Days Of Quarantine Research Articles

COVID-19 in health-care workers: Testing and outcomes at a Victorian tertiary children's hospital.

In this global pandemic, health-care workers are an invaluable resource.1 With the state of Victoria, Australia experiencing increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases, the proportion of affected health-care workers remains unclear; as is the source of infection.2 Health-care workers providing care to children are in a unique situation, primarily because children are less likely to acquire COVID-19 infection, show symptoms and have milder disease compared to adults.3 To date, children comprise 1891/12 335 (15%) of positive cases in Victoria with those <10 years being the lowest affected age group at 49 cases per 100 000.4 Specific efforts to minimise exposure to SARS-CoV-2 are critical to protect against nosocomial transmission and front-line health-care workers.5 The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne implemented infection prevention and control strategies to reduce the risk of COVID-19 among staff. Individual focused strategies included access to supports such as a dedicated clinic with prioritised testing and result notification, a well-being programme and COVID-19 leave. Campus transmission reduction strategies included regular COVID-19 updates from hospital executive on use of personal protective equipment (PPE), access to appropriate PPE, daily staff temperature and symptom screening, supporting work from home, cohorting staff into teams and creating patient zones to reduce unnecessary interaction, as well as expedient internal contact tracing when appropriate. This study aimed to describe COVID-19 testing and infection in health-care workers at the Melbourne Children's Campus, encompassing Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, Murdoch Children's Research Institute and University of Melbourne (Paediatrics) during the first 5 months of the pandemic. Health-care workers presenting for testing to the emergency department or the respiratory infection clinic were asked to complete a web-based questionnaire to report risk factors (defined as close contact with SARS-CoV-2 or overseas travel in the previous 14 days), symptoms and comorbidities. Institutional ethics approval was obtained. Health-care workers who underwent testing externally and informed the research team were included. Demographic data and SARS-CoV-2 test results were extracted from the hospital medical records. Descriptive data were presented as mean (standard deviation) for continuous variables and number (%) for categorical variables. Continuous variables were compared using t tests and mean differences presented; categorical variables were compared using χ2 test and risk differences presented. A two-sided α less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Over 5 months, 1964 health-care workers were tested for SARS-CoV-2 with 2796 tests performed (Table 1). There were 1387 (71%) who tested once, 322 (16%) tested twice and 255 (13%) tested three or more times. Of 2796 tests, 11 (0.4%) were positive, consistent with 11/1964 (0.6%) of healthcare-workers with COVID-19, nine of whom were clinical staff. Eight were aged under 50 years and none had comorbidities. During March/April, three of four staff with COVID-19 were returned travellers (Fig. 1). In May, a single case was detected during asymptomatic testing with no known risk factors. During June/July, five of six had no risk factors. The remaining health-care worker tested positive during asymptomatic testing of all staff in the neonatal unit, where a patient and two parents were infected. Nine staff recovered at home without hospital admission, with two still recovering. Seventy-three staff were placed into 14 days of quarantine following close contact with a SARS-CoV-2 positive patient or other staff member. This assessment of SARS-CoV-2 testing in a children's hospital, including a recent outbreak identified a low rate of infection in health-care workers. This is consistent with early data at our institution that showed a low proportion of children testing positive at <1%.6 Measures were taken when an outbreak was identified to reduce, contain and limit nosocomial infection including temporarily closing the neonatal unit to admissions (diverted to the paediatric intensive care unit), allocating single-rooms for all patients, widespread testing and furloughing of all potentially exposed staff. Our current positive test rate of 0.4% is similar to the overall Victorian rate (0.7%).7 Those affected recently were less likely to have a source identified despite contact tracing which reflects growing community transmission. Exposure to relatively few COVID-19 cases in children, together with measures currently in place support a safe environment for staff, patients and their families. Ongoing vigilance and a rapid response to evolving outbreaks, with strict adherence to the use of PPE, hand hygiene and physical distancing continue to be important with rising community case numbers. Ethics approval was obtained from the Royal Children's Hospital Human Research Ethics Committee (63013). LF Ibrahim is supported in part by a Melbourne Campus Clinician Scientist Fellowship. PA Bryant is in part supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator grant. FE Babl was supported in part by a National Health and Medical Research Council Practitioner Fellowship, Canberra, Australia.

Revisiting vitamin D and home-based exercises for patients with sleep apnea facing the COVID-19 quarantine.

Citation:Ekiz T, Kara M, Ozcakar L. Revisiting vitamin D and home-based exercises for patients with sleep apnea facing the COVID-19 quarantine. J Clin Sleep Med. 2020;16(8):1409–1410.

