Risultati per: Il significato della carica virale e l’effetto del vaccino anti-COVID-19

Objectives
There are indications that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound negative effect on psychological well-being. Here, we investigated this hypothesis using longitudinal data from a large global cohort of runners, providing unprecedented leverage for understanding how the temporal development in the pandemic pressure relates to well-being across countries.

Design
Prospective cohort study.

Setting
Global.

Participants
We used data from the worldwide Garmin-RUNSAFE cohort that recruited runners with a Garmin Connect account, which is used for storing running activities tracked by a Garmin device. A total of 7808 Garmin Connect users from 86 countries participated.

Primary and secondary outcome measures
From 1 August 2019 (prepandemic) to 31 December 2020, participants completed surveys every second week that included the five-item WHO Well-Being Index (WHO-5). Pandemic pressure was proxied by the number of COVID-19-related deaths per country, retrieved from the Coronavirus Resource Centre at Johns Hopkins University. Panel data regression including individual- and time-fixed effects was used to study the association between country-level COVID-19-related deaths over the past 14 days and individual-level self-reported well-being over the past 14 days.

Results
The 7808 participants completed a total of 125 409 WHO-5 records over the study period. We found a statistically significant inverse relationship between the number of COVID-19-related deaths and the level of psychological well-being—independent of running activity and running injuries (a reduction of 1.42 WHO-5 points per COVID-19-related death per 10 000 individuals, p

Introduction
At the peak of Uganda’s first wave of SARS-CoV-2 in May 2020, one in three COVID-19 cases was linked to the haulage sector. This triggered a mandatory requirement for a negative PCR test result at all ports of entry and exit, resulting in significant delays as haulage drivers had to wait for 24–48 hours for results, which severely crippled the regional supply chain.
To support public health and economic recovery, we aim to develop and test a mobile phone-based digital contact tracing (DCT) tool that both augments conventional contact tracing and also increases its speed and efficiency.

Methods and analysis
To test the DCT tool, we will use a stratified sample of haulage driver journeys, stratified by route type (regional and local journeys).
We will include at least 65% of the haulage driver journeys ~83 200 on the network through Uganda. This allows us to capture variations in user demographics and socioeconomic characteristics that could influence the use and adoption of the DCT tool. The developed DCT tool will include a mobile application and web interface to collate and intelligently process data, whose output will support decision-making, resource allocation and feed mathematical models that predict epidemic waves.
The main expected result will be an open source-tested DCT tool tailored to haulage use in developing countries.
This study will inform the safe deployment of DCT technologies needed for combatting pandemics in low-income countries.

Ethics and dissemination
This work has received ethics approval from the School of Public Health Higher Degrees, Research and Ethics Committee at Makerere University and The Uganda National Council for Science and Technology. This work will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, our websites https://project-thea.org/ and Github for the open source code https://github.com/project-thea/.

Ioannidis JP. Citation impact and social media visibility of Great Barrington and John Snow signatories for COVID-19 strategy. BMJ Open 2022;12:e052891. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-052891. The methods section does not indicate the statistical tests being used. The statistical tests are: (i) the Fisher’s exact test for 2×2 tables (ii) the Mann-Whitney U test for two groups. The Kardashian K-index was originally presented in satirical tone in an article,1 but has been used in numerous studies as a measure of an author’s scholarly output compared to their social media presence. The competing interests declaration of the author has been disputed, particularly the author’s relationships to researchers closely linked to the Great Barrington Declaration, most notably Jay Bhattacharya and Scott Atlas. Please see the rapid responses to the article for the criticisms and the author’s response. The author has now provided a more detailed statement relating to his…

Ci sarà una pioggia di vaccini a disposizione: non solo per Omicron 1 ma anche per le sottovarianti 4 e 5 ora prevalenti

In the RECOVERY trial, adding baricitinib to dexamethasone reduced mortality.

Objectives
Men have a higher mortality rate and more severe COVID-19 infection than women. The mechanism for this is unclear. We hypothesise that innate sex differences, rather than comorbidity burden, drive higher male mortality.

Design
Retrospective cohort.

Setting
Montefiore Health System (MHS) in Bronx, New York, USA.

