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Although the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health has received sufficient attention in the medical and public health fields, analysis from the social science perspective is still lacking. By regarding the shock of COVID-19 pandemic as a quasi-natural experiment, this study adopts the Difference-in-Differences (DID) model and large microdata from Shandong Province, China, to identify the causal effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of senior high school students. We find that the COVID-19 pandemic results in an increase of 2.5677 points in adolescent psychological problem scores, equivalent to an average decrease of 29.93% in mental health. Furthermore, results of mechanism tests show that this negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health can be explained by a reduction in social trust, as well as widening inequalities caused by the digital divide and family income gap. Moreover, the estimates suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has a greater negative influence on the mental health of boys and urban adolescents. Our study complements the research field on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health and the potential socioeconomic mechanisms from a new perspective. These findings provide insights into how to safeguard adolescent mental health in China and other countries in the pandemic prevention and post-pandemic era.
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Identification of predictors of long COVID-19 is essential for managing healthcare plans of patients. This systematic literature review and meta-analysis aimed to identify risk factors not associated with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, but rather potentially predictive of the development of long COVID-19. MEDLINE, CINAHL, PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science databases, as well as medRxiv and bioRxiv preprint servers were screened through 15 September 2022. Peer-reviewed studies or preprints evaluating potential pre-SARS-CoV-2 infection risk factors for the development of long-lasting symptoms were included. The methodological quality was assessed using the Quality in Prognosis Studies (QUIPSs) tool. Random-effects meta-analyses with calculation of odds ratio (OR) were performed in those risk factors where a homogenous long COVID-19 definition was used. From 1978 studies identified, 37 peer-reviewed studies and one preprint were included. Eighteen articles evaluated age, sixteen articles evaluated sex, and twelve evaluated medical comorbidities as risk factors of long COVID-19. Overall, single studies reported that old age seems to be associated with long COVID-19 symptoms (n = 18); however, the meta-analysis did not reveal an association between old age and long COVID-19 (n = 3; OR 0.86, 95% CI 0.73 to 1.03, p = 0.17). Similarly, single studies revealed that female sex was associated with long COVID-19 symptoms (n = 16); which was confirmed in the meta-analysis (n = 7; OR 1.48, 95% CI 1.17 to 1.86, p = 0.01). Finally, medical comorbidities such as pulmonary disease (n = 4), diabetes (n = 1), obesity (n = 6), and organ transplantation (n = 1) were also identified as potential risk factors for long COVID-19. The risk of bias of most studies (71%, n = 27/38) was moderate or high. In conclusion, pooled evidence did not support an association between advancing age and long COVID-19 but supported that female sex is a risk factor for long COVID-19. Long COVID-19 was also associated with some previous medical comorbidities.
ABSTRACT
Although the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health has received sufficient attention in the medical and public health fields, analysis from the social science perspective is still lacking. By regarding the shock of COVID-19 pandemic as a quasi-natural experiment, this study adopts the Difference-in-Differences (DID) model and large microdata from Shandong Province, China, to identify the causal effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of senior high school students. We find that the COVID-19 pandemic results in an increase of 2.5677 points in adolescent psychological problem scores, equivalent to an average decrease of 29.93% in mental health. Furthermore, results of mechanism tests show that this negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health can be explained by a reduction in social trust, as well as widening inequalities caused by the digital divide and family income gap. Moreover, the estimates suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has a greater negative influence on the mental health of boys and urban adolescents. Our study complements the research field on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health and the potential socioeconomic mechanisms from a new perspective. These findings provide insights into how to safeguard adolescent mental health in China and other countries in the pandemic prevention and post-pandemic era.
