Articles: coronavirus.
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Following emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a surge in the life-threatening illness now termed 'multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children' (MIS-C) has raised questions about the unique effects of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in children and adolescents. Two important new studies by Consiglio et al. and Gruber et al. have begun to shine light on the immune drivers of this enigmatic disease.
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Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw · Dec 2020
Smoking, Vaping, and Tobacco Industry During COVID-19 Pandemic: Twitter Data Analysis.
The reports suggesting a beneficial effect of nicotine on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) severity may encourage smoking. We aimed to analyze tweets on COVID-19 and smoking coming from casual Twitter users and Twitter accounts representing the tobacco industry. We collected tweets on COVID-19 and smoking from January 1 to May 1, 2020, using Twitter application programming interface. ⋯ The authors of potentially controversial articles should restrain from the promotion of their results before the completion of the peer-review process. Twitter presents a convenient tool to monitor e-discourse during a health crisis. The research community should monitor the tobacco industry's social media.
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Australas Psychiatry · Dec 2020
Emergency department mental health presentations before and during the COVID-19 outbreak in Western Australia.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) has led to high levels of psychological distress in the community. This study aimed to examine whether emergency departments (EDs) also recorded a rise in mental health presentations. ⋯ A rise in local COVID-19 cases was associated with a decrease in mental health presentations to EDs. This has important implications for the planning and provision of healthcare services in the current pandemic.
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When a pandemic outbreak occurs, it seems logical that related scientific production should increase substantially; however, it is important to recognize its interdisciplinary usefulness to find a solution to the problem. The main aim of this research is to analyse the main keywords of the scientific research about COVID-19, by subject area. ⋯ As expected, the largest volume of research was dedicated to medical aspects of the disease, like experimental treatments, its physiopathology, or its respiratory syndrome. However, other fields, like Social Sciences (6.07%), Technology (2.68%), Physical Sciences (1.95%), and Arts and Humanities (1.08%), also played an important role in research on COVID-19.
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The unprecedented scale of testing required to effectively control the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has necessitated urgent implementation of rapid testing in clinical microbiology laboratories. To date, there are limited data available on the analytical performance of emerging commercially available assays for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and integration of these assays into laboratory workflows. Here, we performed a prospective validation study of a commercially available assay, the AusDiagnostics Coronavirus Typing (8-well) assay. ⋯ Compared to the reference laboratory gold standard, sensitivity of the Coronavirus Typing assay for SARS-CoV-2 was 100% (95% CI 93.2-100%), specificity 99.8% (95% CI 99.1-100%), positive predictive value 98.1% (95% CI 90.2-99.7%) and negative predictive value 100% (95% CI 99.4-100%). In many countries, standard regulatory requirements for the introduction of new assays have been replaced by emergency authorisations and it is critical that laboratories share their post-market validation experiences, as the consequences of widespread introduction of a suboptimal assay for SARS-CoV-2 are profound. Here, we share our in-field experience, and encourage other laboratories to follow suit.