Willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19: The impact of national identity and the nature of propaganda (preprint)

Objective: Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic requires many citizens to adopt disease-preventive practices. To enhance citizens' vaccination willingness, we explored the impact of national identity and different propaganda slogans on vaccination willingness. Methods: A total of 1098 questionnaires were collected in Study 1, and all participants completed the national identity questionnaire, knowledge of vaccine side effects, vaccine trust, and vaccination willingness. The initial vaccination willingness of the participants (N=804) was measured in Study 2. All participants were then randomly divided into three groups: self-interested, altruistic, and neutral; each group watched the corresponding propaganda video. Each video, which lasted about 11 seconds, consisted of five self-interested, altruistic, or neutral propaganda slogans. Vaccination willingness was then measured again. Results: 1. National identity can significantly predict vaccination willingness in the presence of side effects. 2. The effect of altruistic propaganda slogans on promoting individual vaccination willingness was significantly greater than that of the self-interested propaganda slogan, and the effect of altruistic propaganda slogans on individual vaccination willingness was significantly greater than that of neutral propaganda slogans. Conclusions: National identity, knowledge of vaccine side effects, and vaccine trust can jointly predict individual vaccination willingness in cases of strong national identity. Altruistic slogans have the greatest influence on the change in individuals’ vaccination willingness, and the influence of altruistic propaganda slogans can significantly improve individual vaccination willingness.

Nasal irrigation efficiently attenuates SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection, transmission and lung injury in the Syrian hamster model.

Recently, a new variant lineage of SARS-CoV-2, namely Omicron, became the dominant global circulating strain. The multiple antigenic mutations of Omicron largely decrease the efficiency of current vaccines and neutralizing antibodies, which highlights the need for more potent and reachable medical countermeasures. Here, we hypothesize that direct viral clearance by nasal irrigation might be a convenient and alternative option, and perform proof-of-concept experiments in the Syrian hamster model. Interestingly, Omicron shows a different dynamic in the changes of viral RNA, viral titers, and proinflammatory cytokines in nasal rinsing samples when compared with the prototype. Meanwhile, the levels of viral load and proinflammatory cytokines in nasal rinsing samples can indicate the severity of lung injury. Of note, daily nasal irrigation efficiently attenuates inflammation and lung injury in Omicron-infected hamsters by decreasing the viral loads in the respiratory tract organs. Moreover, daily nasal irrigation effectively suppresses viral transmission by close contact.

Infection, pathology and interferon treatment of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 variant in juvenile, adult and aged Syrian hamsters.

The new predominant circulating SARS-CoV-2 variant, Omicron, can robustly escape current vaccines and neutralizing antibodies. Although Omicron has been reported to have milder replication and disease manifestations than some earlier variants, its pathogenicity in different age groups has not been well elucidated. Here, we report that the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 sublineage causes elevated infection and lung pathogenesis in juvenile and aged hamsters, with more body weight loss, respiratory tract viral burden, and lung injury in these hamsters than in adult hamsters. Juvenile hamsters show a reduced interferon response against Omicron BA.1 infection, whereas aged hamsters show excessive proinflammatory cytokine expression, delayed viral clearance, and aggravated lung injury. Early inhaled IFN-α2b treatment suppresses Omicron BA.1 infection and lung pathogenesis in juvenile and adult hamsters. Overall, the data suggest that the diverse patterns of the innate immune response affect the disease outcomes of Omicron BA.1 infection in different age groups.

