COVID-19
Naglaa K Idriss; Andrew Blann
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic produced by SARS-CoV-2 was the single most important epidemic in the previous century, with unparalleled international scientific, clinical, and political cooperation. One distinguishing trait is its heterologous presentation in terms of illnesses and death in many countries. In ...
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The COVID-19 pandemic produced by SARS-CoV-2 was the single most important epidemic in the previous century, with unparalleled international scientific, clinical, and political cooperation. One distinguishing trait is its heterologous presentation in terms of illnesses and death in many countries. In this communication, we look at several of these characteristics in two countries: Egypt and the United Kingdom, which have quite different demographics and public health policies. We investigate alternative explanations for the far poorer outcome that happened in the United Kingdom, which had over ten times the number of deaths per million of the population as Egypt.
COVID-19
Jose Luis Turabian
Abstract
Background: It's unclear whether vaccination individuals against SARS-CoV-2 protects family members in the same way. Objective: The assessment of risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 transmission from index cases with COVID-19 breakthrough infection in completely vaccinated patients to fully vaccinated family ...
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Background: It's unclear whether vaccination individuals against SARS-CoV-2 protects family members in the same way. Objective: The assessment of risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 transmission from index cases with COVID-19 breakthrough infection in completely vaccinated patients to fully vaccinated family members. Methods: From February 1 to November 30, 2021, an observational, longitudinal, and prospective research of families with one primary case of COVID-19 breakthrough infection was done in a general medicine practice in Toledo, Spain.Results: Thirteen primary cases of COVID-19 breakthrough infection in 13 families with at least one other family member were included, of which 9 were positive secondary cases (sick) and 8 were negative partners (healthy) properly vaccinated. Being a woman, being over 45 years old, being a social-health professional, being an ethnic minority, and having chronic conditions all increased the likelihood of developing COVID-19 in fully vaccinated contacts and main cases. Although vaccination 2ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 had a higher effectiveness than BNT162b2 mRNA, none of these risk or protective factors were statistically significant.Conclusion: Young women, social health workers, ethnic minority groups, and people with chronic diseases are the completely vaccinated contacts with the highest risk of having COVID-19, after primary cases also vaccinated in the family, in Toledo (Spain), when the delta variant became dominant but before the rise of omicron.
COVID-19
Kuok Ho Daniel Tang
Abstract
Vaccination has offered the hope of restoring life to pre-COVID-19 normalcy. However, new COVID-19 cases have continued to emerge and have increased in certain regions even with increasing vaccination coverage. This study aims to explore the correlations between daily COVID-19 case fatality rates, vaccination ...
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Vaccination has offered the hope of restoring life to pre-COVID-19 normalcy. However, new COVID-19 cases have continued to emerge and have increased in certain regions even with increasing vaccination coverage. This study aims to explore the correlations between daily COVID-19 case fatality rates, vaccination coverage as well as daily new cases and deaths of COVID-19 in Malaysia. It aims to compare the pre- and post-vaccination COVID-19 case fatality rates and examine if any difference between the rates is statistically significant. It also aims to identify the main predictors of COVID-19 case fatality rates. This study obtained the data of daily new cases and deaths of COVID-19, as well as the daily vaccination coverage in Malaysia from official platforms and government offices for non-parametric statistical analysis. It explored the Spearman’s correlations between daily COVID-19 case fatality rates, daily new COVID-19 cases and deaths as well as the vaccination coverage in Malaysia. It examined the difference in the pre- and post-vaccination daily COVID-19 case fatality rates with Mann-Whitney U Test. It constructed a multiple regression model to identify the significant predictors of the daily case fatality rates. This study shows that daily COVID-19 case fatality rates are positively correlated with daily new COVID-19 cases and deaths, and vaccination coverage. It reveals that post-vaccination case fatality rates are lower than pre-vaccination and the difference is statistically significant. People fully vaccinated per 100 population is a significant predictor of the decline of daily case fatality rates.
COVID-19
Virendra Mane; Poorva Bhalerao
Abstract
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic was expected to affect India severely; cases rose exponentially from May-June 2020, but around mid-September reached their peak and started declining. It showed a sign of the wave’s completion by the end of January 2021. This decline was not predicted by any models ...
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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic was expected to affect India severely; cases rose exponentially from May-June 2020, but around mid-September reached their peak and started declining. It showed a sign of the wave’s completion by the end of January 2021. This decline was not predicted by any models and the authors have not come across any explanation. Winter seasonality of influenza and similar viruses is well known and observed fact and that it has a direct correlation to the colder temperatures as well as lower humidity. Similarly, in low humidity, viruses are most viable, and they become ineffective as the humidity increases and reaches its maximum extent. This article hypothesizes and tries to explain the cause behind the first major decline and shows the subsequent rise of the second wave, and one short low humidity period followed by a high humidity period between the first and second waves. Methods: The humidity cycles in India were studied to find high and low relative humidity periods, which then corresponded to the daily cases in the country (macro-level), region (mid-level), and smaller regions (micro-level). Results: A definite correlation was observed between Monsoon-induced humidity and the incidence rate decline. This happens in 8 to 10 weeks. Incidence rates start declining about 4 weeks after the peak humidity is reached in a particular region. A decrease in humidity below 65% or 55% or lower causes an increase in the case increase/uptrend in about 3-4 weeks. Conclusion: COVID-19 has a seasonal peak in India, peaking in the middle of the monsoon season around mid-September and reaching its lowest levels in January-February. As humidity drops from February to June/July, a trend reversal and sharp rise are expected. The subsequent wave/case peak would be expected to be seen around mid-September 2021.
