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Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the correlation between fear of COVID-19 and mental health of nurses and the effects of psychological capital and burnout in this relation., Design: A cross-sectional study., Methods: The online surveys were conducted among mainland Chinese nurses. Participants (n = 445; average age 32.89 ± 6.76 years) completed an online-questionnaire based on the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, the Psychological Capital Scale, Maslach Burnout Inventory Human Services Survey for Medical Professionals Scale and the 12-Item Short Form Health Survey. Data analysis was conducted by Pearson's correlation analysis, Harman single-factor test and the bootstrap method for mediating effect testing., Results: (1) The study demonstrated a significant direct effect of fear of COVID-19 on nurses' mental health, as well as on mediating factors such as burnout and psychological capital. (2) Regression analyses confirmed that while psychological capital bolstered mental health, burnout undermined it, with fear of COVID-19 further imposing a negative influence. (3) Fear of COVID-19 exerted an effect on the mental health of nurses by the independent and chain intermediary functions of psychological capital and burnout, resulting in a total mediating effect of -0.233., (© 2024 The Authors. Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Transnational routes such as direct-entry have become a more attractive option for Chinese students, due to the pandemic-imposed travel restrictions in China. The rise of Chinese direct-entry students can potentially lead to a significant increase in demand for academic and non-academic support not only after their arrival, but also before their departure from China. By applying Schlossberg's transition theory, this paper seeks to develop a good understanding of the academic and social belonging of Chinese direct-entry students in the UK through re-analysing the portraits (written narratives) of a previous research project. The findings indicate that these students were feeling disconnected from the academic and social communities. The factors affecting their sense of belonging are described using the 4S framework, namely self, strategies, situation and support. The paper ends with recommendations to key university stakeholders on how the partner institutions in China and the UK can help enhance a sense of academic and social belongingness of Chinese direct-entry students.

In an attempt of curricula improvement, many seek to create new approaches that would help develop the necessary knowledge within a shorter period of time. The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of interactive piano teaching in distance learning. The paper suggests new learning approaches to interactive piano instruction. The training programme is based on interactive groups, the Flowkey application, technical and psychological aspects, improvisation, changing role positions, and the development of self-control. The programme results showed that 83% out of 120 students demonstrated a high level of knowledge, and only 2% showed a low level, which was explained by absenteeism. 28% out of 120 students learned to recognise melodies, 27% improved rhythm and tempo, 25% gained two-handed playing skills, and 20% out of 120 students developed improvisation skills. The results have scientific value for researchers engaged in studying various training programmes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has popularized online learning as a mode of teaching and learning in universities, thereby exacerbating college students' stress levels in multiple ways. To enhance the quality of college student training, it is crucial to investigate the impact of perceived stress on their online self-directed learning. Using questionnaire data from 969 college students across China, this study performed an empirical analysis of the influence of perceived stress on their online self-directed learning, while also exploring the mediating role of phone dependence and the moderating role of self-management ability. The findings indicate that, firstly, perceived stress has a significant and positive effect on college students' online self-directed learning. Secondly, phone dependence masks the positive impact of perceived stress on students' self-directed learning, thereby weakening the effects of employment and learning stress on their online self-directed learning. Thirdly, self-management ability positively moderates the relationship between employment, social, interpersonal, and learning stress and college students' online self-directed learning. Fourthly, rural college students' online self-directed learning is more susceptible to employment, social, and interpersonal stress; vocational college students' self-directed learning is more influenced by employment, social, and learning stress; and students in the "Double First-Class" initiative universities are more likely to develop phone dependence. Therefore, this paper asserts that using stress reasonably, controlling stress appropriately, channeling stress properly, and enhancing self-management abilities can aid college students in learning autonomous online.

Since the 2010s, Portugal has experienced a considerable growth in the number of Chinese international students, who have been attracted by the country's image of tolerance and openness for diversity. However, as it was reported in other contexts, throughout the health crisis, these students were blatantly confronted with racial microaggressions in their daily routines inside and outside their higher education institutions' facilities. Drawing on evidence from 30 in-depth interviews conducted with Chinese international students in Portugal and following a thematic analysis approach, this paper analyses how they frame and perceive their encounters with racism in their daily lives during the pandemic. We argue that Chinese international students resort on distinct discursive strategies to negotiate their encounters with racism during their sojourns in Portugal throughout the health crisis and to negate their "otherness" as a racial minority in the country.

Background: Residents' adoption of preventive behaviours proved beneficial in preventing the large-scale transmission of the virus during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak. It is critical to investigate how social media triggers residents' preventive behaviour decisions during the COVID-19 outbreak. Methods: This paper selected online shopping as a specific preventive behaviour for empirical investigation. An online cross-sectional survey was conducted through the Sojump website from 1 to 15 March 2020, and a total of 1,289 valid questionnaires were collected from China. This paper uses multiple regression analysis to investigate the heterogeneous impacts of different information sources on residents' online shopping willingness and online shopping behaviour and the heterogeneous impacts of different information content in social media on the transformation of residents' online shopping willingness and online shopping behaviour. Results: The findings indicate that both official-media and self-media positively promote residents' online shopping willingness and behaviour, with official-media having a stronger promotional effect than self-media. Furthermore, official-media and self-media can collaboratively promote residents' online shopping willingness and online shopping behaviour. The ease-of-use and usefulness of information significantly promoted the transformation of residents' online shopping willingness. Conclusions: This study analyses the heterogeneous impacts of social media on residents' preventive behaviours from the perspectives of information source differentiation and information content differentiation, which enriches related studies and provides feasible paths for promoting residents' preventive behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2019n-CoV has swept the whole world, people's daily life is affected seriously and the public space system is facing to major challenges. Community public space should be re-evaluated and optimized as people change the way they use it. This research conducted a nationwide questionnaire survey in China, which collected the opinions of residents on community public space from the perspective of epidemic prevention and social needs to select research indicators. The questionnaire data were processed through the frequency analysis method, precedence chart and TOPSIS. We found: (1) under the background of the epidemic, people pay more attention to the satisfaction of leisure activities in community public space and the control of social spacing during activities; (2) the current assessment result of community public space risk of 2019-nCoV exposure is 0.386, which is relatively high; and (3) the exposure risk of the community can be effectively reduced by controlling for the two indicators of social distance and social facility sterilization. When the social distance is 1.8–3 m and the facility sterilization is once a day, the community public space minimizes exposure risk. In view of the above results, this paper selects the Wuhan start-up area of Wuhan, China, as an example for carrying out the optimization design of community public space based on the epidemic and the design the space optimization model for the two indicators of social distance and facility disinfection from both software and hardware aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, ubiquitous social media has become a primary channel for information dissemination, social interactions and recreational activities. However, it remains unclear how social media usage influences nonpharmaceutical preventive behavior of individuals in response to the pandemic. This paper aims to explore the impacts of social media on COVID-19 preventive behaviors based on the theoretical lens of empowerment. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, survey data has been collected from 739 social media users in China to conduct structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. Findings: The results indicate that social media empowers individuals in terms of knowledge seeking, knowledge sharing, socializing and entertainment to promote preventive behaviors at the individual level by increasing each person's perception of collective efficacy and social cohesion. Meanwhile, social cohesion negatively impacts the relationship between collective efficacy and individual preventive behavior. Originality/value: This study provides insights regarding the role of social media in crisis response and examines the role of collective beliefs in the influencing mechanism of social media. The results presented herein can be used to guide government agencies seeking to control the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper merges three textual models to construct a series of indicators, which can yield more refined proxies for financial media coverage, to measure the impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese financial markets. Results show that the basic indicator Granger causes the volatilities of bond and stock markets and contributes more to the stock market after the outbreak of COVID-19. Next, four specific market-related indicators have significant effects on the corresponding financial market after the outbreak. Finally, the policy-related indicator has a significant effect on four financial markets after the outbreak, and it causes greater volatility in the stock market. This paper can help the government to stabilize the financial market by managing financial media attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the policy package pilot implemented in Hubei Province, China, in April 2020 as a natural experiment, we use the synthetic control (SC) and synthetic difference in differences (SDID) methods to estimate the impact of the Chinese government's support policy on the economic resilience and to analyze the mechanisms by which it impacts. This study finds that the policy package has contributed to the growth of economic resilience in the pilot provinces, with the policy package increasing the average economic resilience of the pilot provinces by 0.062 compared to their potential resilience. The validity and robustness of the above conclusions are objectively confirmed by multidimensional quantitative outcomes such as placebo tests, ranking tests, and replacements in calculating resilience. The mechanism analysis shows that the investment in real estate development, the stimulus for consumption, and the core industry development are virtual channels for the policy package to promote economic resilience growth in the pilot provinces. Moreover, traditional investment in transportation fixed assets plays a minor role. This paper quantitatively corroborates the academic idea that government governance capacity affects regional economic resilience (RER), and research can provide empirical support for regional economic recovery and policy support under a major crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Recombinant Omicron BA.4/5-Delta COVID-19 Vaccine (ZF2202-A) is primarily designed for the Delta and Omicron BA.4/5 variants. Our objective was to assess the safety and immunogenicity of ZF2202-A in Chinese adults., Methods: A total of 450 participants aged ≥ 18 years, who had completed primary or booster vaccination with a COVID-19 vaccine more than 6 months prior, were enrolled in this randomized, double-blind, active-controlled trial. Participants in the study and control groups were administered one dose of ZF2202-A and ZF2001, respectively. Immunogenicity subgroups were established in each group., Results: At 14 days after vaccination, the seroconversion rates of Omicron BA.4/5, BF.7, and XBB.1 in the ZF2022-A group were 67.7 %, 58.6 %, and 62.6 %, with geometric mean titers (GMTs) of neutralizing antibodies at 350.2, 491.8, and 49.5, respectively. The main adverse reactions (ARs) were vaccination site pain, pruritus, fatigue, and asthenia in both the ZF2022-A group and ZF2001 group., Conclusions: The novel bivalent vaccine ZF2202-A demonstrated satisfactory immunogenicity and safety against Omicron variants as booster dose in adults with prior vaccination of COVID-19 vaccines., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