Resolving the Urban Dilemma of Two Adjacent Rivers through a Dialogue between GIS and Augmented Reality (AR) of Fabrics

Keelung Harbor, which is the most important center of sea freight in northern Taiwan, suffers from deteriorating urban development due to limited land supply. A dilemma arose from the Asahikawa River and the Tianliao River fronts, which evolved from cultural landscapes to buried and truncated rivers. This research was aimed at resolving the urban dilemma of the two adjacent rivers through a dialogue between the physical and augmented interaction of fabrics in three scenarios: GIS to AR, AR to GIS, and both. The physical dynamics were used to trace development chronologically by the area and length assessed from historical maps of hydrogeography, architecture, and the railroad. The augmented dynamics involved AR-based simulations and comparisons in terms of skyline overlay, fabric substitution, and fabric disposition. The dynamics involved AR models made by UAV images and 3D drawings. The assessments and simulations determined the key event in Keelung history when the Asahikawa River was leveled up. The dilemma verified from the augmented dynamics facilitated comprehension of the evolvement of the physical dynamics. With the assistance of AR and GIS, we concluded that the specific instance of riverfront reconstruction was an important landmark of meta-relationship.

Characteristics of Kawasaki Disease Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Large Pediatric Heart Disease Center.

Background: Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute febrile systemic vasculitis of unknown etiology. After the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), some children infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) showed clinical symptoms similar to KD, indicating a close relationship between KD and SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, we designed this retrospective study to analyze the characteristics of KD patients before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: We retrospectively collected demographic and laboratory data of KD patients in Yuying Children's Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2020. Yuying Children's Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University is located in eastern China and is the largest pediatric heart disease center in the region, which includes a population of nearly 10 million. We studied the characteristics of KD patients and analyzed the changes in these characteristics before and after the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in this area. Results: The analysis revealed the following novel features: (1) Under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the onset age of Kawasaki disease became younger. (2) After the occurrence of COVID-19, the hospitalization days of KD patients were shorter than before the pandemic. (3) After the occurrence of COVID-19, the albumin of KD patients was higher than before the pandemic. (4) The COVID-19 pandemic did not have a significant effect on the incidence of coronary artery lesions (CALs) in Kawasaki disease. Conclusion: After the COVID-19 outbreak, the characteristics of KD patients showed a younger trend of age, shorter hospitalization days and higher levels of albumin, but the incidence of CALs did not change significantly.

A live attenuated virus-based intranasal COVID-19 vaccine provides rapid, prolonged, and broad protection against SARS-CoV-2.

Remarkable progress has been made in developing intramuscular vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2); however, they are limited with respect to eliciting local immunity in the respiratory tract, which is the primary infection site for SARS-CoV-2. To overcome the limitations of intramuscular vaccines, we constructed a nasal vaccine candidate based on an influenza vector by inserting a gene encoding the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, named CA4-dNS1-nCoV-RBD (dNS1-RBD). A preclinical study showed that in hamsters challenged 1 d after single-dose vaccination or 9 months after booster vaccination, dNS1-RBD largely mitigated lung pathology, with no loss of body weight. Moreover, such cellular immunity is relatively unimpaired for the most concerning SARS-CoV-2 variants, especially for the latest Omicron variant. In addition, this vaccine also provides cross-protection against H1N1 and H5N1 influenza viruses. The protective immune mechanism of dNS1-RBD could be attributed to the innate immune response in the nasal epithelium, local RBD-specific T cell response in the lung, and RBD-specific IgA and IgG response. Thus, this study demonstrates that the intranasally delivered dNS1-RBD vaccine candidate may offer an important addition to the fight against the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and influenza infection, compensating limitations of current intramuscular vaccines.

Estimation of secondary PM2.5 in China and the United States using a multi-tracer approach