COVID-19
Samira Zouhri; Mohcine El Baroudi
Abstract
A woman in her sixties with a normal medical history was admitted to a general medical floor with Neuropathic pain symptoms such as a burning sensation throughout her body (head, back, spine, throat, and tongue with dry mouth, chest, abdomen, kidneys, thighs, toes), inability to eat, urinary incontinence, ...
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A woman in her sixties with a normal medical history was admitted to a general medical floor with Neuropathic pain symptoms such as a burning sensation throughout her body (head, back, spine, throat, and tongue with dry mouth, chest, abdomen, kidneys, thighs, toes), inability to eat, urinary incontinence, difficulty wearing clothing, and difficulty leaning on the back. There was a difficulty and delay in diagnosing the patient's condition, which was confirmed to have severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) with no respiratory symptoms. The patient's pain did not respond to the covid-19's first-line medications, but it did respond to neuropathic medication with Pregabalin and Alprazolam. Our study shows that Pregabalin could be helpful in relieving the patient’s pain and very effective for treating neuropathic pain with a safe profile, unlike Alprazolam, which interferes with the same stages of sleep, which made her sleep condition worse.
COVID-19
Fazlollah Keshavarzi; Berry Wei Qi Ting; Betty Zhi Xin Tang; Kai Xin Chang; Fei San Chee; Kar Mey Chen
Abstract
Background. The worldwide economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is comparable with the largest disastrous events of modern human history, such as the first and second world wars. This study investigated the nationwide impact of the pandemic on the local Malaysian firms.Methods. A cross-sectional, ...
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Background. The worldwide economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is comparable with the largest disastrous events of modern human history, such as the first and second world wars. This study investigated the nationwide impact of the pandemic on the local Malaysian firms.Methods. A cross-sectional, online survey was carried out in East and West Malaysia by inviting the Malaysian firms’ executives to fill in a questionnaire that was adopted from previous similar studies in other countries. The final questionnaire included 16 questions distributed in three categories. The executives of firms were contacted through email and social media. SSPS was used to analyse the collected data.Results. A total of 379 responses were received. Nearly 42% of firms reported a small impact with some difficulties in business operations but overall stability. Approximately 32% of businesses were severely impacted, and operations were barely maintained. Six percent of the firms had no significant difficulties and 5.3% reported that the pandemic provided new opportunities for development.Conclusion. Almost one-third of the Malaysian firms are affected significantly by the COVID-19 pandemic. The business operation of half of the Malaysian firms is also affected to some extent. Supportive policies are needed to reduce the companies’ manufacturing costs and assist them in surviving and eventually returning to normal business operations.
COVID-19
Jose Luis Turabian
Abstract
BackgroundMost people with COVID-19 receive care at home, increasing the likelihood of exposure for household members.ObjectiveTo study the prevalence and characteristics of secondary cases in families after the appearance of a primary caseMethodologyAn observational and retrospective study of families ...
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BackgroundMost people with COVID-19 receive care at home, increasing the likelihood of exposure for household members.ObjectiveTo study the prevalence and characteristics of secondary cases in families after the appearance of a primary caseMethodologyAn observational and retrospective study of families with at least one polymerase chain reaction (PCR) confirmed COVID-19 primary case was conducted from March 15 to December 25, 2020, in a general medicine office in Toledo, Spain. Socio-demographic and clinical variables were compared between primary and secondary cases in the families. The outcome of interest was secondary attack rate of SARS-CoV-2 within the family.Results39 families with a primary case (average size 3.4 members) with a total of 132 cohabitants were included. There were 22 cohabitants with negative PCR (22/92 = 24%), 70 secondary cases with positive PCR (Secondary attack rate 76%), of which 25 were asymptomatic (25/70 = 36%), and a cohabiting new-born. A high frequency of people from ethnic minorities, low household income and complex families was found, both in primary and secondary cases. The secondary cases with respect to the primary ones were more women, younger, students and with a lower socio-occupational level, with more asymptomatic cases, and milder symptomatic cases.ConclusionsIn this context, the prevalence of secondary domestic contacts is very high, and it occur in young women, being asymptomatic or mild. The high secondary attack rate suggests the importance of the pre-symptomatic or early symptomatic period of COVID-19, as well as the possible failure to comply with isolation measures.