In this paper, we present findings from four separate studies using different data sources and methods to examine Chinese attitudes toward the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical results consistently indicate a marked and significant decline in Chinese attitudes toward the US between late 2019 and the end of 2022. Using a quasi-experimental design and granular survey data that exploit daily variations in public opinion, we offer additional evidence that the decline in Chinese attitudes toward the United States followed a distinct pattern not true for Chinese attitudes toward other countries. Specifically, the rise in Chinese unfavorability toward the United States closely corresponded to the heightened Chinese attention to the pandemic's progression in the United States. These results collectively suggest a causal effect of COVID-19, shedding light on how public health crises, international relations, and media jointly shape the increasing enmity between the two great powers., Competing Interests: Competing interests statement:The authors declare no competing interest.

A remarkable progress has been made toward the air quality improvements over the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) of China from 2017 to 2020. In this study, for the first time, the emission reductions of regional control measures together with the COVID-19 pandemic were considered simultaneously into the development of the GBA's emission inventories for the years of 2017 and 2020. Based on these collective emission inventories, the impacts of control measures, meteorological variations together with temporary COVID-19 lockdowns on the five major air quality index pollutants (SO 2 , NO 2 , PM 2.5 , PM 10 , and O 3 , excluding CO) were evaluated using the WRF-CMAQ and SMAT-CE model attainment assessment tool over the GBA region. Our results revealed that control measures in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region affected significantly the GBA, resulting in pollutant reductions ranging from 48 % to 64 %. In contrast, control measures in Hong Kong and Macao contributed to pollutant reductions up to 10 %. In PRD emission sectors, stationary combustion, on-road, industrial processes and dust sectors stand out as the primary contributors to overall air quality improvements. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic during period I (Jan 23-Feb 23) led to a reduction of NO 2 concentration by 7.4 %, resulting in a negative contribution (disbenefit) for O 3 with an increase by 2.4 %. Our findings highlight the significance of PRD control measures for the air quality improvements over the GBA, emphasizing the necessity of implementing more refined and feasible manageable joint prevention and control policies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Wastewater surveillance enables rapid pathogen monitoring and community prevalence estimation. However, how to design an integrated and tailored wastewater surveillance framework to monitor major health threats in metropolises remains a major challenge. In this study, we first analyzed the historical clinical data of Xi'an city and designed a wastewater surveillance framework covering five key endemic viruses, namely, SARS-CoV-2, norovirus, influenza A virus (IAV), influenza B virus (IBV), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and hantavirus. Amplicon sequencing of SARS-CoV-2, norovirus and hantavirus was conducted biweekly to determine the prevalent community genotypes circulating in this region. The results showed that from April 2023 to August 2023, Xi'an experienced two waves of SARS-CoV-2 infection, which peaked in the middle of May-2023 and late August-2023. The sewage concentrations of IAV and RSV peaked in early March and early May 2023, respectively, while the sewage concentrations of norovirus fluctuated throughout the study period and peaked in late August. The dynamics of the sewage concentrations of SARS-CoV-2, norovirus, IAV, RSV, and hantavirus were in line with the trends in the sentinel hospital percent positivity data, indicating the role of wastewater surveillance in enhancing the understanding of epidemic trends. Amplicon sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 revealed a transition in the predominant genotype, which changed from DY.1 and FR.1.4 to the XBB and EG.5 subvariants. Amplicon sequencing also revealed that there was only one predominant hantavirus genotype in the local population, while highly diverse genotypes of norovirus GI and GII were found in the wastewater. In conclusion, this study provided valuable insights into the dynamics of infection trends and predominant genotypes of key pathogens in a city without sufficient clinical surveillance, highlighting the role of a tailored wastewater surveillance framework in addressing public health priorities. More importantly, our study provides the first evidence demonstrating the applicability of wastewater surveillance for hantavirus, which is a major health threat locally., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no competing interests that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: The information epidemic emerged along with the COVID-19 pandemic. While controlling the spread of COVID-19, the secondary harm of epidemic rumors to social order cannot be ignored., Objective: The objective of this paper was to understand the characteristics of rumor dissemination before and after the pandemic and the corresponding rumor management and debunking mechanisms. This study aimed to provide a theoretical basis and effective methods for relevant departments to establish a sound mechanism for managing network rumors related to public health emergencies such as COVID-19., Methods: This study collected data sets of epidemic rumors before and after the relaxation of the epidemic prevention and control measures, focusing on large-scale network rumors. Starting from 3 dimensions of rumor content construction, rumor propagation, and rumor-refuting response, the epidemic rumors were subdivided into 7 categories, namely, involved subjects, communication content, emotional expression, communication channels, communication forms, rumor-refuting subjects, and verification sources. Based on this framework, content coding and statistical analysis of epidemic rumors were carried out., Results: The study found that the rumor information was primarily directed at a clear target audience. The main themes of rumor dissemination were related to the public's immediate interests in the COVID-19 field, with significant differences in emotional expression and mostly negative emotions. Rumors mostly spread through social media interactions, community dissemination, and circle dissemination, with text content as the main form, but they lack factual evidence. The preferences of debunking subjects showed differences, and the frequent occurrence of rumors reflected the unsmooth channels of debunking. The χ 2 test of data before and after the pandemic showed that the P value was less than .05, indicating that the difference in rumor content before and after the pandemic had statistical significance., Conclusions: This study's results showed that the themes of rumors during the pandemic are closely related to the immediate interests of the public, and the emotions of the public accelerate the spread of these rumors, which are mostly disseminated through social networks. Therefore, to more effectively prevent and control the spread of rumors during the pandemic and to enhance the capability to respond to public health crises, relevant authorities should strengthen communication with the public, conduct emotional risk assessments, and establish a joint mechanism for debunking rumors., (©Xiaoqi Liu, Qingyuan Hu, Jie Wang, Xusheng Wu, Dehua Hu. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 15.05.2024.)