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Quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) are commonly used in a variety of consumer and commercial products, typically as a component of disinfectants. During the COVID-19 pandemic, QACs became one of the primary agents utilized to inactivate the SARS-CoV-2 virus on surfaces. However, the ecotoxicological effects of QACs upon aquatic organisms have not been fully assessed. In this study, we examined the effects of a widely used QAC (benzalkonium chloride-C14, BAC-14) on two toxigenic Microcystis strains and one non-toxigenic freshwater Microcystis strain and carried out an analysis focused on primary, adaptive and compensatory stress responses at apical (growth and photosynthesis) and metabolic levels. This analysis revealed that the two toxic Microcystis strains were more tolerant than the non-toxic strain, with 96 hr-EC50 values of 0.70, 0.76, and 0.38 mg/L BAC-14 for toxigenic M. aeruginosa FACHB-905, toxigenic M. aeruginosa FACHB-469, and non-toxigenic M. wesenbergii FACHB-908, respectively. The photosynthetic activities of the Microcystis, assessed via Fv/Fm values, were significantly suppressed under 0.4 mg/L BAC-14. Furthermore, this analysis revealed that BAC-14 altered 14, 12, and 8 metabolic pathways in M. aeruginosa FACHB-905, M. aeruginosa FACHB-469, and M. wesenbergii FACHB-908, respectively. It is noteworthy that BAC-14 enhanced the level of extracellular microcystin production in the toxigenic Microcystis strains, although cell growth was not significantly affected. Collectively, these data show that BAC-14 disrupted the physiological and metabolic status of Microcystis cells and stimulated the production and release of microcystin, which could result in damage to aquatic systems.
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Background The aim of this study was to explore the short-term safety and immunogenicity of inactivated and peptide-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in patients with endocrine-related cancer (ER). Methods Eighty-eight patients with ER cancer and 82 healthy controls who had completed a full course of inactivated or peptide-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were recruited. Adverse events (AEs) were recorded. Responses to receptor-binding domain IgG antibody (anti-RBD-IgG), neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) and RBD+ memory B cells (MBCs) were evaluated. Results Approximately 26.14% (23/88) of patients with ER cancer reported AEs within 7 days, which was comparable to that reported by healthy controls (24.39%, 20/82). Both the overall seroprevalence of anti-RBD-IgG and NAbs was obviously lower in the cancer group (70.45% vs. 86.59%, P < 0.05;69.32% vs. 82.93%, P < 0.05, respectively). Anti-RBD-IgG and NAbs titers exhibited similar results, and dropped gradually over time. Patients with ongoing treatment had an attenuated immune response, especially in patients receiving active chemotherapy. The frequency of overall RBD+ MBCs was similar between the two groups, but the percentage of active MBCs was remarkably reduced in patients with ER cancer. Unlike antibody titers, MBCs responses were relatively constant over time. Conclusion Inactivated and peptide-based COVID-19 vaccines were well tolerated, but with lower immunogenicity for ER cancer patients. More intensive antibody monitoring and timely booster immunization is recommended for patients with ER cancer presenting disordered subpopulations of RBD+ MBCs.
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This manuscript proposes an integrated system for treating hospital solid waste (H.S.W.) consisting of an incineration and frictional sterilization system capable of operating during normal and emergency situations. We analyzed the benefits of integrating different hospital solid waste (H.S.W.) treatment systems with the existing stand-alone incineration system, with a particular emphasis on the thermal friction sterilization integration system. The objective was to define the economic advantages and benefits in terms of resources recovery of using the thermal frictional sterilization–incineration integrated system during the hospital’s normal and emergency/pandemic operating conditions. We modeled three modeling scenarios based on normal and emergency operating conditions. The results show that the H.S.W. was composed of 74% general H.S.W. Existing incineration systems would be the most expensive process because the sanitary transportation cost represented approximately 96% of the H.S.W. costs. The hospital would realize 40–61% savings relative to the existing method if the integrated incineration–frictional systems were implemented to treat 50–70% of H.S.W.;the savings were better than in other scenarios. Proposed scenario 3 had a much better resources recovery factor than scenarios 1 and 2. This modeling study showed that a thermal frictional sterilization–incineration system could work well even under emergency conditions if the H.S.W. in-house sorting/transportation/storage process is modified to cater to other H.S.W. treatment/sterilization systems.