PM2.5, generated via both direct emission and secondary formation, can have varying environmental impacts due to different physical and chemical properties of its components. However, traditional methods to quantify different PM2.5 components are often based on online or offline observations and numerical models, which are generally high economic cost- or labor-intensive. In this study, we develop a new method, named Multi-Tracer Estimation Algorithm (MTEA), to identify the primary and secondary components from routine observation of PM2.5. By comparing with long-term and short-term measurements of aerosol chemical components in China and the United States, it is proven that MTEA can successfully capture the magnitude and variation of the primary PM2.5 (PPM) and secondary PM2.5 (SPM). Applying MTEA to the China National Air Quality Network, we find that (1) SPM accounted for 63.5 % of the PM2.5 in cities in southern China on average during 2014–2018, while the proportion dropped to 57.1 % in the north of China, and at the same time the secondary proportion in regional background regions was ∼ 19 % higher than that in populous regions;(2) the summertime secondary PM2.5 proportion presented a slight but consistent increasing trend (from 58.5 % to 59.2 %) in most populous cities, mainly because of the recent increase in O3 pollution in China;(3) the secondary PM2.5 proportion in Beijing significantly increased by 34 % during the COVID-19 lockdown, which might be the main reason for the observed unexpected PM pollution in this special period;and finally, (4) SPM and O3 showed similar positive correlations in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) and Yangtze River Delta (YRD) regions, but the correlations between total PM2.5 and O3 in these two regions, as determined from PPM levels, were quite different. In general, MTEA is a promising tool for efficiently estimating PPM and SPM, and has huge potential for future PM mitigation.

A Label-Free Electrochemical Impedimetric Immunosensor with Biotinylated-Antibody for SARS-CoV-2 Nucleoprotein Detection in Saliva.

The timely detecting of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus antigens for infection validation is an urgent request for COVID-19 pandemic control. This study constructed label-free electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)-based immunosensors based on gold nanostructured screen-printed carbon electrodes (AuNS/SPCEs) to detect the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein (N-protein) in saliva. Using short-chain 3-mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) as a linker to covalently bond streptavidin (SA) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) for controlling the oriented immobilization of the biotinylated anti-N-protein antibody (BioAb) can offer a greater sensitivity, a lower limit of detection (LOD), and better reproducibility of immunosensors (defined as BioAb/SA-BSA/MPA/AuNS/SPCEs) than the antibody randomly immobilized immunosensors and the long-chain 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid (MUA)-modified immunosensors (BioAb/SA-BSA/MUA/AuNS/SPCEs). The BioAb/SA-BSA/MPA/AuNS/SPCE-based immunosensors presented good linearity from 0.01 ng/mL to 100 ng/mL and a low LOD of 6 pg/mL in a phosphate buffer solution (PBS) and PBS-diluted saliva. Moreover, the immunosensor exhibited little cross-activity with other viral antigens such as MERS-CoV N-protein, influenza A N-protein, influenza B N-protein, and SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, indicating the high specificity of the immunosensors. The disposable label-free EIS-based immunosensors have promising potential in facilitating the rapid and sensitive tests of saliva-based COVID-19 diagnostics.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on job satisfaction: A mediated moderation model using job stress and organizational resilience in the hotel industry of Taiwan.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected businesses worldwide, including the hotel industry in Taiwan. This study aims to explore the influence of the perceived threat of COVID-19 on job satisfaction. SPSS software was used for data analysis, and the PROCESS macro was used to test the mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation hypotheses. An online survey (n = 681) was conducted on hotels in Taiwan in 2021, and the results indicate that job stress activation has a mediating effect on employees' job satisfaction and the hotels' business performances. Moreover, organizational resilience has a moderating effect on job stress. This study contributes theoretically to a better understanding of the factors that determine the impact of traumatic events such as a pandemic on people's mental health. This study suggests that interventions may be carried out to minimize the pandemic's negative psychological consequences. The implications of this study are also applicable to hoteliers in other affected countries.

Azvudine is a thymus-homing anti-SARS-CoV-2 drug effective in treating COVID-19 patients.

