Adverse events following immunization associated with the ChAdOx1nCoV-19 and BBV152 vaccine-a cross-sectional study

COVID-19, an infectious disease, has become a leading cause of death in many people. The rapid emergence of the pandemic prompted the development of a vaccine to mitigate the disease's harmful consequences. Vaccination is the only effective way to prevent infection from spreading and build immunity to the virus. However, developing adverse effects has become a major problem for vaccine reluctance. Accordingly, the interest has been shifted towards identifying the adverse effects developed following immunization. The current study objective is to assess and compare the intensity of adverse effects following 1st and 2nd dose of COVID-19 vaccination and the medication administered to relieve the symptoms associated with vaccination. A cross-sectional study was performed in a community over six months. A total of 836 participants were involved in the study. All the data regarding the vaccination were collected through a specially designed questionnaire form and analyzed in all the participants within the study group. According to the study, at least 1 AEFI was developed in about 90% of the study population. The most common systemic and local effect developed in the study population was fever (59.42%) and pain at the injection site (69.82%), respectively. With both vaccines (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and BBV152), the incidence and severity of AEFIs were lower after the second dose than after the first dose, and most of the symptoms associated with vaccination were alleviated by taking home remedies and symptomatic treatment. The adverse effects reported after receiving the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and BBV152 vaccines are typical of most vaccines, and the majority of them were tolerated, and most subsided in less than 24 hours.

Detection of Face Mask in Thermal Images Using Deep CNN

Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a major health crisis across the globe, and one of the effective methods against the transmission of virus is wearing a face mask. It has become extremely important to monitor if people are wearing face mask when moving out. The aim of project is to automate the detection of face mask using images captured from a thermal camera. The problem is posed as a binary classification problem, and the input face image is classified as with mask or without mask. Transfer learning is used for classification, wherein deep CNN model, MobileNetV2, is used as a base model for feature extraction. A dataset of face images with and without mask is prepared using lepton FLIR camera interfaced to a Raspberry Pi board. The built model is able to detect people who are wearing a face mask and not wearing with an accuracy of 98%. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Patient Perceptions on Barriers and Facilitators to Accessing Low-acuity Surgery During COVID-19 Pandemic.

BACKGROUND: The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the postponement of low-acuity surgical procedures in an effort to conserve resources and ensure patient safety. This study aimed to characterize patient-reported concerns about undergoing surgical procedures during the pandemic. METHODS: We administered a cross-sectional survey to patients who had their general and plastic surgical procedures postponed at the onset of the pandemic, asking about barriers to accessing surgical care. Questions addressed dependent care, transportation, employment and insurance status, as well as perceptions of and concerns about COVID-19. Mixed methods and inductive thematic analyses were conducted. RESULTS: One hundred thirty-five patients were interviewed. We identified the following patient concerns: contracting COVID-19 in the hospital (46%), being alone during hospitalization (40%), facing financial stressors (29%), organizing transportation (28%), experiencing changes to health insurance coverage (25%), and arranging care for dependents (18%). Nonwhite participants were 5 and 2.5 times more likely to have concerns about childcare and transportation, respectively. Perceptions of decreased hospital safety and the consequences of possible COVID-19 infection led to delay in rescheduling. Education about safety measures and communication about scheduling partially mitigated concerns about COVID-19. However, uncertainty about timeline for rescheduling and resolution of the pandemic contributed to ongoing concerns. CONCLUSIONS: Providing effective surgical care during this unprecedented time requires both awareness of societal shifts impacting surgical patients and system-level change to address new barriers to care. Eliciting patients' perspectives, adapting processes to address potential barriers, and effectively educating patients about institutional measures to minimize in-hospital transmission of COVID-19 should be integrated into surgical care.