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While existing studies have reported and recognized country-of-origin effects on the intentions to vaccinate against COVID-19 among individual citizens in some countries, the causal mechanism behind such effects to inform public health policymakers remain unexplored. Adding up a quality cue explanation for such effects to the existing literature, the authors argue that individual consumers are less willing to get a vaccine designed and manufactured by a country with a significantly lower quality perception than other countries. A survey experiment that recruited a nationally representative sample of Taiwanese adults (n = 1951) between December 13, 2020 and January 11, 2021 was designed and conducted to test the argument. We find that all else equal, Taiwanese respondents were on average less likely to express stronger willingness to take a vaccine from China than from the US, Germany, and Taiwan. Furthermore, even when the intrinsic quality of the vaccine was held constant by the experimental design, respondents still had a significantly lower quality perception of the vaccine from China, both in terms of perceived protection and severe side effects. Further evidence from casual mediation analyses shows that about 33% and 11% of the total average causal effects of the "China" country-of-origin label on vaccine uptake intention were respectively mediated through the perceived efficacy of protection and perceived risk of experiencing severe side effects. We conclude that quality cue constitutes one of many casual mechanisms behind widely reported country-of-origin effects on intention to vaccinate against COVID-19.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Vaccines , Adult , Humans , COVID-19/prevention & control , Intention , Cues , Taiwan/epidemiology , VaccinationABSTRACT
In the past several decades, internationalisation, which is featured by people and ideas’ unparalleled transnational mobility, has become a key discourse in higher education. Despite the spectacular outcomes that higher education internationalisation has achieved, scholars have detected weaknesses and vulnerabilities in its current policy and practice, which the COVID-19 pandemic have intensified. Informed by Marginson’s global higher education field framework, this study provides a critical reflection on the field’s evolution and the prospects for its future directions from experts’ perspectives. In unstructured interviews, 20 leading international scholars confirmed the global field’s dynamism and openness, and identified certain tendencies in its evolution, including a diversified and flattening structure. The experts highlighted the urgent demand for policy innovation on university internationalisation at the regional, national, and institutional levels in response to the changing global field in the post-pandemic era. The experts also stressed the significance of internationalisation’s cultural dimension, through which higher education internationalisation can escape the trap of the capitalist logic and address its shortcomings to achieve sustainable prosperity. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Policy Reviews in Higher Education is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected half a billion people, including vulnerable populations such as cancer patients. While increasing evidence supports the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 months after a negative nasopharyngeal swab test, the effects on long-term immune memory and cancer treatment are unclear. In this report, we examined post-COVID-19 tissue-localized immune responses in a hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patient and a colorectal cancer (CRC) patient. Using spatial whole-transcriptomic analysis, we demonstrated spatial profiles consistent with a lymphocyte-associated SARS-CoV-2 response (based on two public COVID-19 gene sets) in the tumors and adjacent normal tissues, despite intra-tumor heterogeneity. The use of RNAscope and multiplex immunohistochemistry revealed that the spatial localization of B cells was significantly associated with lymphocyte-associated SARS-CoV-2 responses within the spatial transcriptomic (ST) niches showing the highest levels of virus. Furthermore, single-cell RNA sequencing data obtained from previous (CRC) or new (HCC) ex vivo stimulation experiments showed that patient-specific SARS-CoV-2 memory B cells were the main contributors to this positive association. Finally, we evaluated the spatial associations between SARS-CoV-2-induced immunological effects and immunotherapy-related anti-tumor immune responses. Immuno-predictive scores (IMPRES) revealed consistent positive spatial correlations between T cells/cytotoxic lymphocytes and the predicted immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) response, particularly in the HCC tissues. However, the positive spatial correlation between B cells and IMPRES score was restricted to the high-virus ST niche. In addition, tumor immune dysfunction and exclusion (TIDE) analysis revealed marked T cell dysfunction and inflammation, alongside low T cell exclusion and M2 tumor-associated macrophage infiltration. Our results provide in situ evidence of SARS-CoV-2-generated persistent immunological memory, which could not only provide tissue protection against reinfection but may also modulate the tumor microenvironment, favoring ICB responsiveness. As the number of cancer patients with COVID-19 comorbidity continues to rise, improved understanding of the long-term immune response induced by SARS-CoV-2 and its impact on cancer treatment is much needed.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Carcinoma, Hepatocellular , Liver Neoplasms , Comorbidity , Humans , Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors , Immunologic Memory , Morbidity , SARS-CoV-2 , Transcriptome , Tumor Microenvironment/geneticsABSTRACT