As an emerging business modality and Internet format, live streaming e-commerce has developed rapidly since its emergence in 2016, especially since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in late 2019, when an increasing number of businesses from other industries attracted participation. However, with the development of the live streaming e-commerce industry, the industry's market environment is becoming increasingly chaotic. Therefore, during this period, government departments continuously formulate and implement relevant industry policies. In order to exploring the cooperation network structure, policy content distribution, and implementation effectiveness characteristics among publishers, this paper constructs a three-dimensional analysis framework of policy from the perspective of policy tools, policy effectiveness evaluation and policy publishers. The results show that in terms of policy tools, the overall structure of policy tools in the live streaming e-commerce industry is unreasonable, and different types of policy tools are significantly diverse. The proportion of environmental policy tools is greater than that of demand-based and supply-based policy tools, accounting for 62.97%, and among them, the tools related to industry regulation and management account for the largest proportion of the total, which greatly suppresses the enthusiasm of various entities in the industry for development. In terms of policy effectiveness evaluation, most of the policies do not formulate detailed long-, medium-, or short-term goals, nor are the policy priorities, incentive measures, or action modes perfect, indicating that the government's pushing and pulling forces for the live streaming e-commerce industry are insufficient. Finally, in the subject dimension of policy release, the synergy of relevant subjects is constantly improving, but there is also a phenomenon of over-concentration in the synergistic departments., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

On 2 April, I received an email that changed the course of the next 2 weeks. The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, chaired by United States Congressman Brad Wenstrup, invited me to testify along with my counterparts at Nature and The Lancet . The purpose of the public hearing (Academic Malpractice: Examining the Relationship Between Scientific Journals, the Government, and Peer Review) was to determine whether government officials, specifically former National Institutes of Health leaders Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, steered journals to publish papers suppressing the idea that COVID-19 may have arisen from a lab accident in Wuhan, China. I was not subpoenaed to appear but made the decision to testify voluntarily. My counterparts, who are based in the United Kingdom, decided not to attend.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected human social contact patterns, but there is limited understanding regarding the post-pandemic social contact patterns. Our objective is to quantitatively assess social contact patterns in Suzhou post-COVID-19., Methods: We employed a diary design and conducted social contact surveys from June to October 2023, utilizing paper questionnaires. A generalized linear model was utilized to analyze the relationship between individual contacts and covariates. We examined the proportions of contact type, location, duration, and frequency. Additionally, age-related mixed matrices were established., Results: The participants reported an average of 11.51 (SD 5.96) contact numbers and a total of 19.78 (SD 20.94) contact numbers per day, respectively. The number of contacts was significantly associated with age, household size, and the type of week. Compared to the 0-9 age group, those in the 10-19 age group reported a higher number of contacts (IRR = 1.12, CI: 1.01-1.24), while participants aged 20 and older reported fewer (IRR range: 0.54-0.67). Larger households (5 or more) reported more contacts (IRR = 1.09, CI: 1.01-1.18) and fewer contacts were reported on weekends (IRR = 0.95, CI: 0.90-0.99). School had the highest proportion of contact durations exceeding 4 h (49.5%) and daily frequencies (90.4%), followed by home and workplace. The contact patterns exhibited clear age-assortative mixing, with Q indices of 0.27 and 0.28., Conclusions: We assessed the characteristics of social contact patterns in Suzhou, which are essential for parameterizing models of infectious disease transmission. The high frequency and intensity of contacts among school-aged children should be given special attention, making school intervention policies a crucial component in controlling infectious disease transmission., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Due to the complex interactions between multiple infectious diseases, the spreading of diseases in human bodies can vary when people are exposed to multiple sources of infection at the same time. Typically, there is heterogeneity in individuals' responses to diseases, and the transmission routes of different diseases also vary. Therefore, this paper proposes an SIS disease spreading model with individual heterogeneity and transmission route heterogeneity under the simultaneous action of two competitive infectious diseases. We derive the theoretical epidemic spreading threshold using quenched mean-field theory and perform numerical analysis under the Markovian method. Numerical results confirm the reliability of the theoretical threshold and show the inhibitory effect of the proportion of fully competitive individuals on epidemic spreading. The results also show that the diversity of disease transmission routes promotes disease spreading, and this effect gradually weakens when the epidemic spreading rate is high enough. Finally, we find a negative correlation between the theoretical spreading threshold and the average degree of the network. We demonstrate the practical application of the model by comparing simulation outputs to temporal trends of two competitive infectious diseases, COVID-19 and seasonal influenza in China., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to the Society for Mathematical Biology.)

Background: A large number of psychological consequences including sleep health emerged during the 2019 Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Sleep patterns in toddlers are vulnerable to negative environmental exposures, however, very few studies on this topic have been published so far., Objectives: In this paper, we aimed to investigate the sleep patterns and associated factors in toddlers from China confined at home in the context of COVID-19 pandemic., Methods: From April to November 2021, a convenience sample of 493 parents of young children aged (12-35 months) were surveyed from Fuzhou, Sanming, Quanzhou, Nanping, and Longyan cities in the Fujian Province, China. A cross-sectional survey was conducted via Electronic questionnaires to collect parent and child social-demographic characteristics. The Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire (BISQ) was used to collect data on sleep practices, sleep duration and patterns, as well as the number of nocturnal awaking ., Results: The mean age of toddlers was 2.11 years old, and 52.54% (259/493) were males. Among the 493 toddlers' sleep patterns, 331(67.1%) initiated sleep accompanied by parents, 67(13.6%) slept independently, 59 (12.0%) were breast fed/bottle fed to initiate sleep, 27 (5.5%) were held and 9 (1.8%) rocked. The clear longitudinal association between the duration of night-time sleep, the frequency of nighttime awakenings, and various sleep patterns remains clear (p < 0.05). Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that sleep initiation with bottle-feeding/breast-feeding and rocked significantly increased the frequency of nighttime awakenings and reduced the duration of nighttime sleep (p < 0.05), as held was dramatically only for increasing the number of nighttime awakenings (p < 0.05). Multi-variate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that toddlers with severe sleep difficulties had a higher probability of being rocked to initiate sleep (p < 0.05). Conversely, young children with minor sleep problems were more apt to be in bed alone to initiate sleep (p < 0.05)., Conclusions: During the COVID-19 pandemic, most infants and toddlers initiated sleep accompanied by parents and tend to have electronic media exposure before bedtime. Increased waking at night may be associated with sleep initiation with breast-feeding/bottle-feeding. Therefore, pediatric practitioners in primary community hospitals should pay attention to the education and promotion of sleep hygiene and parenting knowledge of young children to avoid the formation of poor sleep hygiene habits., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The digital economy (DIE), a new economic form with digitalization at its core, has become an important driving force for promoting regional economy development. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, exploring the impact path of the DIE on carbon emission efficiency (CEE) is conducive to giving full play to the "carbon-reduction-and-efficiency-enhancement" role of the DIE, and to promoting the realization the "dual carbon" goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. In this paper, the Yellow River Basin (YRB) and the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) are taken as study areas, the panel Tobit model is used to explore the impact of the DIE on CEE, and the intermediary-effect model and threshold-effect model are constructed to test the intermediary and threshold effects of technological innovation, respectively. The results show that the DIE has a U-shaped nonlinear impact on CEE in both the YRB and the YREB and that the impact has regional heterogeneity. Technological innovation can play a mediating effect between the DIE and CEE, whereas the mediating effect in the YRB is stronger than that in the YREB. Technological innovation has a threshold effect on the DIE to improve CEE, while the threshold value in the YREB is higher than that in the YRB. Furthermore, this paper proposes some suggestions to guide regional low-carbon and sustainable development., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