Histopathological findings following SARS-CoV-2 infection with and without treatment-Report of three autopsies

Bei letalem Verlauf einer SARS-CoV-2-Infektion kommt nach bisherigem Kenntnisstand eine Beteiligung mehrerer innerer Organe in Betracht. Im Vordergrund stehen pathologische Befunde im Lungengewebe, berichtet wird aber auch von direkt oder indirekt als Folge einer Infektion mit SARS-CoV‑2 auftretenden (histo-)pathologischen Befunden im Nierengewebe, in der Leber und im Myokard. Der Vergleich der histopathologischen Diagnostik mit konventionell-histologischen Färbungen bei 3 im Zusammenhang mit einer SARS-CoV-2-Infektion verstorbenen Männern zeigt teils identische Befunde und erlaubt Überlegungen zu Chronologie und Pathophysiologie des Krankheitsverlaufes. Zwei Männer wurden intensivmedizinisch invasiv beatmet; ein Mann starb nach 8 Tagen häuslicher Quarantäne ohne Therapie. Es zeigt sich ein großes Spektrum SARS-CoV-2-assoziierter Befunde.

How to Safely Reopen Colleges and Universities During COVID-19: Experiences From Taiwan

Reopening colleges and universities during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses a special challenge worldwide. Taiwan is one of the few countries where schools are functioning normally. To secure the safety of students and staff, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan established general guidelines for college campuses. The guidelines delineated creation of a task force at each university; school-based risk screening based on travel history, occupation, contacts, and clusters; measures on self-management of health and quarantine; general hygiene measures (including wearing masks indoors); principles on ventilation and sanitization; regulations on school assemblies; a process for reporting suspected cases; and policies on school closing and make-up classes. It also announced that a class should be suspended if 1 student or staff member in it tested positive and that a school should be closed for 14 days if it had 2 or more confirmed cases. As of 18 June 2020, there have been 7 confirmed cases in 6 Taiwanese universities since the start of the pandemic. One university was temporarily closed, adopted virtual classes, and quickly reopened after 14 days of contact tracing and quarantine of possible contacts. Taiwan's experience suggests that, under certain circumstances, safely reopening colleges and universities this fall may be feasible with a combination of strategies that include containment (access control with contact tracing and quarantine) and mitigation (hygiene, sanitation, ventilation, and social distancing) practices.

How Much Support Is There for the Recommendations Made to the General Population during Confinement? A Study during the First Three Days of the COVID-19 Quarantine in Spain.

Background: Recommendations on lifestyles during quarantine have been proposed by researchers and institutions since the COVID–19 crisis emerged. However, most of these have never been tested under real quarantine situations or derive from older investigations conducted mostly in China and Canada in the face of infections other than COVID–19. The present study aimed at exploring the relationship between a comprehensive set of recommended lifestyles, socio–demographic, and personality variables and mood during the first stages of quarantine. Methods: A virtual snow–ball recollection technique was used to disseminate the survey across the general population in Spain starting the first day of mandatory quarantine (15 March 2020) until three days later (17 March). In total, 2683 Spanish adults (mean age = 34.86 years, SD = 13.74 years; 77.7% women) from the general population completed measures on socio–demographic, COVID–related, behavioral, personality/cognitive, and mood characteristics. Results: In the present study, depression and anger were higher than levels reported in a previous investigation before the COVID–19 crisis, while vigor, friendliness, and fatigue were lower. Anxiety levels were comparable. The expected direction of associations was confirmed for the majority of predictors. However, effect sizes were generally small and only a subset of them correlated to most outcomes. Intolerance of unpleasant emotions, neuroticism, and, to a lesser extent, agreeableness, sleep quality, young age, and time spent Internet surfing were the most robust and strongest correlates of mood states. Conclusions: Some recommended lifestyles (i.e., maintaining good quality of sleep and reducing Internet surfing) might be more important than others during the first days of quarantine. Promoting tolerance to unpleasant emotions (e.g., through online, self–managed programs) might also be of upmost importance. So far, recommendations have been made in general, but certain subgroups (e.g., certain personality profiles and young adults) might be especially vulnerable and should receive more attention.

Proton Therapy in a Pandemic: An Operational Response to the COVID-19 Crisis.

Proton Therapy in a Pandemic: An Operational Response to the COVID-19 Crisis.

A three-generation family cluster with COVID-19 infection: should quarantine be prolonged?