Participants
A cohort population of 364 992 patients at MHS between 1 January 2018 and 1 January 2020 was defined, from which individuals hospitalised during the pre-COVID period (1 January 2020–15 February 2020) (n=5856) and individuals hospitalised during the COVID-19 surge (1 March 2020–15 April 2020) (n=4793) were examined for outcomes. A subcohort with confirmed COVID-19+ hospitalisation was also examined (n=1742).

Primary and secondary outcome measures
Hospitalisation and in-hospital mortality.

Results
Men were older, had more comorbidities, lower body mass index and were more likely to smoke. Unadjusted logistic regression showed a higher odds of death in hospitalised men than women during both the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods (pre-COVID-19, OR: 1.66 vs COVID-19 OR: 1.98). After adjustment for relevant clinical and demographic factors, the higher risk of male death attenuated towards the null in the pre-COVID-19 period (OR 1.36, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.76) but remained significantly higher in the COVID-19 period (OR 2.02; 95% CI 1.73 to 2.34).
In the subcohort of COVID-19+ hospitalised patients, men had 1.37 higher odds of in-hospital death (95% CI 1.09 to 1.72), which was not altered by adjustment for comorbidity (OR remained at 1.38 (95% CI 1.08 to 1.76)) but was attenuated with addition of initial pulse oximetry on presentation (OR 1.26, 95% CI 0.99 to 1.62).

Conclusions
Higher male mortality risk during the COVID-19 period despite adjustment for comorbidity supports the role of innate physiological susceptibility to COVID-19 death. Attenuation of higher male risk towards the null after adjustment for severity of lung disease in hospitalised COVID-19+ patients further supports the role of higher severity of COVID-19 pneumonia in men.

Objectives
Across diverse ethnic groups in the UK, explore attitudes and intentions towards COVID-19 vaccination and sources of COVID-19 information.

Design
Remote qualitative interviews and focus groups (FGs) conducted June–October 2020 before UK COVID-19 vaccine approval. Data were transcribed and analysed through inductive thematic analysis and mapped to the Theoretical Domains Framework.

Setting
England and Wales.

Participants
100 participants from 19 self-identified ethnic groups.

Results
Mistrust and doubt were reported across ethnic groups. Many participants shared concerns about perceived lack of information about COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy. There were differences within each ethnic group, with factors such as occupation and perceived health status influencing intention to accept a vaccine once made available. Across ethnic groups, participants believed that public contact occupations, older adults and vulnerable groups should be prioritised for vaccination. Perceived risk, social influences, occupation, age, comorbidities and engagement with healthcare influenced participants’ intentions to accept vaccination once available. All Jewish FG participants intended to accept, while all Traveller FG participants indicated they probably would not.
Facilitators to COVID-19 vaccine uptake across ethnic groups included: desire to return to normality and protect health and well-being; perceived higher risk of infection; evidence of vaccine safety and efficacy; vaccine availability and accessibility.
COVID-19 information sources were influenced by social factors and included: friends and family; media and news outlets; research literature; and culture and religion. Participants across most different ethnic groups were concerned about misinformation or had negative attitudes towards the media.

Conclusions
During vaccination rollout, including boosters, commissioners and providers should provide accurate information, authentic community outreach and use appropriate channels to disseminate information and counter misinformation. Adopting a context-specific approach to vaccine resources, interventions and policies and empowering communities has potential to increase trust in the programme.

In Reply We thank Dr Pavlov and colleagues and Dr Meza-Comparán and colleagues for their commentary regarding our article. We acknowledge the reticence of Dr Pavlov and colleagues regarding our speculation that awake prone positioning (APP) may obscure natural progression of disease; however, higher daily fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2) with APP does not necessarily contradict this hypothesis because this measure is simply the highest FiO2 achieved at any point during the day, independent of position. We also agree that similar mortality and lower rates of intubation may have to do with patient preference and their do not intubate status, which may differ among patient populations. However, it is essential to disentangle the timing of these elections in regard to enrollment and disease progression. If the real benefit of APP is prevention of intubation—no studies have demonstrated a mortality benefit—the most important group to study may be those who have chosen not to be intubated.

