Non-adherence to COVID-19 lockdown: who are they? A cross-sectional study in Portugal.

OBJECTIVES: The SARS-CoV-2 virus has spread worldwide, leading governments to implement mitigation measures. Understanding the reluctance to adhere to non-pharmacological interventions might help promote adherence to these measures. This study aimed to identify factors associated with non-adherence to the first lockdown in Portugal. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. METHODS: This study used data from a Portuguese community-based survey entitled 'COVID-19 Barometer: Social Opinion'. Data were collected on risk perception, health status and social experiences using a snowball sampling technique. The event of interest corresponded to participants who reported not staying home during the lockdown period, serving as a proxy for non-adherence to lockdown. Logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with non-adherence to the first lockdown. RESULTS: Responses from 133,601 individual questionnaires that were completed during the first week of the first lockdown in 2020 were analysed. A minority of participants (5.6%) reported non-adherence to lockdown (i.e. leaving home for reasons other than essential situations). Working in the workplace was the factor with the strongest association of non-adherence to the lockdown. Several other factors were also associated with non-adherence to the first lockdown; namely, being a man, being a student, having a low level of education, having a low income, living alone or with a high-infection-risk professional (e.g. doctor, nurse, pharmaceutical, health technician, firefighter, police officer, military, essential services worker), perceiving the risk of getting COVID-19 to be high, not having social support in case of infection, feeling agitated, sad or anxious every day, and considering the preventive measures to be unimportant or inadequate. CONCLUSIONS: Non-adherence to lockdown was associated with socio-economic, trust and perception factors. Future research should investigate the mechanisms underlying these associations to help identify the population groups who are most at risk of non-adherence.

First record of epizootics in the ocola skipper, Panoquina ocola (Lepidopera: Hesperiidae), caused by Isaria tenuipes in flooded rice fields of Central Brazil.

AIMS: We report the first occurrence of an epizootic of the ascomycete fungus, Isaria tenuipes (teleomorph Cordyceps takaomontana), on the ocola skipper Panoquina ocola (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae), an insect pest affecting rice in Brazil. METHODS AND RESULTS: Field surveys in flooded rice fields in the state of Goiás in Brazil were conducted, and a fungal pathogen of a caterpillar pest (P. ocola) was serendipitously found. This fungus inflicted high infection levels (average 86·2%) mainly to the pupal stage during warm, humid growing conditions. Typically, mycosed pupal cadavers produced milky-white to pale yellow synnemata bearing an average of 1·1 ± 0·2 × 109 conidia per cadaver. Based on phylogenetic analysis using beta-tubulin gene sequences, we confirmed that all 12 isolates obtained from field-mummified pupae were identifiable as I. tenuipes. CONCLUSIONS: Our data expand our knowledge on the host and geographical ranges of this mycopathogen and underscore its epizootic potential to affect a lepidopterous insect pest on rice in Brazil. This finding may facilitate the exploitation of this fungus as a mycoinsecticide. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: Isaria tenuipes may be used as an effective and environmentally friendly bioinsecticide against agricultural caterpillar pests due to its epizootic potential, as well as explored for medicinal purposes by pharmaceutical industry.