Azvudine (FNC) is a nucleoside analog that inhibits HIV-1 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). Recently, we discovered FNC an agent against SARS-CoV-2, and have taken it into Phase III trial for COVID-19 patients. FNC monophosphate analog inhibited SARS-CoV-2 and HCoV-OC43 coronavirus with an EC50 between 1.2 and 4.3 µM, depending on viruses or cells, and selective index (SI) in 15-83 range. Oral administration of FNC in rats revealed a substantial thymus-homing feature, with FNC triphosphate (the active form) concentrated in the thymus and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). Treating SARS-CoV-2 infected rhesus macaques with FNC (0.07 mg/kg, qd, orally) reduced viral load, recuperated the thymus, improved lymphocyte profiles, alleviated inflammation and organ damage, and lessened ground-glass opacities in chest X-ray. Single-cell sequencing suggested the promotion of thymus function by FNC. A randomized, single-arm clinical trial of FNC on compassionate use (n = 31) showed that oral FNC (5 mg, qd) cured all COVID-19 patients, with 100% viral ribonucleic acid negative conversion in 3.29 ± 2.22 days (range: 1-9 days) and 100% hospital discharge rate in 9.00 ± 4.93 days (range: 2-25 days). The side-effect of FNC is minor and transient dizziness and nausea in 16.12% (5/31) patients. Thus, FNC might cure COVID-19 through its anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity concentrated in the thymus, followed by promoted immunity.

Bankruptcy in the time of COVID‐19: Special measures adopted by the People's Republic of China courts during the period of COVID‐19 prevention and control

Business bankruptcy in China is governed by the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law (EBL), a national insolvency code enacted in 2007. The EBL contains provisions for business liquidation, reorganization, and compromise of debt. Although adjustment of debt through bankruptcy is far less common in China than in western nations, Chinese courts have established a body of bankruptcy procedures and judicial interpretations that give insolvency in China a measure of predictability and effectiveness. Notwithstanding the EBL provisions, soon after the onset of the pandemic, PRC courts began to adopt ad‐hoc rules and guidelines in bankruptcy cases for businesses whose financial woes were caused or exacerbated by coronavirus, or for enterprises that produced medical equipment and supplies to help prevent and control the virus. This paper examines these court measures, explores their political and judicial context, and demonstrates how they produced bankruptcy outcomes that were often significantly different than what would have resulted if the EBL had been applied based on pre‐COVID‐19 EBL practices.

An ultra-low-cost electroporator with microneedle electrodes (ePatch) for SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.

Vaccination against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and other pathogens with pandemic potential requires safe, protective, inexpensive, and easily accessible vaccines that can be developed and manufactured rapidly at a large scale. DNA vaccines can achieve these criteria, but induction of strong immune responses has often required bulky, expensive electroporation devices. Here, we report an ultra-low-cost (<1 USD), handheld (<50 g) electroporation system utilizing a microneedle electrode array ("ePatch") for DNA vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. The low cost and small size are achieved by combining a thumb-operated piezoelectric pulser derived from a common household stove lighter that emits microsecond, bipolar, oscillatory electric pulses and a microneedle electrode array that targets delivery of high electric field strength pulses to the skin's epidermis. Antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 induced by this electroporation system in mice were strong and enabled at least 10-fold dose sparing compared to conventional intramuscular or intradermal injection of the DNA vaccine. Vaccination was well tolerated with mild, transient effects on the skin. This ePatch system is easily portable, without any battery or other power source supply, offering an attractive, inexpensive approach for rapid and accessible DNA vaccination to combat COVID-19, as well as other epidemics.

Bankruptcy in the Time of COVID-19: Special Measures Adopted by the People's Republic of China Courts During the Period of COVID-19 Prevention and Control (preprint)

Business bankruptcy in China is governed by the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law (EBL), a national insolvency code enacted in 2007. The EBL contains provisions for business liquidation, reorganization, and compromise of debt. Although adjustment of debt through bankruptcy is far less common in China than in western nations, Chinese courts have established a body of bankruptcy procedures and judicial interpretations that give insolvency in China a measure of predictability and effectiveness. Notwithstanding the EBL provisions, soon after the onset of the pandemic, PRC courts began to adopt ad-hoc rules and guidelines in bankruptcy cases for businesses whose financial woes were caused or exacerbated by coronavirus, or for enterprises that produced medical equipment and supplies to help prevent and control the virus. This paper examines these court measures, explores their political and judicial context, and demonstrates how they produced bankruptcy outcomes that were often significantly different than what would have resulted if the EBL had been applied based on pre-COVID-19 EBL practices.

