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In the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, due to restrictions in mobility and the closure of schools, people had to shift to work from home. India has the world’s second-largest pool of internet users, yet half its population lacks internet access or knowledge to use digital services. The shift to online mediums for education has exposed the stark digital divide in the education system. The digitization of education proved to be a significant challenge for students who lacked the devices, internet facility, and infrastructure to support the online mode of education or lacked the training to use these devices. These challenges raise concerns about the effectiveness of the future of education, as teachers and students find it challenging to communicate, connect, and assess meaningful learning. This study was conducted at one of the universities in India using a purposive sampling method to understand the challenges faced by the students during the online study and their satisfaction level. This paper aims to draw insight from the survey into the concerns raised by students from different backgrounds while learning from their homes and the decline in the effectiveness of education. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
Background:A previous report showed that a single 1200 mg subcutaneous (SC) dose of casirivimab and imdevimab (cas/imd) prevented symptomatic COVID-19 by 81.4% and reduced all SARS-CoV-2 infections (symptomatic and asymptomatic) by 66.4% in household contacts living with recently infected individuals over a 28-day period. While highly effective vaccines now exist for the prevention of COVID-19, a significant unmet need remains in patients who are unable to mount or maintain an adequate immune response to vaccination. Here we present additional results from 7-month follow-up period of the aforementioned study. Methods: In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase III trial, asymptomatic participants exposed to a SARS-CoV-2-infected household member were randomized 1:1 to a single SC dose of placebo or 1200 mg cas/imd (600 mg of each monoclonal antibody). Efficacy analyses include participants who were RT-qPCR negative for SARS-CoV-2 (no current infection) and seronegative for SARS-CoV-2 (no prior infection) at baseline. The trial consisted of a primary efficacy assessment period of 28 days (Month 1) and a 7-month follow-up period (Months 2-8). Results: Results from 842 placebo and 841 cas/imd RT-qPCR negative/seronegative enrolled participants (data through 04Oct2021, prior to emergence of Omicron) are presented. During the entirety of the 8-month study, cas/imd reduced the risk of symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections by 81.2% versus placebo (nominal P<0.0001;Table) and all SARS-CoV-2 infections (symptomatic and asymptomatic) by 68.2% versus placebo (nominal P<0.0001;Table). During Months 2-5, the risk of symptomatic and all infections were reduced by 100% and 89.5%, respectively (nominal P<0.0001). During Months 6-8 there was a resumption of symptomatic and all SARS-CoV-2 infections in the cas/imd group (19.9%;nominal P=0.6411 and 30.7%;nominal P=0.3967 risk reduction, respectively). Fewer cas/imd participants had a medically-attended visit versus placebo during the 8-months (1/841 [0.1%] vs 16/842 [1.9%], respectively). No new safety signals were identified for cas/imd during the follow-up period. Conclusion: During the 8-month study period, a 1200 mg SC dose of cas/imd prevented SARS-CoV-2 infections, with maximal protection through Month 5. The prolonged protection supports the use of cas/imd for the long-term prevention of COVID-19 against susceptible variants, offering a pre-exposure prophylaxis strategy for individuals who are unlikely to respond or be protected by vaccination.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 outbreak compelled people to stay at home due to complete lockdown in all the working areas. Immense use of World Wide Web and social media to exchange and share opinions, generated enormous web data to be utilized in the research work of the Natural Language Processing (NLP) field. Being a dominant side of NLP, Sentiment Analysis uses numerous tools to classify human sentiments as Positive (1), Negative (-1) and Neutral (0) so as to reach various conclusions. This research work focused on sentiment analysis of four datasets, web scraped from four different sources namely: Twitter, Facebook, Economic Times Headlines and news articles keyed by stock market. Seven contemporary and tremendously used sentiment analysis tools: Stanford, SVC, TextBlob, Henry, Loughran-McDonald, Logistic Regression and VADER are considered here to process four scraped datasets individually and analyses result in two ways: Facebook scraped data generates maximum overall positive sentiment score as 38.17% and VADER tool performs best among seven tools. VADER calculates overall positive sentiment score as 56.63% © 2021 IEEE.
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Ever since Covid-19 has affected our lives, the use of masks in public places has taken extreme importance. Be it restaurants, shopping malls, workplaces, airports or any other public place, wearing a mask is essential for the safety of oneself as well as the others. However, there are always some defaulters who will not wear a mask putting all at risk. In this paper, a mask/no mask detector has been implemented to identify such defaulters. Also, a face recognition system has been incorporated to identify those who are not wearing a mask. This setup could be used in offices or any other place of public gathering to ensure the safety of one and all. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
Due to its geographical condition and geophysical location Bangladesh is one of the world’s most vulnerable country, which will become more vulnerable to the impact of climate change. According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2020 and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2011, Bangladesh is the seventh most climate change-affected nation in the world. This chapter elaborates on the possible impacts of climate change in Bangladesh through various natural disasters, i.e., increasing temperature, sea level rise, salinity intrusion, cyclone, storm surges, drought, etc. and also discusses the comprehensive disaster management approach in Bangladesh. It is now a worry in the scientific community that climate change could dramatically change weather patterns like the disease spread of epidemics (such as COVID-19) from vulnerable regions to invulnerable regions. All sectors will be affected by the impact of climate change, not only Bangladesh but also other South Asian countries. In Bangladesh, both the government and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are trying to prevent and alter the impacts of climate change by enhancing several adaptation and mitigation approaches. But still, coastal districts and northern areas in Bangladesh are facing many climatic issues, such as flash floods, super cyclones, salinity intrusion, storm surges, drought and riverbank erosion etc. Moreover, the government is taking the immediate response of shifting people in a cyclone center at the moment of extreme natural events but most of the peoples of the coastal districts in Bangladesh are illiterate so that they very careless about the awareness. On the basis of current information, it is suggested that the government should make some policy in disaster management for a sustainable solution for coastal areas in Bangladesh. © 2021, SpringerNature Switzerland AG.