COVID-19 lockdowns reduced nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) emissions in many countries. We aim to quantify the changes in these pollutants and to assess the attributable changes in mortality in Jiangsu, China; California, U.S.; Central-southern Italy; and Germany during COVID-19 lockdowns in early 2020. Accounting for meteorological impacts and air pollution time trends, we use a machine learning-based meteorological normalization technique and the difference-in-differences approach to quantify the changes in NO 2 and PM 2.5 concentrations due to lockdowns. Using region-specific estimates of the association between air pollution and mortality derived from a causal modeling approach using data from 2015 to 2019, we assess the changes in mortality attributable to the air pollution changes caused by the lockdowns in early 2020. During the lockdowns, NO 2 reductions avoided 1.41 (95% empirical confidence interval [eCI]: 0.94, 1.88), 0.44 (95% eCI: 0.17, 0.71), and 4.66 (95% eCI: 2.03, 7.44) deaths per 100,000 people in Jiangsu, China; California, U.S.; and Central-southern Italy, respectively. Mortality benefits attributable to PM 2.5 reductions were also significant, albeit of a smaller magnitude. For Germany, the mortality benefits attributable to NO 2 changes were not significant (0.11; 95% eCI: -0.03, 0.25), and an increase in PM 2.5 concentrations was associated with an increase in mortality of 0.35 (95% eCI: 0.22, 0.48) deaths per 100,000 people during the lockdown. COVID-19 lockdowns overall improved air quality and brought attributable health benefits, especially associated with NO 2 improvements, with notable heterogeneity across regions. This study underscores the importance of accounting for local characteristics when policymakers adapt successful emission control strategies from other regions., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background: Pediatric burn patients are an essential part of burn populations. However, there is limited publicly available data on the epidemiological impact of COVID-19 on pediatric burns in China., Objective: In this paper, pediatric burn patients admitted to the Department of Burn Surgery of the First Hospital of Jilin University before and during COVID-19 were retrospectively investigated to determine the impact of COVID-19 on pediatric burn inpatients., Methods: The information of inpatients from July 2017 to December 2019 (pre-COVID-19 group) and from January 2020 to June 2022 (COVID-19 group) in the Department of Burn Surgery at the First Hospital of Jilin University was retrospectively investigated. Demographic information of patients, length of hospital stay, total body surface area (TBSA) of burn injury, post-injury visit time, comorbidity, surgical methods, etc., were statistically analyzed., Results: The COVID-19 group included 154 (10.2%) patients, and the pre-COVID-19 group included 335 (19.4%) patients (P＜0.001). There were no differences in gender, age, length of hospital stay, or etiology of burns between the two groups. Compared to the pre-COVID-19 group, patients in the pre-COVID-19 group experienced a significant delay in presentation (P＜0.001), had a larger TBSA of burn wound (P ＜ 0.001), were more prone to sustaining major burns (P ＜ 0.001), a higher likelihood of undergoing operations (P = 0.03), higher cost (P＜0.001) and more complications (P＜0.001). Additionally, upper extremities were the most commonly part involved in both groups (P = 0.004), with the lower extremities showed a significant increase to be involved in burn injury during COVID-19 pandemic (P = 0.007). Furthermore, the majority of guardians did not take first aid measures in both groups following burn injury (P = 0.102)., Conclusions: During the COVID-19 pandemic period, scalds remained the main reason for hospitalization. The number of hospitalized patients has decreased dramatically, while the severity of burns has significantly increased, with a notable delay in hospital visits and an increased occurrence of complications., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024 Tissue Viability Society / Society of Tissue Viability. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Infectious diseases pose a severe threat to human health and are accompanied by significant economic losses. Studies of urban outbreaks of infectious diseases are diverse. However, previous studies have neglected the identification of critical events and the evaluation of scenario-based modeling of urban infectious disease outbreak emergency management mechanisms. In this paper, we aim to conduct an empirical analysis and scenario extrapolation using a questionnaire survey of 18 experts, based on the CIA-ISM method and scenario theory, to identify the key factors influencing urban infectious disease outbreaks. Subsequently, we evaluate the effectiveness of urban infectious disease outbreak emergency management mechanisms. Finally, we compare and verify the actual situation of COVID-19 in China, drawing the following conclusions and recommendations. (1) The scenario-based urban infectious disease emergency management model can effectively replicate the development of urban infectious diseases. (2) The establishment of an emergency command center and the isolation and observation of individuals exposed to infectious diseases are crucial factors in the emergency management of urban outbreaks of infectious disease., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Yuan, Liu and Dong.)

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, immigrants were among the most socially vulnerable in Western countries. The Chinese diaspora in Canada were one such group due to the widespread cultural stigma surrounding their purported greater susceptibility to transmit and become infected by COVID-19. This paper aims to understand the social vulnerability of the Chinese diaspora in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada, during the first wave of COVID-19 from an explanation of their risk perception and threat appraisal of risk communication. We conducted secondary data analysis of 36 interviews using critical realism. The participants self-identified as being of Chinese descent. The results were used to develop a model of how social vulnerability occurred. In brief, cognitive dissonance was discovered to generate conflicts of one's cultural identity, shaped by social structures of (i) stigma of contagion, (ii) ethnic stigma, and (iii) public sentiment, and mediated by participants' threat appraisal and (iv) self-reliance. We assert that risk communicators need to consider their audiences' diverse socialization in crafting messages to modify behaviors, create a sense of responsibility, and mitigate public health threats. A lack of awareness of one's cognitive dissonance driven by cultural vulnerability may heighten their social vulnerability and prevent them from taking action to protect themself from high-risk events.