Effect of application of reflecting film and leaf removal on microclimate around fruiting zone and fruit quality of Vitis quinquangularis Rehd. grape

Objective: To provide theoretical basis for further optimizing the cultivation measures and improving the wine quality of Vitis quinquangularis Rehd. grape in Guangxi, the effects of application of reflecting film and leaf removal at the beginning veraison on the microclimate in the fruiting zone and fruit quality of V. quinquangularis Rehd. Grape cv. Yeniang No.2 were analyzed. Method: In Nanning, Guangxi, Yeniang No.2 was material, and leaf removal and reflective transfer film laying treatments were conducted when fruits started to change color, and without leaf removal and reflective transfer film laying treatments were as control. The variations in temperature, humidity and light conditions before and after the treatments were traced using HOBO weather stations. The berry quality indexes of fruit samples under the two kinds of light control treatments and the control at each developmental stage were determined. Result: Both treatments achieved the purpose of enhancing the light intensity around fruiting zone of Yeniang No.2, and the effect of leaf removal treatment was more obvious. The daily average photosynthetic effective radiation was increased by 6 to 13 times compared with the control, and the daily average of total solar radiation increased by 2 to 4 times when compared with the control. The two treatments also reduced the temperature difference between day and night for Yeniang No.2, the daily maximum temperature, the humidity difference between day and night and the daily maximum humidity and increased the daily minimum temperature and humidity. Leaf removal and reflective film treatments reduced the fresh weight and titratable acid content of grape at harvest, but increased the soluble solids, improved skin color and red hue.

A recombinant spike protein subunit vaccine confers protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission in hamsters.

Multiple safe and effective vaccines that elicit immune responses against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are necessary to respond to the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Here, we developed a protein subunit vaccine composed of spike ectodomain protein (StriFK) plus a nitrogen bisphosphonate-modified zinc-aluminum hybrid adjuvant (FH002C). StriFK-FH002C generated substantially higher neutralizing antibody titers in mice, hamsters, and cynomolgus monkeys than those observed in plasma isolated from COVID-19 convalescent individuals. StriFK-FH002C also induced both TH1- and TH2-polarized helper T cell responses in mice. In hamsters, StriFK-FH002C immunization protected animals against SARS-CoV-2 challenge, as shown by the absence of virus-induced weight loss, fewer symptoms of disease, and reduced lung pathology. Vaccination of hamsters with StriFK-FH002C also reduced within-cage virus transmission to unvaccinated, cohoused hamsters. In summary, StriFK-FH002C represents an effective, protein subunit-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate.

Clinical Factors and Quantitative CT Parameters Associated With ICU Admission in Patients of COVID-19 Pneumonia: A Multicenter Study.

The clinical spectrum of COVID-19 pneumonia is varied. Thus, it is important to identify risk factors at an early stage for predicting deterioration that require transferring the patients to ICU. A retrospective multicenter study was conducted on COVID-19 patients admitted to designated hospitals in China from Jan 17, 2020, to Feb 17, 2020. Clinical presentation, laboratory data, and quantitative CT parameters were also collected. The result showed that increasing risks of ICU admission were associated with age > 60 years (odds ratio [OR], 12.72; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.42-24.61; P = 0.032), coexisting conditions (OR, 5.55; 95% CI, 1.59-19.38; P = 0.007) and CT derived total opacity percentage (TOP) (OR, 8.0; 95% CI, 1.45-39.29; P = 0.016). In conclusion, older age, coexisting conditions, larger TOP at the time of hospital admission are associated with ICU admission in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. Early monitoring the progression of the disease and implementing appropriate therapies are warranted.

Gender associates with both susceptibility to infection and pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 in Syrian hamster.

