Unraveling varying spatiotemporal patterns of dengue and associated exposure-response relationships with environmental variables in Southeast Asian countries before and during COVID-19 (preprint)

The enforcement of COVID-19 interventions by diverse governmental bodies, coupled with the indirect impact of COVID-19 on short-term environmental changes (e.g. plant shutdowns lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions), influences the dengue vector. This provides a unique opportunity to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on dengue transmission and generate insights to guide more targeted prevention measures. We aim to compare dengue transmission patterns and the exposure-response relationship of environmental variables and dengue incidence in the pre- and during-COVID-19 to identify variations and assess the impact of COVID-19 on dengue transmission. We initially visualized the overall trend of dengue transmission from 2012-2022, then conducted two quantitative analyses to compare dengue transmission pre-COVID-19 (2017-2019) and during-COVID-19 (2020-2022). These analyses included time series analysis to assess dengue seasonality, and a Distributed Lag Non-linear Model (DLNM) to quantify the exposure-response relationship between environmental variables and dengue incidence. We observed that all subregions in Thailand exhibited remarkable synchrony with a similar annual trend except 2021. Cyclic and seasonal patterns of dengue remained consistent pre- and during-COVID-19. Monthly dengue incidence in three countries varied significantly. Singapore witnessed a notable surge during-COVID-19, particularly from May to August, with cases multiplying several times compared to pre-COVID-19, while seasonality of Malaysia weakened. Exposure-response relationships of dengue and environmental variables show varying degrees of change, notably in Northern Thailand, where the peak relative risk for the maximum temperature-dengue relationship rose from about 3 to 17, and the max RR of overall cumulative association 0-3 months of relative humidity increased from around 5 to 55. Our study is the first to compare dengue transmission patterns and their relationship with environmental variables before and during COVID-19, showing that COVID-19 has affected dengue transmission at both the national and regional level, and has altered the exposure-response relationship between dengue and the environment.

Concerns among People who use Opioids during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Natural Language Processing Analysis of Social Media Posts (preprint)

Background: Timely data from official sources regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people who use prescription and illicit opioids (PWUOs) is lacking. We conducted a large-scale, natural language processing (NLP) analysis of conversations on opioid-related drug forums to better understand concerns among PWUOs. Methods: In this retrospective observational study, we analyzed posts from 14 opioid-related forums on the social network Reddit. We applied NLP to identify frequently mentioned substances and phrases, and grouped the phrases manually based on their contents into three broad key themes: (i) prescription and/or illicit opioid use ; (ii) substance use disorder treatment access and care ; and (iii) withdrawal . Phrases that were unmappable to any particular theme were discarded. We computed the frequencies of substance and theme mentions, and quantified their volumes over time. We compared changes in post volumes by key themes and substances between pre-COVID-19 (1/1/2019—2/29/2020) and COVID-19 (3/1/2020—11/30/2020) periods. Results: 77,652 and 119,168 posts were collected for the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods, respectively. By theme, posts about treatment and access to care increased by 300%, from 0.631 to 2.526 per 1000 posts between the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods. Conversations about withdrawal increased by 812% between the same periods (0.026 to 0.235 per 1,000 posts). Posts about drug use did not increase (0.219 to 0.218 per 1,000 posts). By substance, among medications for opioid use disorder, methadone had the largest increase in conversations (20.8 to 56.3 per 1,000 posts; 171.4% increase). Among other medications, posts about diphenhydramine exhibited the largest increase (0.3 to 0.9 per 1,000 posts; 171.8% increase). Conclusions: Conversations on opioid-related forums among PWUOs revealed increased concerns about treatment and access to care along with withdrawal following the emergence of COVID-19. Greater attention to social media data may help inform timely responses to the needs of PWUOs during COVID-19.

