Inhibitory activity of copper gluconate and disulfiram against papain-like protease of SARS-CoV-2

Aim To investigate the inhibitory effect of copper gluconate and disulfiran on the PLpro of SARS-CoV-2 and to explore the effect of combination of them on PLpro.Methods SARS-CoV-2 PLpro was purified by recombinant expression technology of he effects of copper gluconate and disulfiram on PLpro activity were studied by enzyme kinetic method.Results Copper gluconate and disulfiram had high inhibitory activity on SARS-CoV-2 PLpro,Ubiquitin-7-Amino-4-methylcoumarin(Ub-AMC)was used as the fluorescent substrate.The IC50 of copper gluconate was 33.02 nmol.L-1,showing competitive inhibition,and the IC50 of disulfiram was 480.4 nmol.L-1,showing non competitive inhibition,and the combination of the two inhibitors showed the advantage of synergistic inhibition.Conclusions Copper gluconate and disulfiram have a high inhibitory effect on SARS-CoV-2 PLpro protein,and the combination shows the advantage of synergistic inhibition. Copyright © 2022 Publication Centre of Anhui Medical University. All rights reserved.

Nationwide Adoption of a Digital Contact Tracing App: Examining the Role of Privacy Concern, Political Trust, and Technology Literacy

Digital contact tracing (DCT) has become an efficient method for authorities to curb COVID-19. However, the current public opinion studies on the adoption of DCT primarily focus on Western countries and rarely explore citizen attitudes in Asian contexts where DCT is often mandatory. Moreover, the existing literature extensively explores how privacy concern negates the adoption of DCT without illuminating the solutions to such barriers. To unveil the mechanisms of DCT adoption, this study explores how Singaporeans' privacy concern, political trust, and technology literacy can influence their attitudes toward TraceTogether (a local DCT program). An analysis of survey data suggests that privacy concern is positively associated with negative attitudes toward DCT. Those with high levels of political distrust also hold negative attitudes toward DCT. Political distrust is also found to positively mediate the relationship between privacy concerns and negative attitudes toward DCT. Finally, moderated mediation findings suggest that the indirect effects of privacy concern on negative attitudes toward DCT via political distrust increase with an increase in technological literacy. Simply put, the indirect effects are stronger for those with higher-tech literacy. We discuss the tension between privacy concerns and public health during the pandemic and propose policy suggestions.

Mental distress and its associations with behavioral outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic: a national survey of Chinese adults.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to evaluate associations between mental distress and COVID-19-related changes in behavioral outcomes and potential modifiers (age, gender, educational attainment) of such associations. STUDY DESIGN: This was a cross-sectional study. METHODS: An online survey using anonymous network sampling was conducted in China from April to May 2020 using a 74-item questionnaire. A national sample of 10,545 adults in 31 provinces provided data on sociodemographic characteristics, COVID-19-related mental distress, and changes in behavioral outcomes. Structural equation models were used for data analyses. RESULTS: After adjusting for covariates, greater mental distress was associated with increased smoking (odds ratio [OR] = 1.42, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.20-1.68 and OR = 1.54, 95% CI: 1.31-1.82 per one standard deviation [SD] increase in mental distress) and alcohol consumption (OR = 1.67, 95% CI: 1.45-1.92 and OR = 1.47, 95% CI: 1.24-1.75 per one SD increase in mental distress) among current smokers and drinkers and with both increased and decreased physical activity (ORs ranged from 1.32 to 1.56). Underweight adults were more likely to lose body weight (≥1 kg; OR = 1.63, 95% CI: 1.30-2.04), whereas overweight adults were more likely to gain weight (OR = 1.61, 95% CI: 1.46-1.78) by the same amount. Association between mental distress and change in physical activity was stronger in adults aged ≥40 years (ORs ranged from 1.43 to 2.05) and those with high education (ORs ranged from 1.43 to 1.77). Mental distress was associated with increased smoking in males (OR = 1.60, 95% CI: 1.37-1.87) but not females (OR = 1.11, 95% CI: 0.82-1.51). CONCLUSIONS: Greater mental distress was associated with some positive and negative changes in behavioral outcomes during the pandemic. These findings inform the design of tailored public health interventions aimed to mitigate long-term negative consequences of mental distress on outcomes.

Unsupervised Detection of Pulmonary Opacities for Computer-Aided Diagnosis of COVID-19 on CT Images

COVID-19 emerged towards the end of 2019 which was identified as a global pandemic by the world heath organization (WHO). With the rapid spread of COVID-19, the number of infected and suspected patients has increased dramatically. Chest computed tomography (CT) has been recognized as an efficient tool for the diagnosis of COVID-19. However, the huge CT data make it difficult for radiologist to fully exploit them on the diagnosis. In this paper, we propose a computer-aided diagnosis system that can automatically analyze CT images to distinguish the COVID-19 against to community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). The proposed system is based on an unsupervised pulmonary opacity detection method that locates opacity regions by a detector unsupervisedly trained from CT images with normal lung tissues. Radiomics based features are extracted insides the opacity regions, and fed into classifiers for classification. We evaluate the proposed CAD system by using 200 CT images collected from different patients in several hospitals. The accuracy, precision, recall, fl-score and AUC achieved are 95.5%, 100%, 91%, 95.1% and 95.9% respectively, exhibiting the promising capacity on the differential diagnosis of COVID-19 from CT images.