ObjectivesFamilies are a transmission route for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) because of the close contact. Monitoring of the viral load will be a valuable method to reduce the optimal number of quarantine days, especially in presymptomatic and symptomatic carriers of their households. The traditional three-generation families living together are seen frequently in East Asia, including in Taiwan. Study designWe report on a family cluster with six individuals infected with coronavirus disease in Taiwan. MethodsThe current public policy in Taiwan is quarantine for at least 14 days, based on the incubation period, or until the patient has tested negative three days in a row using the SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Details on the onset date of clinical symptoms, throat swab conversion, and course of disease were collected from medical records retrospectively. ResultsIn the household of this three-generation Taiwanese family, the infection rate was 60%. The ratio of males to females was 4:2, and the age range was 11–85 years. The prevalence of asymptomatic disease was 33.3% (2/6). The longest throat swab conversion time was 37 days, and the estimated course of disease from symptoms to first conversion of throat swab was 59 days. ConclusionsLarge families, including three-generation families in a single dwelling, should be monitored when the index case is found. Presymptomatic and symptomatic family members could be quarantined for an appropriate duration which, in our experience, is 2 months.

Identification and Monitoring of International Travelers During the Initial Phase of an Outbreak of COVID-19 - California, February 3-March 17, 2020.

The threat of introduction of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) into the United States with the potential for community transmission prompted U.S. federal officials in February 2020 to screen travelers from China, and later Iran, and collect and transmit their demographic and contact information to states for follow-up. During February 5-March 17, 2020, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) received and transmitted contact information for 11,574 international travelers to 51 of 61 local health jurisdictions at a cost of 1,694 hours of CDPH personnel time. If resources permitted, local health jurisdictions contacted travelers, interviewed them, and oversaw 14 days of quarantine, self-monitoring, or both, based on CDC risk assessment criteria for COVID-19. Challenges encountered during follow-up included errors in the recording of contact information and variation in the availability of resources in local health jurisdictions to address the substantial workload. Among COVID-19 patients reported to CDPH, three matched persons previously reported as travelers to CDPH. Despite intensive effort, the traveler screening system did not effectively prevent introduction of COVID-19 into California. Effectiveness of COVID-19 screening and monitoring in travelers to California was limited by incomplete traveler information received by federal officials and transmitted to states, the number of travelers needing follow-up, and the potential for presymptomatic and asymptomatic transmission. More efficient methods of collecting and transmitting passenger data, including electronic provision of flight manifests by airlines to federal officials and flexible text-messaging tools, would help local health jurisdictions reach out to all at-risk travelers quickly, thereby facilitating timely testing, case identification, and contact investigations. State and local health departments should weigh the resources needed to implement incoming traveler monitoring against community mitigation activities, understanding that the priorities of each might shift during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Quarantine Time Validation for UC-MSC Isolation

Background & Aim Umbilical cord tissue is a potential source of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs). These cells have been widely used especially in pre-clinical and clinical applications resulting its various effectiveness. Banking process of umbilical cord involves transportation from the hospital where the cord is received to the banking facility to be processed further. Prior to processing, pre-sterility test must be conducted and while waiting for the result, the umbilical cord is quarantined. This quarantine process has to be carried out carefully to maintain cell's recovery and viability. Suitable range of time should be chosen to deliver high quality cells. In this study, we aim to determine the maximum time for quarantined umbilical cord to be processed. Methods, Results & Conclusion One umbilical cord (UC2018030001) was used in this study. Medium transportation is used to carry the umbilical cord to banking facility. Prior to processing, pre sterility was done using spread plate method by spreading the medium transport onto TSA agar. After the results were out and passed, the tissues were put into quarantine medium and were processed at day 0, 7, 14, and 21 for MSCs isolation. The tissue was processed using explant method and sub-cultured until 3rd passage. Graphic shown below are the cell doubling level from different passages at various days of quarantine. The doubling level remain constant with maximum deviation at 0.512. Results showed that tissues which was quarantined until day 21 still produce cells normally. The cell number are slowly increasing because the higher the passage, the more pure the cells are so they can propagate easily. This shows normal growth of normal cells. Their doubling level are also on track with no significant difference. In brief, umbilical cord tissue can be quarantined until 21 days and still produce cells normally.