Gynecologic oncology and surgical oncology treatment modifications, cancellations or delays in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in public versus private cancer centers in North America

The major shift in health-care resource utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic to support patients requiring mechanical ventilation and intensive care monitoring has led to unprecedented cancellations of elective surgeries and reductions of ambulatory clinic visits worldwide. The primary objective of this study is to determine whether the response to the pandemic resulted in modifications, cancellations or delays to the standard therapeutic algorithms for patients with gynecologic malignancies at tertiary, large-volume publicly funded Canadian cancer centers as compared to a privately funded American cancer center. This is a retrospective cohort study of all surgical oncology and gynecologic oncology cases performed in the province of Ontario and at the University Health Network/Princess Margaret Cancer Center (UHN/PMH) as a surrogate for treatment delays, compared to all gynecologic oncology patients treated at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA, between March 3, 2020-June 30, 2020. Descriptive statistics and treatment times were analysed using SPSS 25.0 In the province of Ontario, between March 15, 2020-October 25, 2020, there was a 19% overall decrease in surgical oncology volumes compared to the same time period the previous year (March 17, 2019-Oct 17, 2019). There was an increase of 96% in high priority surgical oncology cases and a 43% decrease in low priority cancer cases. Surgeries for gynecologic malignancies decreased by 8% in the province of Ontario as compared to the previous year. At UHN/PMH, a publicly funded tertiary cancer center in Ontario, there was a 59.8% reduction in surgical oncology volumes between March 09, 2020-May 04 2020, as compared to the previous year (March 04, 2019-April 29 2019). In comparison, at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, a privately funded tertiary cancer center, there were 202 new gynecologic oncology patient referrals and 66 returning patients between March 3, 2020-June 30, 2020. The median time from referral to first consultation for new patients was 11 days (range 1-21) and the time to primary treatment was 31 days (range 5-157). New patients with ovarian malignancies had the shortest time to treatment of 22 days (range 5-157). There were no modifications made to the standard of care treatment plans for any patients and 5.7% of the patients had treatment delays. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the public Canadian healthcare system in the province of Ontario was subjected to a 19% reduction in surgical oncology volumes and 8% specifically for gynecologic oncology surgeries, while there was a 5.7% treatment delay for gynecologic oncology surgeries for a similar patient cohort treated at a tertiary cancer center in a privately funded health care system in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Gynecologic Oncology is the property of Academic Press Inc. 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 abstract 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 abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of the early phase of the COVID-19 epidemic in Brazil (preprint)

BackgroundThe first case of COVID-19 was detected in Brazil on February 25, 2020. We report the epidemiological, demographic, and clinical findings for confirmed COVID-19 cases during the first month of the epidemic in Brazil. MethodsIndividual-level and aggregated COVID-19 data were analysed to investigate demographic profiles, socioeconomic drivers and age-sex structure of COVID-19 tested cases. Basic reproduction numbers (R0) were investigated for Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify symptoms associated with confirmed cases and risk factors associated with hospitalization. Laboratory diagnosis for eight respiratory viruses were obtained for 2,429 cases. FindingsBy March 25, 1,468 confirmed cases were notified in Brazil, of whom 10% (147 of 1,468) were hospitalised. Of the cases acquired locally (77{middle dot}8%), two thirds (66{middle dot}9% of 5,746) were confirmed in private laboratories. Overall, positive association between higher per capita income and COVID-19 diagnosis was identified. The median age of detected cases was 39 years (IQR 30-53). The median R0 was 2{middle dot}9 for Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Cardiovascular disease/hypertension were associated with hospitalization. Co-circulation of six respiratory viruses, including influenza A and B and human rhinovirus was detected in low levels. InterpretationSocioeconomic disparity determines access to SARS-CoV-2 testing in Brazil. The lower median age of infection and hospitalization compared to other countries is expected due to a younger population structure. Enhanced surveillance of respiratory pathogens across socioeconomic statuses is essential to better understand and halt SARS-CoV-2 transmission. FundingSao Paulo Research Foundation, Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust and Royal Society.