Project description:Prevention behaviors represent important public health tools to limit spread of SARS-CoV-2. Adherence with recommended public health prevention behaviors among 20000 + members of a COVID-19 syndromic surveillance cohort from the mid-Atlantic and southeastern United States was assessed via electronic survey following the 2020 Thanksgiving and winter holiday (WH) seasons. Respondents were predominantly non-Hispanic Whites (90%), female (60%), and ≥ 50 years old (59%). Non-household members (NHM) were present at 47.1% of Thanksgiving gatherings and 69.3% of WH gatherings. Women were more likely than men to gather with NHM (p < 0.0001). Attending gatherings with NHM decreased with older age (Thanksgiving: 60.0% of participants aged < 30 years to 36.3% aged ≥ 70 years [p-trend < 0.0001]; WH: 81.6% of those < 30 years to 61.0% of those ≥ 70 years [p-trend < 0.0001]). Non-Hispanic Whites were more likely to gather with NHM than were Hispanics or non-Hispanic Blacks (p < 0.0001). Mask wearing, reported by 37.3% at Thanksgiving and 41.9% during the WH, was more common among older participants, non-Hispanic Blacks, and Hispanics when gatherings included NHM. In this survey, most people did not fully adhere to recommended public health safety behaviors when attending holiday gatherings. It remains unknown to what extent failure to observe these recommendations may have contributed to the COVID-19 surges observed following Thanksgiving and the winter holidays in the United States.
Project description:To understand and analyse the global impact of COVID-19 on outpatient services, inpatient care, elective surgery, and perioperative colorectal cancer care, a DElayed COloRectal cancer surgery (DECOR-19) survey was conducted in collaboration with numerous international colorectal societies with the objective of obtaining several learning points from the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on our colorectal cancer patients which will assist us in the ongoing management of our colorectal cancer patients and to provide us safe oncological pathways for future outbreaks.
Project description:BackgroundThe Robert-Koch-Institute reports that during the summer holiday period a foreign country is stated as the most likely place of infection for an average of 27 and a maximum of 49% of new SARS-CoV-2 infections in Germany.MethodsCross-sectional study on observational data. In Germany, summer school holidays are coordinated between states and spread out over 13 weeks. Employing a dynamic model with district fixed effects, we analyze the association between these holidays and weekly incidence rates across 401 German districts.ResultsWe find effects of the holiday period of around 45% of the average district incidence rates in Germany during their respective final week of holidays and the 2 weeks after holidays end. Western states tend to experience stronger effects than Eastern states. We also find statistically significant interaction effects of school holidays with per capita taxable income and the share of foreign residents in a district's population.ConclusionsOur results suggest that changed behavior during the holiday season accelerated the pandemic and made it considerably more difficult for public health authorities to contain the spread of the virus by means of contact tracing. Germany's public health authorities did not prepare adequately for this acceleration.
Project description:Wastewater surveillance of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has shown to be an important approach to determine early outbreaks of infections. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is regarded as a complementary tool for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 trends in communities. In this study, the changes in the SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels in wastewater during Easter holidays in 2021 and 2022 in the City of Cape Town were monitored over nine weeks. Our findings showed a statistically significant difference in the SARS-CoV-2 RNA viral load between the study weeks over the Easter period in 2021 and 2022, except for study week 1 and 4. During the Easter week, 52% of the wastewater treatment plants moved from the lower (low viral RNA) category in 2021 to the higher (medium to very high viral RNA) categories in 2022. As a result, the median SARS-CoV-2 viral loads where higher during the Easter week in 2022 than Easter week in 2021 (p = 0.0052). Mixed-effects model showed an association between the SARS-CoV-2 RNA viral loads and Easter week over the Easter period in 2021 only (p < 0.01). The study highlights the potential of WBE to track outbreaks during the holiday period.
Project description:This is a multi-centered, retrospective, observational study aimed at observing the current status of the management of gastrointestinal surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the changes on surgery protocols and other key aspects of surgical workflow, so as to share experience with colleagues both domestic and abroad.
Project description:The main objective of this study is to offer and evaluate an interim triage approach for patients waiting for surveillance colonoscopies. This will reduce the waiting period and the psychological stressors for our patients and from a scientific point of view allow us to compare the yield of findings for each approach.
Project description:Unexpected outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has profoundly altered the way of human life and production activity, which posed visible impacts on PM2.5 and its chemical species. The abruptly emergency reduction in human activities provided an opportunity to explore the synergetic impacts of multi-factors on shaping PM2.5 pollution. Here, we conducted two comprehensive observation measurements of PM2.5 and its chemical species from 1 January to 16 February in Beijing 2020 and the same lunar date in 2021, to investigate temporal variations and reveal the driving factors of haze before and after Chinese New Year (CNY). Results show that mean PM2.5 concentrations during the whole observation were 63.83 and 66.86 μg/m3 in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Higher secondary inorganic species were observed after CNY, and K+, Cl- showed three prominent peaks which associated closely with fireworks burnings from suburb Beijing and surroundings, verifying that they could be used as two representative tracers of fireworks. Further, we explored the impacts of meteorological conditions, regional transportation as well as chemical reactions on PM2.5. We found that unfavorable meteorological conditions accounted for 11.0 % and 16.9 % of PM2.5 during CNY holidays in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Regional transport from southwest and southeast (south) played an important role on PM2.5 during the two observation periods. Higher ratio of NO3-/SO42- were observed under high OX and low RH conditions, suggesting the major pathway of NO3- and SO42- formation could be photochemical process and aqueous-phase reaction. Additionally, nocturnal chemistry facilitated the formation of secondary components of both inorganic and organic. This study promotes understandings of PM2.5 pollution in winter under the influence of COVID-19 pandemic and provides a well reference for haze and PM2.5 control in future.