Epidemiological studies of the COVID-19 patients have suggested the male bias in outcomes of lung illness. To experimentally demonstrate the epidemiological results, we performed animal studies to infect male and female Syrian hamsters with SARS-CoV-2. Remarkably, high viral titer in nasal washings was detectable in male hamsters who presented symptoms of weight loss, weakness, piloerection, hunched back and abdominal respiration, as well as severe pneumonia, pulmonary edema, consolidation, and fibrosis. In contrast with the males, the female hamsters showed much lower shedding viral titers, moderate symptoms, and relatively mild lung pathogenesis. The obvious differences in the susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 and severity of lung pathogenesis between male and female hamsters provided experimental evidence that SARS-CoV-2 infection and the severity of COVID-19 are associated with gender.

JCS: An Explainable COVID-19 Diagnosis System by Joint Classification and Segmentation.

Recently, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a pandemic disease in over 200 countries, influencing billions of humans. To control the infection, identifying and separating the infected people is the most crucial step. The main diagnostic tool is the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test. Still, the sensitivity of the RT-PCR test is not high enough to effectively prevent the pandemic. The chest CT scan test provides a valuable complementary tool to the RT-PCR test, and it can identify the patients in the early-stage with high sensitivity. However, the chest CT scan test is usually time-consuming, requiring about 21.5 minutes per case. This paper develops a novel Joint Classification and Segmentation (JCS) system to perform real-time and explainable COVID- 19 chest CT diagnosis. To train our JCS system, we construct a large scale COVID- 19 Classification and Segmentation (COVID-CS) dataset, with 144,167 chest CT images of 400 COVID- 19 patients and 350 uninfected cases. 3,855 chest CT images of 200 patients are annotated with fine-grained pixel-level labels of opacifications, which are increased attenuation of the lung parenchyma. We also have annotated lesion counts, opacification areas, and locations and thus benefit various diagnosis aspects. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed JCS diagnosis system is very efficient for COVID-19 classification and segmentation. It obtains an average sensitivity of 95.0% and a specificity of 93.0% on the classification test set, and 78.5% Dice score on the segmentation test set of our COVID-CS dataset. The COVID-CS dataset and code are available at https://github.com/yuhuan-wu/JCS.

Training Is Better Than Giving-Taiwan Government and Tourism Industry's ＂Training for Relief＂ Plan to Cope with the Impact of COVID-19

The outbreak of COVID-19 has been a major blow to Taiwan's tourism industry. In the face of the plight of the tourism industry. The government of Taiwan put forward the Key Points for implementation of the Ministry of transport's assistance in the transformation of tourism related industry training affected by major epidemics (Taiwan officials' external notes referred to as the ＂training for relief or learning for relief＂ plan). This plan is not just to directly distribute subsidies to industrial employees, but to require employees to receive specific training courses, and then the government will distribute the subsidy amount to the enterprises of the trainees, and the enterprises will forward it as part of the employees' salaries. Another way to understand it is that when there is no daily busy workload due to the impact of the epidemic, employees can spend their spare working time in classes and learn new working abilities and knowledge, so that their participation in training is also equal to work and earn salary. In this paper, the details of the implementation of the training transformation policy are introduced, and the ＂win-win-win＂ for the government, operators and employees are discussed, so as to provide reference for other countries affected by the epidemic. 新冠肺炎疫情對於臺灣觀光旅遊產業對來巨大衝擊，臺灣政府面對觀光業者困境，提出「觀光相關產業轉型培訓實施要點」（臺灣官員對外說明簡稱「以訓代賑或以學代賑」計畫），這項計畫不是單純直接發放補助給產業員工，而是要求員工接受特定訓練課程之後，政府再將補助金額發放給受訓人員所屬企業，企業再轉發為員工薪資之一部分。亦即員工在疫情影響沒有日常忙碌工作量時，能將多餘工作時間用於上課，學習新的工作能力和知識，參與訓練也等於是工作和賺取薪資。本文將介紹此項轉型培訓政策執行細節，並討論對於政府、業者、員工之三贏效益和檢討執行問題點，提供給其他受疫情影響國家參考。