In December 2019, there was an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown causes in Wuhan, China. The etiological pathogen was identified to be a novel coronavirus, named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The number of infected patients has markedly increased since the 2019 outbreak and COVID-19 has also proven to be highly contagious. In particular, the elderly are among the group of patients who are the most susceptible to succumbing to COVID-19 within the general population. Cross-infection in the hospital is one important route of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, where elderly patients are more susceptible to nosocomial infections due to reduced immunity. Therefore, the present study was conducted to search for ways to improve the medical management workflow in geriatric departments to ultimately reduce the risk of nosocomial infection in elderly inpatients. The present observational retrospective cohort study analysed elderly patients who were hospitalised in the Geriatric Department of the First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University (Nanjing, China). A total of 4,066 elderly patients, who were admitted between January and March in 2019 and 2020 and then hospitalised for >48 h were selected. Among them, 3,073 (75.58%) patients hospitalised from January 2019 to March 2019 were allocated into the non-intervention group, whereas the remaining 933 (24.42%) patients hospitalised from January 2020 to March 2020 after the COVID-19 outbreak were allocated into the intervention group. Following multivariate logistic regression analysis, the risk of nosocomial infections was found to be lower in the intervention group compared with that in the non-intervention group. After age stratification and adjustment for sex, chronic disease, presence of malignant tumour and trauma, both inverse probability treatment weighting and standardised mortality ratio revealed a lower risk of nosocomial infections in the intervention group compared with that in the non-intervention group. To rule out interference caused by changes in the community floating population and social environment during this 1-year study, 93 long-stay patients in stable condition were selected as a subgroup based on 4,066 patients. The so-called floating population refers to patients who have been in hospital for <2 years. Patients aged ≥65 years were included in the geriatrics program. The incidence of nosocomial infections during the epidemic prevention and control period (24 January 2020 to 24 March 2020) and the previous period of hospitalisation (24 January 2019 to 24 March 2019) was also analysed. In the subgroup analysis, a multivariate analysis was also performed on 93 elderly patients who experienced long-term hospitalisation. The risk of nosocomial and pulmonary infections was found to be lower in the intervention group compared with that in the non-intervention group. During the pandemic, the geriatric department took active preventative measures. However, whether these measures can be normalised to reduce the risk of nosocomial infections among elderly inpatients remain unclear. In addition, the present study found that the use of an indwelling gastric tube is an independent risk factor of nosocomial pulmonary infection in elderly inpatients. However, nutritional interventions are indispensable for the long-term wellbeing of patients, especially for those with dysphagia in whom an indwelling gastric tube is the most viable method of providing enteral nutrition. To conclude, the present retrospective analysis of the selected cases showed that enacting preventative and control measures resulted in the effective control of the incidence of nosocomial infections.
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New variations of SARS-CoV-2 continue to emerge in the global pandemic, which may be resistant to at least some vaccines in COVID-19, indicating that drug and vaccine development must be continuously strengthened. NSP10 plays an essential role in SARS-CoV-2 viral life cycle. It stimulates the enzymatic activities of NSP14-ExoN and NSP16-O-MTase by the formation of NSP10/NSP14 and NSP10/NSP16 complexes. Inhibiting NSP10 can block the binding of NSP10 to NSP14 and NSP16. This study has identified potential natural NSP10 inhibitors from ZINC database. The protein druggable pocket was identified for screening candidates. Molecular docking of the selected compounds was performed and MM-GBSA binding energy was calculated. After ADMET assessment, 4 hits were obtained for favorable druggability. The analysis of site interactions suggested that the hits all had excellent binding. Molecular dynamics studies revealed that selected natural compounds stably bind to NSP10. These compounds were identified as potential leads against NSP10 for the development of strategies to combat SARS-CoV-2 replication and could serve as the basis for further studies.
