An integrated data framework for policy guidance during the coronavirus pandemic: Towards real-time decision support for economic policymakers.

Usually, official and survey-based statistics guide policymakers in their choice of response instruments to economic crises. However, in an early phase, after a sudden and unforeseen shock has caused unexpected and fast-changing dynamics, data from traditional statistics are only available with non-negligible time delays. This leaves policymakers uncertain about how to most effectively manage their economic countermeasures to support businesses, especially when they need to respond quickly, as in the COVID-19 pandemic. Given this information deficit, we propose a framework that guided policymakers throughout all stages of this unforeseen economic shock by providing timely and reliable sources of firm-level data as a basis to make informed policy decisions. We do so by combining early stage 'ad hoc' web analyses, 'follow-up' business surveys, and 'retrospective' analyses of firm outcomes. A particular focus of our framework is on assessing the early effects of the pandemic, using highly dynamic and large-scale data from corporate websites. Most notably, we show that textual references to the coronavirus pandemic published on a large sample of company websites and state-of-the-art text analysis methods allowed to capture the heterogeneity of the pandemic's effects at a very early stage and entailed a leading indication on later movements in firm credit ratings. While the proposed framework is specific to the COVID-19 pandemic, the integration of results obtained from real-time online sources in the design of subsequent surveys and their value in forecasting firm-level outcomes typically targeted by policy measures, is a first step towards a more timely and holistic approach for policy guidance in times of economic shocks.

Protection by pyridostigmine bromide of marmoset hemi-diaphragm acetylcholinesterase activity after soman exposure.

Pyridostigmine bromide (PB) was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2003 as a pretreatment in humans against the lethal effects of the irreversible nerve agent soman (GD). Organophosphate (OP) chemical warfare agents such as GD exert their toxic effects by inhibiting acetylcholinesterase (AChE) from terminating the action of acetylcholine at postsynaptic sites in cholinergic nerve terminals (including crucial peripheral muscle such as diaphragm). As part of the post-marketing approval of PB, the FDA required (under 21CFR314, the "two animal rule") the study of a non-human primate model (the common marmoset Callithrix jacchus jacchus) to demonstrate increased survival against lethal GD poisoning, and protection of physiological hemi-diaphragm function after PB pretreatment and subsequent GD exposure. Marmosets (male and female) were placed in the following experimental groups: (i) control (saline pretreatment only), (ii) low dose PB (12.5 microg/kg), or (iii) high dose (39.5 microg/kg) PB. Thirty minutes after the PB dose, animals were challenged with either saline (control) or soman (GD, 45 microg/kg), followed 1 min later by atropine (2mg/kg) and 2-PAM (25mg/kg). After a further 16 min, animals were euthanized and the complete diaphragm removed; the right hemi-diaphragm was frozen immediately at -80 degrees C, and the left hemi-diaphragm was placed in a tissue bath for 4h (to allow for decarbamylation to occur), then frozen. AChE activities were determined using the automated WRAIR cholinesterase assay. Blood samples were collected for AChE activities prior to PB, before GD challenge, and after sacrifice. RBC-AChE was inhibited by approximately 18% and 50% at the low and high doses of PB, respectively, compared to control (baseline) activity. In the absence of PB pretreatment, the inhibition of RBC-AChE by GD was 98%. The recovery of hemi-diaphragm AChE activity after the 4h wash period (decarbamylation) was approximately 8% and 17%, at the low and high PB doses, respectively, compared with the baseline (control) AChE activity prior to PB pretreatment or soman exposure. The results suggest that PB pretreatment protects a critical fraction of AChE activity in the marmoset diaphragm, which is sufficient to allow the animal to breathe despite exposure to a dose of soman that is lethal in unprotected animals.