ДАЙДЖЕСТ ONLINE-ЗАХОДІВ ІНСТИТУТУ ПРОБЛЕМ ВИХОВАННЯ НАПН УКРАЇНИ

Інститут проблем виховання НАПН України, як і кожна наукова установа України, в умовах пандемії COVID-19 був вимушений радикально трансформувати операційну діяльність. Якщо донедавна вона розгорталася в умовах фізичного часу та простору, то карантинні заходи сприяли переведенню більшої частини наукової активності у віртуальний простір. Вимушена і неминуча діджиталізація сприяла повноцінному використанню тих можливостей, які виникли в результаті закриття закладів освіти на період карантину, соціального дистанціювання, заборони масових заходів. Оскільки в таких умовах опинилося абсолютно все населення, вчені Інституту проблем виховання НАПН України розгорнули системну наукову комунікацію з педагогами та батьками через офіційну сторінку у Facebook та на YouTube-каналі. Ця стаття є коротким дайджестом наукової активності за понад 30 днів карантину.

Coronavirus Disease Outbreak in Call Center, South Korea.

We describe the epidemiology of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in a call center in South Korea. We obtained information on demographic characteristics by using standardized epidemiologic investigation forms. We performed descriptive analyses and reported the results as frequencies and proportions for categoric variables. Of 1,143 persons who were tested for COVID-19, a total of 97 (8.5%, 95% CI 7.0%–10.3%) had confirmed cases. Of these, 94 were working in an 11th-floor call center with 216 employees, translating to an attack rate of 43.5% (95% CI 36.9%–50.4%). The household secondary attack rate among symptomatic case-patients was 16.2% (95% CI 11.6%– 22.0%). Of the 97 persons with confirmed COVID-19, only 4 (1.9%) remained asymptomatic within 14 days of quarantine, and none of their household contacts acquired secondary infections. Extensive contact tracing, testing all contacts, and early quarantine blocked further transmission and might be effective for containing rapid outbreaks in crowded work settings.

COVID-19 Pandemic: True Asymptomatic Cases among SARS-CoV-2 Infected Individuals

Background: Asymptomatic subjects circulating in the population are key to SARS-CoV-2 propagation and COVID-19 progression, but the rate of true asymptomatic cases is not well known. Methods: To assess that, we carried out an electronic search in PubMed to identify studies reporting on asymptomatic patients and SARS-CoV-2. Results: 10 studies were considered relevant, comprising 2157 infected individuals, from which 96 (4.4%) were deemed asymptomatic at initial presentation. On follow-up 51 (2.4%) were considered true asymptomatic patients. Conclusions: To limit human-to-human transmission in the community and between health-care workers, besides caring of the affected patients we must keep an effective control of a large set of asymptomatic, including true asymptomatic individuals for whom 14 days of quarantine might be insufficient.

Can post-exposure prophylaxis for COVID-19 be considered as an outbreak response strategy in long-term care hospitals?

In the context of the ongoing global outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), management of exposure events is a concern. Long-term care hospitals (LTCHs) are particularly vulnerable to cluster outbreaks because facilities for patient isolation and healthcare personnel to care for these patients in isolation are difficult to arrange in a large outbreak situation. Although several drugs have been proposed as treatment options, there are no data on the effectiveness and safety of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for COVID-19. After a large COVID-19 exposure event in an LTCH in Korea, PEP using hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was administered to 211 individuals, including 189 patients and 22 careworkers, whose baseline polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for COVID-19 were negative. PEP was completed in 184 (97.4%) patients and 21 (95.5%) careworkers without serious adverse events. At the end of 14 days of quarantine, all follow-up PCR tests were negative. Based on our experience, further clinical studies are recommended for COVID-19 PEP.