Subject(s)
SARS-CoV-2 , Antiviral Agents/pharmacology , Humans , Methyltransferases/metabolism , Molecular Docking Simulation , Molecular Dynamics Simulation , Viral Nonstructural Proteins/chemistryABSTRACT
In December 2019, there was an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown causes in Wuhan, China. The etiological pathogen was identified to be a novel coronavirus, named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The number of infected patients has markedly increased since the 2019 outbreak and COVID-19 has also proven to be highly contagious. In particular, the elderly are among the group of patients who are the most susceptible to succumbing to COVID-19 within the general population. Cross-infection in the hospital is one important route of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, where elderly patients are more susceptible to nosocomial infections due to reduced immunity. Therefore, the present study was conducted to search for ways to improve the medical management workflow in geriatric departments to ultimately reduce the risk of nosocomial infection in elderly inpatients. The present observational retrospective cohort study analysed elderly patients who were hospitalised in the Geriatric Department of the First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University (Nanjing, China). A total of 4,066 elderly patients, who were admitted between January and March in 2019 and 2020 and then hospitalised for >48 h were selected. Among them, 3,073 (75.58%) patients hospitalised from January 2019 to March 2019 were allocated into the non-intervention group, whereas the remaining 933 (24.42%) patients hospitalised from January 2020 to March 2020 after the COVID-19 outbreak were allocated into the intervention group. Following multivariate logistic regression analysis, the risk of nosocomial infections was found to be lower in the intervention group compared with that in the non-intervention group. After age stratification and adjustment for sex, chronic disease, presence of malignant tumour and trauma, both inverse probability treatment weighting and standardised mortality ratio revealed a lower risk of nosocomial infections in the intervention group compared with that in the non-intervention group. To rule out interference caused by changes in the community floating population and social environment during this 1-year study, 93 long-stay patients in stable condition were selected as a subgroup based on 4,066 patients. The so-called floating population refers to patients who have been in hospital for <2 years. Patients aged ≥65 years were included in the geriatrics program. The incidence of nosocomial infections during the epidemic prevention and control period (24 January 2020 to 24 March 2020) and the previous period of hospitalisation (24 January 2019 to 24 March 2019) was also analysed. In the subgroup analysis, a multivariate analysis was also performed on 93 elderly patients who experienced long-term hospitalisation. The risk of nosocomial and pulmonary infections was found to be lower in the intervention group compared with that in the non-intervention group. During the pandemic, the geriatric department took active preventative measures. However, whether these measures can be normalised to reduce the risk of nosocomial infections among elderly inpatients remain unclear. In addition, the present study found that the use of an indwelling gastric tube is an independent risk factor of nosocomial pulmonary infection in elderly inpatients. However, nutritional interventions are indispensable for the long-term wellbeing of patients, especially for those with dysphagia in whom an indwelling gastric tube is the most viable method of providing enteral nutrition. To conclude, the present retrospective analysis of the selected cases showed that enacting preventative and control measures resulted in the effective control of the incidence of nosocomial infections.
