that our algorithm identifies spreaders that achieve stronger propagation ability and propagation scale and with more stability compared to other benchmark algorithms.

Traditional Chinese Medicine for COVID-19 Pandemic and Emerging Challenges: an Online Cross-sectional Survey in China

Methods: The survey was designed by an international team, translated and adapted to simplified Chinese, including 132 kinds of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) preparation recommended by guidelines. It was distributed and collected from February to May 2021, with data analysed by WPS spreadsheet and wjx.cn. Descriptive statistics were used to describe demographics and clinical characteristics, diagnosis, treatments, preventative behaviours and interventions, and their associated outcomes. Results: The survey was accessed 503 times with 341 (67.8%) completions covering 23 provinces and four municipalities in China. Most (282/341, 82.7%) respondents reported no symptoms during the pandemic and the majority (290/341, 85.0%) reported having a SARS-CoV-2 PCR test at some point. Forty-five (13.2%) reported having a respiratory infection, among which 19 (42.2%) took one or more categories of modern medicine, e.g. painkillers, antibiotics;16 (35.6%) used TCM interventions(s);while seven respondents combined TCM with modern medicine. All respondents reported using at least one behavioural or medical approach to prevention, with 22.3% taking TCM and 5.3% taking modern medicines. No respondents reported having a critical condition related to COVID-19. Background: We aimed to investigate use of infection control behaviours, preventative and therapeutic interventions, and outcomes among respondents to an online survey during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Conclusion: We found evidence of widespread use of infection control behaviours, modern medicines and TCM for treatment and prevention of COVID-19 and other respiratory symptoms. Larger scale studies are warranted, including a more representative sample exploring TCM preparations recommended in clinical guidelines.

Percentage of Children and/or Adolescents of All COVID-19 Cases: A Meta-analysis

Since the first report of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, the disease has rapidly spread to many countries worldwide. The initial reports showed that the incidence rate in adults was higher, while children and adolescents had fewer cases of infection. However, the number of COVID-19 cases has gradually increased in children and adolescents. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the percentage of children and/or adolescents of the total patients diagnosed with COVID-19. PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library were searched to find relevant studies. All statistical analyses were conducted using StataMP 14 software. A total of 12 studies met the inclusion criteria. The final results showed that the percentage of children and/or adolescents of all COVID-19 cases was 0.06 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.04-0.07], which meant an average of 6 cases in children per 10,000 COVID-19 cases. The percentage of children and/or adolescents with COVID-19 was 0.03 (95% CI, 0.01-0.05), 0.09 (95% CI, 0.08-0.09), 0.09 (95% CI, 0.03-0.16) and 0.04 (95% CI, 0.00-0.10) in Asia, South America, North America and Europe, respectively. The present study showed a low percentage of COVID-19 cases of children and/or adolescents, but not without infection risk. Therefore, we should pay attention to the cases of children and/or adolescents during the COVID-19 period and raise our vigilance. © 2022, Medcom Limited. All rights reserved.

Application of Online Learning within Education of Future Engineers during the Covid-19 Pandemic

The article is devoted to application of online learning within education of future engineers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Online learning challenges traditional education mode due to the rapid development of modern information technologies. The problem of online education is relevant in connection with urgent transfer of education to the online format during the COVID-19 pandemic. Application of online learning within engineering education meets the needs of new social situation, it provides updating teaching mode, teaching content, teaching concept, teaching level, and testing means. Online learning is characterized by changes of teacher's role, student's status, media's role, and teaching process. The authors conclude that practical applicability of data visualization combined within online education of future engineers leads to the development of their professional competence. Online learning provides new tools for engineering teaching and becomes an important force for improving future engineers' knowledge, skills and learning efficiency.

Chinese Herbal Medicine Used With or Without Conventional Western Therapy for COVID-19: an evidence review of clinical studies

Introduction: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an acute respiratory infectious disease. At present, there is no specific and effective therapy for the treatment and prevention of this disease. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has accumulated thousands of years of experience on the use of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) to prevent and treat infectious diseases. The aim of this study was to present the evidence on the therapeutic effects and safety of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) used with or without conventional western therapy for COVID-19. Methods: Clinical studies on the therapeutic effects and safety of CHM for COVID-19 were included. We summarized the general characteristics of included studies, evaluated methodological quality of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using the Cochrane risk of bias tool, analyzed the use of CHM, used Revman 5.4 software to present the risk ratio (RR) or mean difference (MD) and their 95% confidence interval (CI) to estimate the therapeutic effects and safety of CHM. Results: A total of 58 clinical studies were identified including RCTs (17.24%, 10), non-randomized controlled trials (1.72%, 1), retrospective studies with a control group (18.97%, 11), case-series (20.69%, 12) and case-reports (41.38%, 24). Fig.1 shows the flow diagram for the searching and screening of published articles. No RCTs of high methodological quality were identified. The most frequently tested oral Chinese patent medicine, Chinese herbal medicine injection or prescribed herbal decoction were: Lianhua Qingwen granule/capsule, Xuebijing injection and Maxing Shigan Tang. Table 1 lists the CHM used at least twice. In terms of aggravation rate, pooled analyses showed that there were statistical differences between the intervention group and the comparator group (RR 0.42, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.82, six RCTs;RR 0.38, 95% CI 0.23 to 0.64, five retrospective studies with a control group), that is, CHM plus conventional western therapy appeared better than conventional western therapy alone in reducing aggravation rate. In addition, compared with conventional western therapy, CHM plus conventional western therapy had potential advantages in increasing the recovery rate and shortening the duration of fever, cough and fatigue, improving the negative conversion rate of nucleic acid test, and increasing the improvement rate of chest CT manifestations and shortening the time from receiving the treatment to the beginning of chest CT manifestations improvement. For adverse events, pooled data showed that there were no statistical differences between the CHM and the control groups. Conclusion: Current low certainty evidence suggests that there may be a tendency that CHM plus conventional western therapy is superior to conventional western therapy alone. The use of CHM did not increase the risk of adverse events. Keywords: traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese herbal medicine, novel coronavirus pneumonia, coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, review, clinical study