This paper evaluates the effects of economic shocks to current and expected income reduction on mental wellbeing. We use individual-level data from three East Asian countries; China, Japan, and South Korea, during the early phases of the pandemic when the COVID-induced economic shocks were severe. The findings reveal significant causal effects from current and expected income reduction on different aspects of mental health deterioration, including anxiety, trouble sleeping, boredom, and loneliness. Interestingly, we found that expectations of future income loss have a significantly larger effect on people's mental wellbeing compared to current falls in income. This has significant implications for the design of policies to support income during pandemics., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Although all walks of life are paying less attention to COVID-19, the spread of COVID-19 has never stopped. As an infectious disease, its transmission speed is closely related to the atmosphere environment, particularly the temperature (T) and PM 2.5 concentrations. However, How T and PM 2.5 concentrations are related to the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and how much their cumulative lag effect differ across cities is unclear. To identify the characteristics of cumulative lag effects of environmental exposure under city differences, this study used a generalized additive model to investigate the associations between T/PM 2.5 concentrations and the daily number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases (NNCC) during the outbreak period in the second half of 2021 in Shaoxing, Shijiazhuang, and Dalian. The results showed that except for PM 2.5 concentrations in Shaoxing, the NNCC in the three cities generally increased with the unit increase of T and PM 2.5 concentrations. In addition, the cumulative lag effects of T/PM 2.5 concentrations on NNCC in the three cities reached a peak at lag 26/25, lag 10/26, and lag 18/13 days, respectively, indicating that the response of NNCC to T and PM 2.5 concentrations varies among different regions. Therefore, combining local meteorological and air quality conditions to adopt responsive measures is an important way to prevent and control the spread of SARS-CoV-2., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background: Inflammation is linked to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related heart failure (HF), but the specific mechanisms are unclear. This study aimed to assess the relationship between specific inflammatory factors, such as interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12, IL-17, interferon (IFN)-α, and IFN-γ, and COVID-19-related HF., Methods: We retrospectively identified 212 adult patients with COVID-19 who were hospitalized at Shanghai Public Health Center from March 1 to May 30, 2022 (including 80 patients with HF and 132 without HF). High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), procalcitonin (PCT), and inflammatory factors, including IL-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12, IL-17, IFN-α, and IFN-γ, were compared between patients with COVID-19 with and without HF., Results: Patients with COVID-19 having and not having HF differed with regard to sex, age, hs-CRP, PCT, and IL-6 levels (p < 0.05). Logistic regression analysis indicated a significant positive association between IL and 6 and HF (odds ratio = 1.055; 95 % confidence interval: 1.019-1.093, p < 0.005). Sex, age, and hs-CRP were also associated with HF. Women had a greater risk of HF than men. Older age, higher levels of hs-CRP, and IL-6 were associated with a greater risk of HF., Conclusions: In patients with COVID-19, increased IL-6 levels are significantly associated with COVID-19-related HF., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Ozone has been reported to increase despite nitrogen oxides reductions during the COVID-19 pandemic, and ozone formation needs to be revisited using volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are rarely measured during the pandemic. Here, a total of 98 VOCs species were monitored in an economy-active city in China from January 2021 to August 2022 to assess contributions to ozone formation during the pandemic. Total VOCs concentrations were 35.55 ± 21.47 ppb during the entire period, among which alkanes account for the largest fraction (13.78 ppb, 38.0%), followed by aromatics (6.16 ppb, 16.8%) and oxygenated VOCs (OVOCs, 5.69 ppb, 15.7%). Most VOCs groups (e.g., alkenes, OVOCs) and individual species (e.g., isoprene, methyl vinyl ketone) display obvious seasonal and diurnal variations, which are related to their sources and reactivities. No weekend effects of VOCs suggest limited influences from traffic emissions during pandemic. Aromatics and alkenes are the major contributors (39% and 33%) to ozone formation potential, largely driven by o/m/p-xylene (21%), ethylene (15%), toluene (9%). Secondary organic aerosol formation potential is dominated by toluene (>50%) despite its low proportion (5%). Further inclusion of VOCs and meteorology in the Random Forest model shows good ozone prediction performance (R 2  = 0.77-0.86, RMSE = 11.95-19.91 μg/m 3 , MAE = 8.89-14.58 μg/m 3 ). VOCs and NO 2 contribute >50% of total importance with the largest difference in importance ratio of VOCs/NO 2 in the summer and winter, implying ozone formation regime may vary. No seasonal variations in importance of meteorology are observed, while importance of other variables (e.g., PM 2.5 ) is highest in the summer. This work identifies critical VOCs groups and species for ozone formation during the pandemic, and demonstrates the feasibility of machine learning algorithms in elucidation of ozone formation mechanisms., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of vaccination, COVID-19 pandemic and migration of migratory birds on the avian influenza positivity rate in Shangrao City and to predict the future avian influenza positivity rate. Real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect nucleic acids of avian influenza A viruses. 1795 samples were collected between 2016 and 2022, of which 1086 were positive. In addition, there were seven human cases of avian influenza. The results showed that the positivity rate of H9 subtype in Shangrao City was higher than usual during the COVID-19 pandemic and migratory birds. Predictions suggest that the H9 subtype positivity rate in Shangrao City will be on the rise in the future. In recent years, the H5 positivity rate has gradually increased. Migratory birds and the COVID-19 pandemic have led to an increase in H9 subtype positivity. Therefore, the prevention and control of them should be strengthened., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: The widespread application and interest in awake prone positioning stems from its ease and availability and its ability to enhance patients' oxygenation. Nevertheless, due to the absence of consensus over the regimen of awake prone positioning, the efficacy of awake prone positioning remains uncertain., Objective: To explore the optimal regimen for awake prone positioning, including the timing of initiation, ideal daily duration, and strategies for improving patient comfort and encouraging adherence., Design: Retrospective observational study., Setting(s): Two university-affiliated hospitals in Shanghai., Participants: Between December 2022 and February 2023, a total of 475 patients with COVID-19-related pneumonia who received awake prone positioning were observed., Methods: The data were collected from the hospital's electronic medical record system. The differentiation efficiency of peripheral blood oxygen saturation [SpO 2 ]:fractional oxygen concentration in inspired air [FiO 2 ] ratio at first awake prone positioning for different outcomes was tested by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. The Cox proportional hazard regression model was used to analyze the relationship between time to occurrence of 28-day outcomes and collected variables. Kaplan-Meier curves were plotted with the percentage of 28-day outcomes according to the SpO 2 :FiO 2 ratio at first awake prone positioning after controlling covariates through Cox regression., Results: The best efficiency in predicting patient outcomes was achieved when the cutoff SpO 2 :FiO 2 ratio at first awake prone positioning was 200. Patients with a reduced SpO 2 :FiO 2 ratio (≤200) experienced more adverse respiratory outcomes (RR = 5.42, 95%CI [3.35, 8.76], p < 0·001) and higher mortality (RR = 16.64, 95%CI [5.53, 50.13], p < 0.001). Patients with a SpO 2 :FiO 2 ratio of ≥200 at first awake prone positioning, longer duration between first awake prone positioning and admission, more awake prone positioning days, and better awake prone positioning completion were significantly protected from 28-day adverse respiratory outcomes and mortality., Conclusions: Initiating awake prone positioning with a SpO 2 :FiO 2 ratio exceeding 200, increasing the number of awake prone positioning days, prolonging the time between first awake prone positioning and admission, and achieving better completion of awake prone positioning were found to be significantly associated with reduced adverse respiratory outcomes and mortality., Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov; No.: NCT05795751; URL: www., Clinicaltrials: gov., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated a global mental health crisis, with a particularly pronounced impact on the entrepreneurial sector. This paper presents a comparative analysis of mental health challenges among entrepreneurs in China during the pandemic, with a specific focus on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Dyslexia. The study assesses the prevalence of ADHD and dyslexia symptoms among established and emerging entrepreneurs in China, finding notable occurrences within this group. The research also examines the self-care practices of these entrepreneurs, shedding light on their approaches during the pandemic period. The findings highlight a complex interplay between mental health issues and entrepreneurial activities, suggesting that certain ADHD and dyslexia traits may offer unexpected benefits in the entrepreneurial realm. These insights are critical for developing supportive frameworks that leverage the strengths of neurodiverse entrepreneurs while mitigating associated challenges, especially in a post-pandemic economic landscape. The study concludes with policy and practice recommendations to bolster the wellbeing and resilience of entrepreneurs facing the multifaceted impacts of the pandemic., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, China implemented large-scale lockdown measures in early 2020, resulting in a marked reduction in human activities over a short period. Studies have explored environmental changes during lockdowns, lacking analysis of response of net primary productivity (NPP) to lockdowns, especially for diverse vegetation types. Correlation between NPP and impact factors during lockdowns remains unclear. Through Google Earth Engine, we evaluated spatial-temporal changes in spring NPP at multiple scales during lockdown period (LD, 2020) compared with unlocked period (UL, 2017-2019) by remote sensing data in urban areas of China. Changes in four impact factors, aerosol optical depth (AOD) and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) (via remote sensing data), alongside temperature (TEM) and precipitation (PRE) (via meteorological data) were explored. Additionally, geodetector, a valuable statistical tool for detecting the driving ability of various elements, was employed to explore the underlying causes of vegetation changes during LD. In the spring of LD: 1) National urban NPP generally increased (+6.50 %), notably in Northeast China (NE), North China (N) and East China (E). Besides, overall urban AOD decreased (-3.64 %), notably in N and Central China (C). National urban PAR increased (+2.7 %), particularly in C and Northwest China (NW). However, overall urban TEM (-0.06 %) and PRE (-1.21 %) changed negatively. 2) NPP in all three vegetation types in urban areas enhanced, with change rates: croplands > forests > grasslands. Evident enhancements occurred in the forests and croplands in N, and the grasslands in NE. 3) Through geodetector, during LD, AOD (q = 0.223) and TEM (q = 0.272) emerged as the dominant factors for NPP. Compared with UL, the explanatory power of AOD and PAR on NPP increased during LD. This study provides valuable insights into understanding the effects of short-term human activities on vegetation productivity, offering reference for the formulation of ecological and environmental policies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