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BACKGROUND: Vaccine is supposed to be the most effective means to prevent COVID-19 as it may not only save lives but also reduce productivity loss due to resuming pre-pandemic activities. Providing the results of economic evaluation for mass vaccination is of paramount importance for all stakeholders worldwide. METHODS: We developed a Markov decision tree for the economic evaluation of mass vaccination against COVID-19. The effectiveness of reducing outcomes after the administration of three COVID-19 vaccines (BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech), mRNA-1273 (Moderna), and AZD1222 (Oxford-AstraZeneca)) were modelled with empirical parameters obtained from literatures. The direct cost of vaccine and COVID-19 related medical cost, the indirect cost of productivity loss due to vaccine jabs and hospitalization, and the productivity loss were accumulated given different vaccination scenarios. We reported the incremental cost-utility ratio and benefit/cost (B/C) ratio of three vaccines compared to no vaccination with a probabilistic approach. RESULTS: Moderna and Pfizer vaccines won the greatest effectiveness among the three vaccines under consideration. After taking both direct and indirect costs into account, all of the three vaccines dominated no vaccination strategy. The results of B/C ratio show that one dollar invested in vaccine would have USD $13, USD $23, and USD $28 in return for Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca, respectively when health and education loss are considered. The corresponding figures taking value of the statistical life into account were USD $176, USD $300, and USD $443. CONCLUSION: Mass vaccination against COVID-19 with three current available vaccines is cost-saving for gaining more lives and less cost incurred.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Mass Vaccination , BNT162 Vaccine , COVID-19/economics , COVID-19/prevention & control , COVID-19 Vaccines/economics , ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 , Cost-Benefit Analysis , Humans , Mass Vaccination/economicsABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Global burden of COVID-19 has not been well studied, disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and value of statistical life (VSL) metrics were therefore proposed to quantify its impacts on health and economic loss globally. METHODS: The life expectancy, cases, and death numbers of COVID-19 until 30th April 2021 were retrieved from open data to derive the epidemiological profiles and DALYs (including years of life lost (YLL) and years loss due to disability (YLD)) by four periods. The VSL estimates were estimated by using hedonic wage method (HWM) and contingent valuation method (CVM). The estimate of willingness to pay using CVM was based on the meta-regression mixed model. Machine learning method was used for classification. RESULTS: Globally, DALYs (in thousands) due to COVID-19 was tallied as 31,930 from Period I to IV. YLL dominated over YLD. The estimates of VSL were US$591 billion and US$5135 billion based on HWM and CVM, respectively. The estimate of VSL increased from US$579 billion in Period I to US$2160 billion in Period IV using CVM. The higher the human development index (HDI), the higher the value of DALYs and VSL. However, there exits the disparity even at the same level of HDI. Machine learning analysis categorized eight patterns of global burden of COVID-19 with a large variation from US$0.001 billion to US$691.4 billion. CONCLUSION: Global burden of COVID-19 pandemic resulted in substantial health and value of life loss particularly in developed economies. Classifications of such health and economic loss is informative to early preparation of adequate resource to reduce impacts.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Global Health , Pandemics , COVID-19/epidemiology , Humans , Quality-Adjusted Life Years , SARS-CoV-2 , Value of LifeABSTRACT
In response to fighting COVID-19 pandemic, researchers in machine learning and artificial intelligence have constructed some medical knowledge graphs (KG) based on existing COVID-19 datasets, however, these KGs contain a considerable amount of semantic relations which are incomplete or missing. In this paper, we focus on the task of knowledge graph embedding (KGE), which serves an important solution to infer the missing relations. In the past, there have been a collection of knowledge graph embedding models with different scoring functions to learn entity and relation embeddings published. However, these models share the same problems of rarely taking important features of KG like attribute features, other than relation triples, into account, while dealing with the heterogeneous, complex and incomplete COVID-19 medical data. To address the above issue, we propose a graph feature collection network (GFCNet) for COVID-19 KGE task, which considers both neighbor and attribute features in KGs. The extensive experiments conducted on the COVID-19 drug KG dataset show promising results and prove the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed model. In addition, we also explain the future directions of deepening the study on COVID-19 KGE task.