A cross-sectional survey on information access through hospital's official account on new media and its association with antenatal care knowledge and health behaviors of pregnant women under COVID-19 epidemic

Objective To explore the association between accessing antenatal care information through hospitals' official new media accounts and antenatal care knowledge and individual prevention behavior under COVID-19 epidemic, and to provide evidence for improving the emergency plan for maternity health care services in China under public health emergencies. Methods The online survey was conducted from Feb 5th to Mar 1st, 2020, at the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic in China. Approaches of accessing antenatal care information, COVID-19 related antenatal care knowledge and individual prevention behavior was collected via cross-sectional design. Results A total of 1 936 valid questionnaires were obtained from 21 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. Under the COVID-19 epidemic, 75.4% of the pregnant women reported they got institutional service and health education information from hospitals' official new media accounts such as WeChat and Weibo. Multivariate Logistic analysis showed that pregnant women who received information from official accounts of new media had higher scores of COVID-19 relevant antenatal care knowledge (aOR=1.36, 95%CI:1.08-1.71, P<0.01)and individual prevention behaviors(aOR=1.46, 95%CI:1.18-1.82, P<0.01) than those who obtained information from other sources. Conclusion The access to antenatal care knowledge via hospitals' official social media accounts was associated with better antenatal care knowledge and individual prevention behaviors among pregnant women. Under major public health emergency, it is suggested for health institutions to disseminate antenatal health care information via hospitals' official accounts in new media like Wechat and Weibo. Appropriate training should be developed to ensure the quality of health education and service provision in official new media accounts. © 2021, Editorial Department of Fudan University Journal of Medical Sciences. All right reserved.

Analyzing the Evolutionary Characteristics of the Cluster of COVID-19 under Anti-contagion Policies

With the rampaging of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) across the world, analyzing the dynamic characteristics and understanding the evolutionary patterns of clusters are becoming even more crucial for people and policymakers to make timely responses for avoiding injury caused by COVID-19. To solve the scarcity of the fine-grained spatio-temporal data, we construct a novel dataset about the spread of patients during the resurgent period of the COVID-19 epidemic at the Xinfadi Market in Beijing. Leveraging our self-build dataset, we analyze the evolutionary characteristics of the cluster of COVID-19 under anti-contagion policies and obtained some remarkable evolution patterns. These findings can provide significant insights for policymakers and researchers to understand the evolutionary characteristics regarding the cluster of COVID-19 and deploy effective anti-contagion policies.

Chinese herbal medicine used with or without conventional western therapy for COVID-19: An evidence review of clinical studies

Objective: To present the evidence of the effectiveness and safety of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) used with or without conventional western therapy on COVID-19. Methods: Clinical studies on effectiveness and safety of CHM for COVID-19 were included. We summarized general characteristics of included studies, evaluated methodological quality of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), analyzed the use of CHM, estimated the effectiveness and safety of CHM. Results: A total of 58 clinical studies were identified including RCTs (17.24%, 10), non-randomized controlled trials (1.72%, 1), retrospective studies with a control group (18.97%, 11), case-series (20.69%, 12) and case-reports (41.38%, 24). No high methodological quality RCTs were identified. The most frequently tested Chinese patent medicine, Chinese herbal medicine injection or prescribed herbal decoction were: Lianhua Qingwen granule/capsule, Xuebijing injection and Maxing Shigan Tang. In terms of aggravation rate, pooled analyses showed that there had statistical differences between the intervention group and the comparator group (RR 0.42, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.82, 6 RCTs;RR 0.37, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.64, 4 retrospective studies with control group), that is, CHM plus conventional western therapy appeared better than conventional western therapy in reducing aggravation rate. In addition, compared with conventional western therapy, CHM plus conventional western therapy had potential advantages in increasing the resolution rate and shortening the duration of fever, cough and fatigue, improving the negative conversion rate of nucleic acid test, and increasing the number of patients with inflammatory disappearance or shortening the time from receiving treatment to beginning of inflammation disappearance. For adverse events, pooled data showed that there was no statistical difference between the CHM and the control groups. Conclusion: Current low certainty evidence suggests that there may be a tendency that CHM plus conventional western therapy is superior to conventional western therapy alone. The use of CHM did not increase the risk of adverse events.