The linkages between the US and China, the world's two major agricultural powers, have brought great uncertainty to the global food markets. Inspired by these, this paper examines the extreme risk spillovers between US and Chinese agricultural futures markets during significant crises. We use a copula-conditional value at risk (CoVaR) model with Markov-switching regimes to capture the tail dependence in their pair markets. The study covers the period from January 2006 to December 2022 and identifies two distinct dependence regimes (stable and crisis periods). Moreover, we find significant and asymmetric upside/downside extreme risk spillovers between the US and Chinese markets, which are highly volatile in crises. Additionally, the impact of international capital flows (the financial channel) on risk spillovers is particularly pronounced during the global financial crisis. During the period of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine 2022 war, the impact of supply chain disruptions (the non-financial channel) is highlighted. Our findings provide a theoretical reference for monitoring the co-movements in agricultural futures markets and practical insights for managing investment portfolios and enhancing food market stability during crises., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Hu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify and characterize the literature on surgical smoke, visualize the data and sketch a certain trending outline., Methods: In the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), all the data were acquired from January 1st 2003 to December 31st 2022. VOSviewer and CiteSpace were employed to visualize data, based on publications, bibliographic coupling, co-citation, or co-authorship relations. Microsoft Excel 2019 was used to comb and categorize all the statistics., Result: A total 363 of journal papers were retrieved. The publication number was in a slow but steady growth between 2003 and 2019, followed by a sharp surge in 2020, and then the publication kept in a productive way. Surgical endoscopy and other interventional techniques was the most active journal on surgical smoke. USA played an important role among all the countries/regions. There were 1847 authors for these 363 papers, among whom 44 authors published more than three articles on surgical smoke. "Surgical smoke", "covid-19" and "surgery" were the top 3 appeared keywords, while the latest hot-spot keywords were "COVID-19", "virus", "transmission", "exposure" and "risk". There were 1105 co-cited references and 3786 links appeared in all 363 articles. Among them, 38 references are cited more than 10 times. The most co-cited article was "Detecting hepatitis B virus in surgical smoke emitted during laparoscopic surgery." Based on the titles of references and calculated by CiteSpace, the top 3 cluster trend network are "laparoscopic surgery", "COVID-19 pandemic" and "surgical smoke"., Conclusion: According to bibliometric analysis, the research on surgical smoke has been drawing attention of more scholars in the world. Increasing number of countries or regions added in this field, and among them, USA, Italy, and China has been playing important roles, however, more wide and intense cooperation is still in expectation., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: It is unclear about the mutual impact of COVID-19 related psychological stress and infection on mental health of adolescent and youth students. This study aimed to explore the mutual impact of COVID-19 related psychological stress and infection on mental health problems among students., Methods: This study was conducted from December 14, 2022 to February 28, 2023 in Sichuan, China. Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, PTSD Checklist for DSM-5, Insomnia Severity Index, and Internet Addiction Test were used. Participants were grouped by COVID-19 infection and psychological stress level. The differences among groups were compared, and logistic regression analysis was used to investigate risk factors for depression, anxiety, PTSD and insomnia among groups., Results: Of 90,118 participants, 82,873 (92.0 %) finished the questionnaires and were included in the study. Of 82,873 participants, 33,314 (40.2 %) reported to be infected with COVID-19. Participants had depression symptoms (38.1 %), anxiety symptoms (31.8 %), PTSD (33.9 %), insomnia (34.0 %), and internet addiction (60.3 %). Compared with participants uninfected with low psychological stress level, the risk for symptoms of depression, anxiety, PTSD and insomnia increased by 9.6 %, 12.3 %, 6.6 %, and 12.0 % in participants infected with low psychological stress level (p < 0.001), 106.8 %, 125.9 %, 125.2 %, and 95.7 % in participants uninfected with high psychological stress level (p < 0.001), and 147.3 %, 161.1 %, 158.7 %, and 141.0 % in participants infected with high psychological stress level (p < 0.001)., Limitation: This study is a cross-sectional design, and no causal associations should be inferred. Infection status was based on self-report of participants with infectious symptoms., Conclusion: COVID-19 related psychological stress and infection per se have mutually overlapping impacts on mental health problems among students. Further health policies and psychosocial interventions should be developed to reduce mutually overlapping impact and improve the long-term mental health among students., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interest or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: During the COVID-19 pandemic, people posted help-seeking messages on Weibo, a mainstream social media in China, to solve practical problems. As viruses, policies, and perceptions have all changed, help-seeking behavior on Weibo has been shown to evolve in this paper., Methods: We compare and analyze the help-seeking messages from three dimensions: content categories, time distribution, and retweeting influencing factors. First, we crawled the help-seeking messages from Weibo, and successively used CNN and xlm-roberta-large models for text classification to analyze the changes of help-seeking messages in different stages from the content categories dimension. Subsequently, we studied the time distribution of help-seeking messages and calculated the time lag using TLCC algorithm. Finally, we analyze the changes of the retweeting influencing factors of help-seeking messages in different stages by negative binomial regression., Results: (1) Help-seekers in different periods have different emphasis on content. (2) There is a significant correlation between new daily help-seeking messages and new confirmed cases in the middle stage (1/1/2022-5/20/2022), with a 16-day time lag, but there is no correlation in the latter stage (12/10/2022-2/25/2023). (3) In all the periods, pictures or videos, and the length of the text have a significant positive effect on the number of retweets of help-seeking messages, but other factors do not have exactly the same effect on the retweeting volume., Conclusion: This paper demonstrates the evolution of help-seeking messages during different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in three dimensions: content categories, time distribution, and retweeting influencing factors, which are worthy of reference for decision-makers and help-seekers, as well as provide thinking for subsequent studies., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Jiang, Yao and Song.)