ABSTRACT
Because the vaccine-elicited antibody and neutralizing activity against spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 are associated with protection from COVID-19, it is important to determine the levels of specific IgG and neutralization titers against SARS-CoV-2 elicited by the vaccines. While three widely used vaccine brands (Pfizer-BNT162b2, Moderna-mRNA-1273 and Johnson-Ad26.COV2.S) are effective in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection and alleviating COVID-19 illness, they have different efficacy against COVID-19. It is unclear whether the differences are due to varying ability of the vaccines to elicit a specific IgG antibody response and neutralization activity against spike protein of the virus. In this study, we compared the plasma IgG and neutralization titers against spike proteins of wild-type SARS-CoV-2 and eight variants in healthy subjects who received the mRNA-1273, BNT162b2 or Ad26.COV2.S vaccine. We demonstrated that subjects vaccinated with Ad26.COV2.S vaccine had significantly lower levels of IgG and neutralizing titers as compared to those who received the mRNA vaccines. While the linear regression analysis showed a positive correlation between IgG levels and neutralizing activities against SARS-CoV-2 WT and the variants, there was an overall reduction in neutralizing titers against the variants in subjects across the three groups. These findings suggest that people who received one dose of Ad26.COV2.S vaccine have a more limited IgG response and lower neutralization activity against SARS-CoV-2 WT and its variants than recipients of the mRNA vaccines. Thus, monitoring the plasma or serum levels of anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike IgG titer and neutralization activity is necessary for the selection of suitable vaccines, vaccine dosage and regimens.
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Global carbon emissions have been rapidly increasing in recent years, negatively influencing the global climate. Thereby, it is urgent to reduce carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality. During the COVID-19 pandemic, strict quarantine plans have led to a sharp decline in the number of international student flights, which will, in turn, decrease aviation carbon emissions. This study predicts the carbon emission reduction caused by the decrease in international student mobility during the COVID-19. The result shows that the carbon emission was about 1326 Gg, a staggering value equivalent to two-thirds of the carbon emissions of the UK's agriculture sector in a year. Furthermore, this study analyzes the implications of current mitigation policies and makes recommendations for future strategies.
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Objective: To understand the epidemiological and etiological characteristics of influenza-like illness (ILI) in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, during 2013-2020, and provide scientific basis for the prevention and control of influenza.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced nearly every aspect of people's lives, and has set new conditions for universities to operate their internationalisation practices. Together with the rapidly changing global environment, higher education internationalisation has reached a crossroads. Through a constructivist grounded theory design, this study explores experts' thoughts about the coronavirus crisis's influences on the internationalisation of higher education and its future direction, taking different national and regional contexts into account. Interviews with 20 world-leading scholars in the field suggested that COVID-19 has had complex effects on university internationalisation and it is necessary to consider such effects beyond the simple distinction between challenges and opportunities. New approaches to conceptualise and implement internationalisation are essential, while the logic of capitalism remains powerful. When looking at the future, many factors other than the coronavirus will exert their force. New conditions have raised new requirements for internationalisation, and therefore, new knowledge is needed to maintain its relevance and sustainability. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Tertiary Education & Management is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
While the COVID-19 pandemic has had various impacts on economic and social development, it may have partially reduced human energy use, thereby helping achieve the goals of reducing carbon emissions and promoting carbon neutrality. During the pandemic, online education was widely used to replace traditional education all over the world. There is a lack of empirical studies on whether and to what extent the change of education model can reduce carbon emissions. Taking Chinese universities as cases, this study, concentrating on two main elements - transportation and electricity consumption - constructs a model and calculates the impact of online education on carbon emissions. The results show that online education can significantly reduce energy consumption and lower carbon emissions. In the field of higher education alone, the carbon emissions reduction caused by online education in half a year is equivalent to the total carbon emissions reduction of college students caused by online education during the half-year is equivalent to the total carbon emissions in 1.296 h in China, 2.688 h in the United States, 5.544 h in India, 12 h in Japan and 3.864 h in European countries of OECD. Therefore, this study suggests that the impact of online education on carbon emissions should be further studied, online education should be promoted through legislation and other systemic measures, and the goals of carbon emissions and carbon neutrality should be explored further within the field of education.