Disinfection Mechanisms of UV Light and Ozonization

Ultraviolet (UV) and ozonization technology are efficient physical processes for the disinfection of bacteria and viruses. At present, due to the outbreak of the novel coronaviruses (SARS-CoV-2) around the world, it is imperative to seek effective disinfection methods for the SARS-CoV-2. In this paper, the disinfection mechanisms of UV and ozone were analyzed, and many studies on the inactivation of similar coronavirus such as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV by UV and ozone were reviewed. The feasibility on the application of UV and ozone to inactivate SARS-CoV-2 was discussed.

Virology of SARS-CoV-2

Respiratory disease caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia first emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, and spread rapidly to other provinces and other countries. This report briefly introduces SARS-CoV-2's structure, basic characterization and replication process. It also includes some special research results by different researchers, for example, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 as the receptor and the binding of S protein to its receptor ACE2 is triggered by the cellular serine protease TMPRSS2.

Copper Coated Textiles for Inhibition of Virus Spread

COVID-19 is a pandemic, as such developing a type of material that can inhibit the spread of the novel coronavirus is vital. In this article, copper as metallization material for textiles is discussed for developing disinfection mouth masks or other protective textiles. Copper has been proved to have significant effect against certain bacteria or virus according to several research. For example the Human-Coronavirus 229E virus survive time on copper alloy demonstrates the antivirus property of cooper. The mechanism, such as Cu(I) and Cu (II) enhanced by reactive oxygen species generation on alloy surfaces and other theories is discussed. The metallization method for textile includes the dry process and wet process. However, to develop safe and effective cooper-coated material to inhibit COVID-19 virus requires further research.

How to protect factory workers from COVID-19?

Coronavirus has become a very serious global health problem. Since December 2019, a number of new cases of patients with pneumonia caused by the Coronavirus disease have been found in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. With the global spread of the epidemic, other types of cases have been found in other regions of China and abroad. Factory workers play an important and essential role in the production of goods needed by society. Protecting them is essential to maintain the stability of factory productivity. This editorial provides guidance in how to protect factory workers from COVID-19 infection.

Association of acute kidney injury and clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19 in Shenzhen, China: a retrospective cohort study

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) was found in some patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and accompanied with poor outcomes. The objective of this study was to investigate the association of AKI with clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients. Methods: In this cohort study, we reviewed electronic medical data from patients with COVID-19 in Shenzhen from January 11 to February 19, 2020. Clinical features and clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients with and without AKI were analyzed. Further, we evaluated the association between AKI development and clinical outcomes. Results: In this study, 9.6% patients developed AKI during hospitalization. Those with AKI presented older age, severer pneumonia, more comorbidity and lower lymphocyte count. Totally, more patients (77.5%) had primary composite outcomes (intensive care unit (ICU) admission, use of high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) and mechanical ventilation) in AKI group compared to non-AKI group (2.9%) during the observation period. The median length of stay (LOS) and ICU stay were longer among those with AKI. After adjusted for related covariates, AKI development was independently correlated with LOS (β (95% CI): 9.16 (3.87-14.46)), rather than primary outcomes (HR (95% CI): 1.34 (0.56-3.21)) in COVID-19 patients. Conclusions: The development of AKI was not one of the reasons for ICU admission, use of HFNC and mechanical ventilation, but a kind of manifestation of severe illness in COVID-19 hospitalized patients.

Impact of the COVID-19 event on air quality in central China

In early 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic spread globally. This study investigated the air quality of three cities in Hubei Province, Wuhan, Jingmen, and Enshi, central China, from January to March 2017–2020 to analyze the impact of the epidemic prevention and control actions on air quality. The results indicated that in the three cities, during February 2020, when the epidemic prevention and control actions were taken, the average concentrations of atmospheric PM2.5, PM10, SO2, CO, and NO2 in the three cities were 46.1 µg m-3, 50.8 µg m-3, 2.56 ppb, 0.60 ppm, and 6.70 ppb, and were 30.1%, 40.5%, 33.4%, 27.9%, and 61.4% lower than the levels in February 2017–2019, respectively. However, the average O3 concentration (23.1, 32.4, and 40.2 ppb) in 2020 did not show a significant decrease, and even increased by 12.7%, 14.3%, and 11.6% in January, February, and March, respectively. This is because a lower concentration of NO2 resulted in constraints on the NO + O3 reaction, and the O3 could not be effectively further depleted. In addition, the average air quality index (AQI) for the three cities in January, February, and March 2020 were 32.2%, 27.7%, and 14.9% lower than the levels in 2017–2019, respectively. Based on the AQIs for the three cities, the combined proportions of Class I and Class Ⅱ in January, February, and March 2020 increased by 27.9%, 24.8%, and 4.3%, respectively, while the combined proportion of AQI Classes III, IV, V, and VI was reduced from 34.8% to 15.8%. In addition, in the first three months of 2020, the indicatory air pollutants in the three cities for the AQIs were predominant in the following order: PM2.5 (72.0%), O3 (16.4%), PM10 (8.3%), NO2 (2.9%), and CO (0.4%). This study provides useful information for establishing a scientific air pollution control strategy and is a valuable reference for future research on improving urban air quality. © Taiwan Association for Aerosol Research.

Analysis of interventional clinical research protocols related to coronavirus disease 2019 and future expectations

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a newly emerging infectious disease. After its outbreak, researchers started a large number of clinical interventional studies, using a variety of interventions to study the different types of COVID-19 cases. In this article, we searched the websites of Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, ClinicalTrials.gov, etc., to study the publicly registered research information. Through the classification and summary of interventional methods, evaluation indicators, research design, etc., this article provided readers with the outline of clinical research about COVID-19, and looked forward to the scientificity, feasibility, and future evidence of the clinical researches.