The problem of repeated epidemic fluctuations in the normalized prevention and control stage is revealed by data from January 20, 2020, to January 30, 2023. In order to improve the collaborative response of the public and government departments to public health emergencies and avoid repeated fluctuations of the epidemic, a tripartite evolutionary game model of the public, local government, and central government departments is constructed, focusing on the evolutionary paths and evolutionary stabilization strategies of the three subjects, and the influence of each element on the evolutionary results is simulated by numerical simulation in Matlab, and based on the inadequacy of the static reward and punishment mechanism, a dynamic Based on the shortcomings of static reward and punishment mechanism, dynamic reward and punishment mechanism is introduced to control the stability of the evolving system. The study shows that (1) with the increase of the initial willingness of the three parties, the rate of the public choosing the discretionary flow strategy slows down, and the collaborative prevention and control process can be accelerated. (2) The reward and punishment mechanism of central government departments has a positive incentive effect on the local government's strict prevention and control and the public's conscious isolation. Appropriately increasing rewards, formulating reasonable subsidy strategies, and increasing penalties for violations are conducive to the overall optimization of the system, and the punishment mechanism is most sensitive to the regulation of the public's discretionary mobility behavior. (3) Government departments' prevention and control costs can influence their enthusiasm for strict prevention and control and real-time supervision. Reducing the human resources cost, time cost, and financial cost of prevention and control is conducive to government departments performing their duties more responsibly. (4) The static punishment mechanism fails to make timely adjustments according to the strategy choice of each actor. It cannot control the stability of the evolving system. In contrast, the dynamic punishment mechanism considers the punishment parameters to link the casual isolation rate with the lenient prevention and control rate, which can effectively control the system's fluctuating instability and is the system's stability control strategy. Finally, combining theoretical and simulation analysis, management suggestions are made for controlling repeated fluctuations of the epidemic in practice, and the research limitations of this paper are explained., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Increased rates of indeterminate QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-GIT) results have been reported since the COVID-19 epidemic in Hunan Province, China. The indeterminate result (ITR) rate of QFT increased from an average of 5.2% to 12.4%, paralleling the first COVID-19 pandemic wave in the region. QFT-GIT results of 243 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 from January 2022 to April 2023 at Xiangya Hospital of Central South University were analyzed. Of the 243 patients, 71 (29.2%) had ITRs due to reduced interferon-gamma production in the positive control. Multiple factors are associated with ITRs, such as disease severity, respiratory failure incidence, immunosuppressant use, and prognosis. Additionally, interferon-gamma (Mitogen-Nil) levels differed significantly depending upon disease severity, prognosis, immunosuppressant use, sepsis symptoms, respiratory failure, or hyperlipidemia. An abnormal increase in the ITR rate in the QFT was observed after the COVID-19 pandemic, and an optimal machine learning predictive model for indeterminate QFT results was established., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that we have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Selecting an appropriate intensity of epidemic prevention and control measures is of vital significance to promoting the two-way dynamic coordination of epidemic prevention and control and economic development. In order to balance epidemic control and economic development and suggest scientific and reasonable traffic control measures, this paper proposes a SEIQR model considering population migration and the propagation characteristics of the exposed and the asymptomatic, based on the data of COVID-19 cases, Baidu Migration, and the tourist economy. Further, the factor traffic control intensity is included in the model. After determining the functional relationship between the control intensity and the number of tourists and the cumulative number of confirmed cases, the NSGA-II algorithm is employed to perform multi-objective optimization with consideration of the requirements for epidemic prevention and control and for economic development to get an appropriate traffic control intensity and suggest scientific traffic control measures. With Xi'an City as an example. The results show that the Pearson correlation coefficient between the predicted data of this improved model and the actual data is 0.996, the R-square in the regression analysis is 0.993, with a significance level of below 0.001, suggesting that the predicted data of the model are more accurate. With the continuous rise of traffic control intensity in different simulation scenarios, the cumulative number of cases decreases by a significant amplitude. While balancing the requirements for epidemic prevention and control and for tourist economy development, the model works out the control intensity to be 0.68, under which some traffic control measures are suggested. The model presented in this paper can be used to analyze the impacts of different traffic control intensities on epidemic transmission. The research results in this paper reveal the traffic control measures balancing the requirements for epidemic prevention and control and for economic development., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Xiang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Resource-based regions support national economic development and are essential sources of basic energy and raw materials. In the post-pandemic era, however, there are practical situations to deal with, such as a fractured industrial chain, a weaker industrial structure, and a sharp reduction in economic benefits. Based on data collected from 68 cities in China, from 2010 to 2021, with 816 observations, this paper explores the industrial development process of resource-based regions in China and the change in the toughness of the industrial structure under the impact of COVID-19. The paper studies and analyzes industrial development trends, industrial structure toughness, and spatial spillover effects. The methods used are the Markov chain model and the Industrial Structure Advancement Index. By building the spatial Dubin model, the paper analyzes the spatial spillover effect of regional industrial development. It decomposes the spillover effect using the partial differential model based on regression. The results show that, during the study period, the comprehensive development level of industries in resource-based regions in China was slowly improving and tended to stabilize after entering the post-pandemic era. The evolution of an advanced industrial structure is significantly heterogeneous among regions, and each region has different toughness. The impact of COVID-19 has reduced the toughness of China's resource-based regions' industrial structure. The spatial spillover effect of regional industrial development is significant. Labor force, technology input, and industrial-structure optimization have different impacts on the industrial development of neighboring regions. In the post-pandemic era, China has used new management methods for more innovation. In order to achieve low-carbon, environmental protection, and sustainable development of resources, realize the rapid recovery of the toughness of industrial structure in China's resource-based cities, and reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, China proposes to expand the supply of resources, improve the allocation of resources, optimize the direction, promote the rational flow and efficient aggregation of various factors, and enhance the impetus for innovation and development., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 He et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has experienced various phases including outbreaks, a global health crisis, and eventual de-escalation from a public health emergency of international concern, significantly affecting the delivery and utilization of healthcare services. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the coverage rate of routine immunization in children under varying prevalence conditions., Methods: We conducted a retrospective, population-based cohort study in Beijing, China, utilizing stratified random sampling by birthdate to obtain a sample of 29,811 participants. Subjects were categorized into four cohorts based on when they became eligible for vaccination: the Pre-COVID Period cohort, the COVID-19 Low Epidemic Period cohort, the COVID-19 Surging Period cohort, and the COVID-19 Slowing Down Period cohort. A one-month follow-up was conducted. Cox proportional hazards model was employed to examine associations between the COVID-19 epidemic status and timely vaccination., Results: Participants age-eligible for vaccination during the COVID-19 Low Epidemic Period demonstrated higher rates of timely vaccination (HR 1.18, 95% CI 1.15-1.22) compared to those eligible during the Pre-COVID Period. Conversely, those eligible during the COVID-19 Surging Period displayed lower rates (HR 0.73, 95% CI 0.66-0.82). No significant difference in vaccination timeliness was observed for those eligible during the COVID-19 Slowing Down Period in comparison to the Pre-COVID Period (HR 0.99, 95% CI 0.91-1.09). By the end of May 2023, DTP3 rate among eligible children during the COVID-19 Surging Period had surpassed 90%., Conclusions: Significantly declining rates of timely vaccination were observed during the COVID-19 Surging Period, which lasted two months, but not during the nearly three-year-long COVID-19 Low Epidemic Period. An upward trend in vaccination timeliness followed, culminating in a return to baseline levels over the subsequent 3-4 months. Our findings suggested that the pandemic exerted a decreasing and recoverable impact on the coverage rate of routine immunizations in China., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Although the pandemic has ended officially, COVID-19 remains impactful. Booster COVID-19 vaccination is still needed to protect individuals against COVID-19 and the disease's harmful consequences. This study investigated the prevalence of the intention to get booster COVID-19 vaccination after receiving the COVID-19 diagnosis and its associated factors among people reporting prior COVID-19., Methods: A population-based anonymous telephone survey was conducted in Hong Kong, China from June to August 2022 among Chinese people reporting prior COVID-1 between February and August 2022 and having taken up ≥2 doses of COVID-19 vaccines prior to COVID-19 diagnosis., Results: The prevalence of the intention to get booster vaccination was 59.2 %. Older age (>60 years), being currently married, not employed full-time, and having chronic diseases were positively associated with the intention to get booster vaccination. Adjusted for the background factors, higher levels of the cognitive factors of perceived susceptibility to COVID-19, perceived acquired moderate-to-strong immunity against COVID-19, and perceived adequate knowledge of COVID-19 were positively associated with the intention to get booster vaccination; stronger perceived severity of prior infection despite vaccination was negatively associated with the intention outcome. In contrast, stronger mental distress due to COVID-19, illness concern, and emotional representation were positively associated with the intention. Self-perceived long COVID status was not a significant factor., Discussion: The prevalence of the intention to get booster COVID-19 vaccination was limited, especially among younger people reporting prior COVID-19. Health promotion is still required among people reporting prior COVID-19 and may emphasize the significant cognitive factors positively associated with the intention. Future studies are needed to confirm the findings, clarify the role of emotional factors on booster vaccination, and explore other factors of the intention to get booster vaccination among people reporting prior COVID-19., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