This randomized clinical trial assesses high-dose dexamethasone vs standard care and 3 oxygenation strategies for intensive care unit (ICU) patients with severe COVID-19 acute hypoxemic respiratory failure.

This systematic review and meta-analysis used databases, such as PubMed, ProQuest, and Scopus, to investigate the association between the COVID-19 pandemic and decreased rates of breast, colorectal, and cervical cancer screening globally.

To the Editor In their nonrandomized controlled trial of awake prone positioning (APP) in patients hospitalized with COVID-19, Dr Qian and colleagues describe the short-term potential harm from APP that was no longer apparent by day 28. This potential for harm needs to be explained and reconciled with contrasting evidence of benefit demonstrated in our larger metatrial and further confirmed in a recent meta-analysis that included more than 4000 patients, approximately 2000 of whom were included in randomized clinical trials.

In Reply We thank Vavougios and colleagues for their letter suggesting sleep-disordered breathing and cerebrovascular disease as potential driving variables in the association between COVID-19 hospitalization and neurocognitive sequalae found in our study. We acknowledge that sleep-disordered breathing and cerebrovascular disease can potentially influence the observed cognitive impairment and thus investigated this further in our data set.

To the Editor In their article, Dr Qian and colleagues reported the results of a trial comparing awake prone positioning (APP) with usual care in nonintubated adults with COVID-19–induced hypoxemia. Although it provides insights into the nuances and perils of APP, their findings contrast with the results of a recent metatrial in which lower intubation rates were observed with APP.

This cohort study analyzes data from US residents to examine the mental health effect of everyday discrimination during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To the Editor Nersesjan et al report on cognitive and neuropsychiatric outcomes in COVID-19 survivors vs control individuals. Their study is a robust foray into the neurocognitive sequalae of COVID-19 that provides both follow-up and control data for comparison and context. However, there are 2 critical caveats that may impair generalizability: sleep-disordered breathing and cerebrovascular disease as drivers of cognitive impairment in both patients with COVID-19 and control individuals without COVID-19. The former caveat stems from screening that was not included in the authors measurements; the latter is a direct generalization of their results and may also imply other confounders, such as medication status.

Objectives
There are no established mortality risk equations specifically for unplanned emergency medical admissions which include patients with SARS-19 (COVID-19). We aim to develop and validate a computer-aided risk score (CARMc19) for predicting mortality risk by combining COVID-19 status, the first electronically recorded blood test results and the National Early Warning Score (NEWS2).

Design
Logistic regression model development and validation study.

Setting
Two acute hospitals (York Hospital—model development data; Scarborough Hospital—external validation data).

Participants
Adult (aged ≥16 years) medical admissions discharged over a 24-month period with electronic NEWS and blood test results recorded on admission. We used logistic regression modelling to predict the risk of in-hospital mortality using two models: (1) CARMc19_N: age+sex+NEWS2 including subcomponents+COVID19; (2) CARMc19_NB: CARMc19_N in conjunction with seven blood test results and acute kidney injury score. Model performance was evaluated according to discrimination (c-statistic), calibration (graphically) and clinical usefulness at NEWS2 thresholds of 4+, 5+, 6+.

Results
The risk of in-hospital mortality following emergency medical admission was similar in development and validation datasets (8.4% vs 8.2%). The c-statistics for predicting mortality for CARMc19_NB is better than CARMc19_N in the validation dataset (CARMc19_NB=0.88 (95% CI 0.86 to 0.90) vs CARMc19_N=0.86 (95% CI 0.83 to 0.88)). Both models had good calibration (CARMc19_NB=1.01 (95% CI 0.88 to 1.14) and CARMc19_N:0.95 (95% CI 0.83 to 1.06)). At all NEWS2 thresholds (4+, 5+, 6+) model, CARMc19_NB had better sensitivity and similar specificity.

Conclusions
We have developed a validated CARMc19 scores with good performance characteristics for predicting the risk of in-hospital mortality. Since the CARMc19 scores place no additional data collection burden on clinicians, it may now be carefully introduced and evaluated in hospitals with sufficient informatics infrastructure.