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Background: Passive immunization has a long history for infection prevention following exposure. We report results of a descriptive interim analysis from a study of an antibody “cocktail” of casirivimab with imdevimab (cas/imdev;formerly REGN-COV2) designed to bind non-competing epitopes of the viral spike protein, as a potential passive vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 in people at risk of infection from household contact. Methods: In this ongoing Phase 3 study, asymptomatic participants exposed to a COVID-19-infected household member were randomized 1:1 to placebo or 1200 mg cas/imdev (600 mg of each antibody administered subcutaneously) within 96 hours of their household member testing positive. The analysis included participants who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 by nasal, saliva, or nasopharyngeal swab and who were seronegative to SARS-CoV-2 antibodies at baseline. The proportion of participants who developed an RT-PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection (asymptomatic or symptomatic) during the 1-month efficacy assessment period was summarized. Results: Initial results from the first evaluable 223 placebo and 186 cas/imdev participants who completed ≥29 days of the study are reported. Reduction in PCR-positive symptomatic disease was 100% (0/186 cas/imdev vs 8/223 placebo;OR 0.00 [CI 0.00, 0.69]). Reduction in any PCR-positive infection (symptomatic or asymptomatic) was 48% (10/186 vs 23/223;OR 0.49 [CI 0.20, 1.12]). Placebo-group participants had on average 100-fold higher peak viral load. In the cas/imdev group, viral RNA was not detected for longer than 1 week but was detected for 3-4 weeks in approximately 40% of placebo participants (Fig. 1). The proportions of infected participants with high viral loads (>10 4 copies/mL) were 13/21 placebo vs 0/9 cas/imdev. Total weeks of viral RNA detection and high viral load were 44 and 22 weeks in the placebo group vs 9 and 0 in the cas/imdev group. Total symptomatic weeks were 21 for placebo vs 0 for cas/imdev. A similar proportion of participants experienced at least 1 serious adverse event: placebo, 3/222 and cas/imdev, 1/186;none were deemed related to study treatment. Injection site reactions were similar: placebo, 1.4%;cas/ imdev, 2.6%. Conclusion: In this descriptive interim analysis of participants at risk of SARSCoV- 2 infection from household transmission, a subcutaneous dose of the cas/ imdev antibody cocktail prevented symptomatic infection, reduced overall infection, and decreased viral load and duration of viral RNA detection.
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SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy and its adverse outcome on the mother as well on the fetus is emerging as an important concern, but knowledge about the prognosis is limited. In our prospective observational study total of 56 pregnant women admitted in the isolation ward of our institution were included. All women were presented with common symptoms like fever, tiredness, headache, sore throat, and cough. Three women diagnosed SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 positive by Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RTPCR) examination of the nasopharyngeal swab. All three neonates were tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 infection. The three mothers also recovered with routine care and returned home after 7 days with advice for a safe home for further 7 days. SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy mostly appears in the later part of pregnancy and management is almost like the general population. There is no increased risk of severe disease during pregnancy. Neonates are mostly protected from disease transmission due to immune modulation during pregnancy.
ABSTRACT
SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy and its adverse outcome on the mother as well on the fetus is emerging as an important concern, but knowledge about the prognosis is limited. In our prospective observational study total of 56 pregnant women admitted in the isolation ward of our institution were included. All women were presented with common symptoms like fever, tiredness, headache, sore throat, and cough. Three women diagnosed SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 positive by Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RTPCR) examination of the nasopharyngeal swab. All three neonates were tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 infection. The three mothers also recovered with routine care and returned home after 7 days with advice for a safe home for further 7 days. SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy mostly appears in the later part of pregnancy and management is almost like the general population. There is no increased risk of severe disease during pregnancy. Neonates are mostly protected from disease transmission due to immune modulation during pregnancy.
ABSTRACT
This study analyzes N=181 social media rumors from Bangladesh to find out the most popular themes, sources, and aims. The result shows that social media rumors have seven popular themes: political, health & education, crime & human rights, religious, religiopolitical, entertainment, and other. Also, online media and mainstream media are the two main sources of social media rumors, along with three tentative aims: positive, negative, and unknown. A few major findings of this research are: Political rumors dominate social media, but its percentage is decreasing, while religion-related rumors are increasing;most of the social media rumors are negative and emerge from online media, and social media itself is the dominant online source of social media rumors;and, most of the health-related rumors are negative and surge during a crisis period, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper identifies some of its limitations with the data collection period, data source, and data analysis. Providing a few research directions, this study also elucidates the contributions of its results in academia and policymaking. © 2020. All Rights Reserved.