During the outbreak of the COVID-19, the change in the way of people's living and production provided the opportunity to study the influence of human activity on Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the atmosphere. Therefore, this study analyzed VOCs concentration and composition characteristics in urban area of Beijing from 2019 to 2020. The results showed that the concentration of VOCs in Chaoyang district in 2020 was 73.1ppbv, lower than that in 2019 (92.8ppbv), and alkanes (45 % and 47 %) were the most dominant components. The concentrations of isopentane, n-pentane, n-hexane, and OVOCs significantly increased in 2020. According to the results of the PMF model, the contribution of VOCs from vehicle and pharmaceutical-related emissions increased to 45.8 % and 27.1 % in 2020, while coal combustion decreased by 23.7 %. This is likely linked to the strict implementation of the coal conversion policy, as well as the increment in individual travel and pharmaceutical production during the pandemic. The calculation results of OFP and SOAFP indicated that toluene had an increased impact on the formation of O 3 and SOA in the Chaoyang district in 2020. Notably, VOCs emitted by vehicles have the highest potential for secondary generation. In addition, VOCs from vehicles and industries pose the greatest health risks, together accounting for 77.4 % and 79.31 % of the total carcinogenic risk in 2019 and 2020. Although industrial emission with the high proportions of halocarbons was controlled to some extent during the pandemic, the carcinogenic risk in 2020 was 3.74 × 10 -6 , which still exceeded the acceptable level, and more attention and governance efforts should be given to., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Organic ultraviolet filters (OUVFs) are functional ingredients used in cosmetics to protect skin from the harmful effects of ultraviolet (UV) radiation. This study presents recent findings on the distribution of OUVFs in the Pearl River Estuary (PRE), located in southern China. This investigation was conducted during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic when the stay-at-home policy was implemented. Analysis revealed the presence of OUVFs in both the surface and bottom water samples collected from eight major outlets of the Pearl River. The OUVFs were detected in both the dissolved phase and suspended particulate matter, with a total concentration ranging from 7.19 ± 6.54 to 20.5 ± 9.62 ng/L. Notably, OUVFs' concentrations in the study period were significantly lower compared to those reported before the pandemic. This implies that effective reduction of OUVF emissions can be achieved through usage reduction combined with the management of direct discharge and appropriate treatment by urban wastewater treatment facilities. During the study period, the annual release of OUVFs was approximately 12.6 kg/1000 people/year, with the greatest contribution from the Hu Men outlet. Consequently, it is imperative to consider the potential ecological risks associated with the release of OUVFs from the PRE into the marine environment, particularly with the potential for an accompanying rebound in risk upon the lifting of restrictions on outdoor activities in the post Covid-19 time., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

To investigate the interannual evolution of air pollution in summer and the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on local pollution in Chengdu, China, single aerosol particles were continuously measured in three summer periods: the regular period in 2020 (RP2020); the regular period in 2022 (RP2022); and the lockdown period in 2022 (LP2022). It was found that, from RP2020 to RP2022, the mass concentrations of PM 2.5 , PM 10 , SO 2 and NO 2 decreased by 25.6 %, 24.7 %, 28.8 % and 38.5 %, respectively, while the concentration of O 3 increased by 11.0 %. Affected by regional transport, there was no significant decrease in the concentrations of various pollutants during LP2022. All single aerosol particles could be classified into seven categories: vehicle emissions (VE), dust, biomass burning (BB), coal combustion (CC), K mixed with sulfate (KSO 4 ), K mixed with nitrate (KNO 3 ) and K mixed with sulfate and nitrate (KSN) particles. From RP2020 to RP2022, the contributions of BB and CC particles decreased by 12.1 % and 0.9 %, respectively, while VE and dust particles increased by 3.6 % and 2.5 %, respectively; and compared to RP2022, the contributions of VE, dust and CC particles in LP2022 decreased by 22.2 %, 11.0 % and 12.7 %, respectively. The high PM 2.5 pollution events in RP2020 and RP2022 were mainly caused by combustion sources (BB and CC, 51.6 %) and VE (38.3 %) particles, respectively, while the pollution event in LP2022 was contributed by BB (27.0 %) and secondary inorganic (KSO 4 , KNO 3 and KSN, 60.2 %) particles. The formation mechanisms of different pollution events were further validated by WRF-Chem results. Although the potential source areas of particles showed a shrinking trend from RP2020 to RP2022, regional transport still caused high PM 2.5 pollution events during LP2022. Photochemical processes dominated the formation of KSO 4 particles, while the KNO 3 and KSN particles were mainly generated by liquid-phase reactions, and this effect increased year by year., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: As the impact of COVID-19 on normal production and living conditions diminishes, this serious emergency is come to an end. China's policy framework has facilitated positive adjustment over the past 3 years by timely modifying its emergency response to changes in viruses and epidemics. This paper aims to explore the logic of China's policy framework that promoted policy adjustment through crisis learning during COVID-19., Methods: By gathering and classifying China's epidemic prevention policies throughout the past 3 years, integrating policy texts, and analyzing key events, this article examines the process of supporting policy adjustment through crisis learning in the policy system during COVID-19., Results: The Chinese government's COVID-19 policy adjustment process can be divided into four stages, namely 'The period of stress response', 'The period of COVID-19 prevention and control', 'The period of regular prevention and control', and 'The period of overall adjustment'. The policy adjustments in each stage demonstrate the logic and effectiveness of crisis learning in the promotion policy adjustment. The study has determined that the motivational logic comprises three crucial elements: security requirements, accountability pressure, and reputation management. The institutional logic encompasses both the organizational and resourceful environments, and the institutional and cultural environment. Additionally, the behavioral logic of policy adaptation aligns with the strategy of crisis learning. Meanwhile, the logical framework of 'crisis learning-policy adjustment' can be verified using the Chinese government's policy adjustment in COVID-19 as an example., Conclusion: Establishing an effective post-crisis learning system is crucial to improving the effectiveness of crisis response. There is a logical link between crisis learning and policy adjustment. The implementation of policy adjustment needs to be based on the results of crisis learning. Government departments are essential for crisis learning and policy adjustment., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Wei, Xu and Xu.)

Ecological studies suggested a link between air pollution and severe COVID-19 outcomes, while studies accounting for individual-level characteristics are limited. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the impact of short-term ambient air pollution exposure on disease severity among a cohort of 569 laboratory confirmed COVID-19 patients admitted to designated hospitals in Zhejiang province, China, from January 17 to March 3, 2020, and elucidate the possible biological processes involved using transcriptomics. Compared with mild cases, severe cases had higher proportion of medical conditions as well as unfavorable results in most of the laboratory tests, and manifested higher air pollution exposure levels. Higher exposure to air pollutants was associated with increased risk of severe COVID-19 with odds ratio (OR) of 1.89 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.01, 3.53), 2.35 (95% CI: 1.20, 4.61), 2.87 (95% CI: 1.68, 4.91), and 2.01 (95% CI: 1.10, 3.69) for PM 2.5 , PM 10 , NO 2 and CO, respectively. OR for NO 2 remained significant in two-pollutant models after adjusting for other pollutants. Transcriptional analysis showed 884 differentially expressed genes which mainly were enriched in virus clearance related biological processes between patients with high and low NO 2 exposure levels, indicating that compromised immune response might be a potential underlying mechanistic pathway. These findings highlight the impact of short-term air pollution exposure, particularly for NO 2 , on COVID-19 severity, and emphasize the significance in mitigating the COVID-19 burden of commitments to improve air quality., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused concerns globally. To reduce the rapid transmission of the virus, strict city lockdown measures were conducted in different regions. China is the country that takes the earliest home-based quarantine for people. Although normal industrial and social activities were suspended, the spread of virus was efficiently controlled. Simultaneously, another merit of the city lockdown measure was noticed, which is the improvement of the air quality. Contamination levels of multiple atmospheric pollutants were decreased. However, in this work, 24 and 14 air fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) samples were continuously collected before and during COVID-19 city lockdown in Linfen (a typical heavy industrial city in China), and intriguingly, the unreduced concentration was found for environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) in PM 2.5 after normal life suspension. The primary non-stopped coal combustion source and secondary Cu-related atmospheric reaction may have impacts on this phenomenon. The cigarette-based assessment model also indicated possible exposure risks of PM 2.5 -bound EPFRs during lockdown of Linfen. This study revealed not all the contaminants in the atmosphere had an apparent concentration decrease during city lockdown, suggesting the pollutants with complicated sources and formation mechanisms, like EPFRs in PM 2.5 , still should not be ignored., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)