COVID-19 in Utah Valley

The second week of March 2020 presented an array of unique challenges for me both professionally and personally as I adjusted my work and home life to cope with the COVID-19 virus. I had already been ailing with what (I hoped) were seasonal allergies that left me coughing, bleary-eyed, and wondering if I might be sick with COVID-19 prior to the announcements from our university and school district that we should start self-isolating and preparing for at-home instruction. As both of my children at home are competitive gymnasts, we faced another decision about whether to keep them home from training.&#x0D; As my work and personal email boxes began filling with announcements from my university, my department, my children’s school, my children’s gym, and even my church and extended out-of-state family, I had to fight back a growing sense of anxiety about the outside world as I looked after my physical recovery. Staying home from work, just as a symbolic gesture, made a lot of sense to me. I’d already afflicted my colleagues with my occasional coughing from my isolated office way down the corridor, but I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. Although I presumed my odds of having COVID-19 were small after three trips to the doctor in the last month for secondary infections resulting from my allergies, who really knew? So, from my home office, I put into practice the skills I learned from doing remote instruction over the last several years.&#x0D; Up until the present challenge, I had tried to access my email only in the morning and afternoon. As news and instructions came in from my university and department, email communication became a near-constant distraction/source of information. Following our university’s lead, our college moved to all-remote instruction and social isolating. This meant moving to the Zoom video conferencing app. Fortunately, I was quite familiar with the app, so I didn’t have too hard a transition. However, at least a few of my colleagues had to make substantial changes to what and how they taught. Moreover, our students varied widely in how familiar and comfortable they were with the online interface. They valued our programs for their face-to-face emphasis, and now they were being asked to adjust everything about their experience within days. Moreover, most of my students are educational professionals themselves, so they were scrambling to provide direction and services to their own students. In the days following the university’s move to all-remote instruction, I participated in several instructional and organizational meetings with administrators and colleagues to ensure we were all in accord about the adjustments we would make to classes, and I spent hours on email coordinating with students and responding to their personal and professional concerns. I greatly reduced planned whole-group instruction in favor of individual consultation. I felt frustration at my students as they requested that I take my class instruction down to the basics. As I was teaching a course on qualitative research methods, I already felt I was barely touching on the tip of the iceberg as it was. How more stripped down could I get? At the same time, I was still recovering physically from (what I hoped were) my allergies, so I recognized that some of my frustration was my body demanding time to recover.&#x0D; To add to the challenges/opportunities of the first week into this at-home learning experiment, I had my two elementary-aged children at home with their own learning needs to consider. Even as I type, my third grader (who has an IEP) is in my office with me on i-Ready doing her daily math lesson on my university-issued iPad while my wife works with our sixth grader on her laptop. I find myself dividing my time between my third grader and my professional work, and I feel like neither is getting the attention they deserve. And yet, in the midst of the chaos, things are happening. Our children are getting more one-on-one time than they have in quite a while. They’re happy and adjusting. I wonder about their peers. My children attend a Title I school, and many of their parents and caregivers don’t have access to the same remote learning resources as they do. Many don’t have parents at home to supervise the well-organized instruction their teachers have provided (almost miraculously) via Google Classroom. It’s a strange new world in these early quarantine days, and I’m sure there are many opportunities and challenges ahead.

Combating COVID-19 in Bangladesh: ideal duration of mandatory quarantine period and policy implications.

Amid this Covid-19 pandemic, it is crucial to have the best possible estimation for essential quarantine days to mitigate the risk of Coronavirus spread. In this article, we aim to better approximate the mandatory quarantine days based on the available published literature. Our review of scientific publications revealed that 14 days of quarantine is nor enough neither effective in restricting the Coronavirus. Instead of 14 days, one study suggested to imply 21 days of quarantine to completely assure the symptom appearance in infected people. In case of community transmission, as it might take up to 19.9 days to death from the first appearance of symptom in a community, an effective quarantine period to contain the spread of Coronavirus should be a minimum of 40 days. For a densely populated country like Bangladesh, planning effective strategies using available data is crucial to prevent the upcoming second wave of this pandemic.

Effect of the COVID-19 quarantine on body mass among combat sports athletes.

Introduction: to combat the COVID-19 pandemic governments have adopted measures such as quarantine and social distancing. Objective: the main objective of the present study was to analyze the impact of COVID-19 quarantine on body mass in combat sports athletes. Methods: we conducted a cross-sectional, prospective, multi-center study that evaluated 234 men (mean age and standard deviation, 29 ± 10 years) residing in Argentina (n = 38); Bolivia (n = 1); Brazil (n = 105); Chile (n = 30); El Salvador (n = 1); Spain (n = 22); Mexico (n = 22) and Peru (n = 15). Of these, 12 practiced Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ), 54 boxing, 67 judo, 13 karate, 52 kick boxing & muay thai (KB & MT), 9 mixed martial arts (MMA), and 27 taekwondo (TKD). An online survey was created using Google Forms. It was implemented between April 4th and April 17th, 2020. Athletes were consulted about their body mass before starting the quarantine and after 20 ± 5 days of quarantine. Results: athletes in all combat sports were heavier during quarantine as compared to pre-quarantine (p < 0.001, d = 0.12). Conclusions: combat sports athletes experienced an increase in body mass during the COVID-19 quarantine.

Epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Our understanding of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to evolve and there are many unknowns about its epidemiology. This study aims to synthesise case fatality rate (CFR) among confirmed COVID-19 patients, incubation period and time from onset of COVID-19 symptoms to first medical visit, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, recovery, and death. We searched MEDLINE, Embase, Google Scholar, and bibliographies of relevant articles from 01 December 2019 to 11 March 2020 without any language restrictions. Quantitative studies that recruited people with confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis were included. Two independent reviewers extracted the data. Out of 1675 non-duplicate studies, 43 were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled mean incubation period was 5.68 (99% confidence interval [CI]: 4.78, 6.59) days. The pooled mean number of days from the onset of COVID-19 symptoms to first clinical visit was 4.92 (95% CI: 3.95, 5.90), ICU admission was 9.84 (95% CI: 8.78, 10.90), recovery was 18.55 (95% CI: 13.69, 23.41), and death was 15.93 (95% CI: 13.07, 18.79). Pooled CFR among confirmed COVID-19 patients was 0.02 (95% CI: 0.02, 0.03). We found that the incubation period and lag between the onset of symptoms and first clinical visit for COVID-19 are longer than other respiratory viral infections including Middle East respiratory syndrome and severe acute respiratory syndrome; however, the current policy of 14 days of mandatory quarantine for everyone potentially exposed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) might be too conservative. Longer quarantine periods might be more justified for extreme cases.

Cognitive reappraisal and nasal cytokine production following experimental rhinovirus infection

Following exposure to the common cold (i.e., rhinovirus), locally produced nasal cytokines (rather than the infection itself) drive the progression of one’s symptoms (Hendley et al., 1973; Cohen et al., 1999). Stress-induced local inflammation exacerbates local cytokine production (e.g., marital hostility; Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 2005). An individual’s ability to effectively manage their emotions is a critical component of positive health and well-being. Here, we evaluated whether one’s self-reported frequency of cognitive reappraisal, an adaptive emotion regulation strategy, predicts nasal cytokine production following experimental rhinovirus exposure. Emotion regulation strategies were assessed at baseline prior to experimental infection. After the baseline assessment, each participant was exposed to a strain of rhinovirus (RV-39) and followed for 5 days in quarantine. Nasal interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, and IL-8 and subjective symptoms were assessed at baseline and on each of the 5 days of quarantine. A multilevel analysis of the data for 159 participants with documented infection demonstrated that less frequent use of cognitive reappraisal predicted heightened production of the nasal cytokine composite. Those who self-reported using cognitive reappraisal strategies less frequently displayed elevated nasal IL-6 and IL-8. Among the 63 participants with clinical cold, less frequent use of cognitive reappraisal was associated with heightened production of nasal IL-1β, IL-6, and IL-8. In ancillary analyses, the composite of nasal cytokines was associated with the severity of one’s subjective symptoms across the 5 days. Findings suggest that emotion regulation strategies, particularly cognitive reappraisal, influence illness trajectories during rhinovirus infection.

The effect of a hiding box on stress levels and body weight in Dutch shelter cats; a randomized controlled trial.

While staying in an animal shelter, cats may suffer from chronic stress which impairs their health and welfare. Providing opportunities to hide can significantly reduce behavioural stress in cats, but confirmation with physical parameters is needed. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effect of a hiding box on behavioural stress levels (scored by means of the Cat-Stress-Score) and a physical parameter, namely body weight, during the first 12 days in quarantine for cats newly arrived cats at a Dutch animal shelter. Twenty-three cats between 1 and 10 years of age were randomly divided between the experimental (N = 12) and control group (N = 11) with and without a hiding box. Stress levels were assessed on days 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12 according to the non-invasive Cat-Stress-Score (CSS). Body weights were measured on days 0, 7 and 12. Finally, adoption rates and length of stay (LOS) were determined. Major findings of the study are: (1) the mean Cat-Stress-Score decreased with time for all cats, but cats with a hiding box showed a significant faster decrease in the CSS, reaching a lower CSS-steady state seven days earlier than the control group; (2) nearly all cats in both groups lost significant body weight during the first two weeks; (3) hiding boxes did not significantly influence weight loss; (4) no differences were found in the adoption rates and the LOS between both groups. Hiding enrichment reduces behavioural stress in shelter cats during quarantine situations and can therefore be a relatively simple aid to shelter adaptation. It offers no prevention however against feline weight loss, which indicates a serious health risk for shelter cats.

Ian Charles Fuller

<h3>ABSTRACT</h3> <h3>Objective</h3> To estimate the incubation period of Vietnamese confirmed COVID-19 cases. <h3>Methods</h3> Only confirmed COVID-19 cases who are Vietnamese and locally infected with available data on date of symptom...