Search

The rapid growth of the digital economy has driven economic development, but the massive demand for elec-tricity from digital reforms, coupled with China's coal-based power generation, has created a significant CO2 emission problem. Previous studies have assessed digital economy sectors with an incomplete scope and a lack of carbon emissions assessment at the intermediary-side. To fill these gaps, this study assessed CO2 emissions using input-output modeling of the core industry sector of the digital economy and the industrial digitalization sector at the production, intermediary, and demand sides, and identified key CO2 transmission centers. The results show the following: (1) Digital economy sectors had a high betweenness and were important CO2 transmission centers in the economic system, transmitting more than 4.08 billion tonnes of betweenness-based CO2 emissions; (2) specifically, the industrial digitalization sector transmitted the most CO2 in the economic system, and the digital product manufacturing sector was the core industry sector with the highest betweenness and a strong trans-mission effect on the CO2 emissions in the supply chain; (3) digital economy sectors had large CO2 emissions on the production, intermediary, and demand sides, and transmitted CO2 more through the demand-side and key transmission centers. These results suggest that digital economy sectors can decarbonize and reduce CO2 emissions by (1) improving material use efficiency in the digital product manufacturing sector, (2) reducing the use of carbon-intensive energy and materials in the digital economy sectors, and (3) establishing CO2 emission disclosure rules, incentives, and penalties.

Background: The infection rate of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in children was less than that in adults. However, the underlining reason is not well known. Methods: Children with COVID-19 were recruited from two Children’s Hospitals in Wuhan and Shanghai in this case-control study. The associations of initial symptoms with age, vaccinations of Bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG), and influenza and pathogens were determined by Chi-square t-test. Results: We evaluated 248 confirmed cases, and 56 suspected cases with COVID-19. The median age was 6.82 years old, and 118 cases (38.82%) were girls. Furthermore, 30.26% of all patients were asymptomatic cases. The percentage of asymptomatic cases vaccinated with BCG was not significantly higher than that without BCG vaccination [86/280 (30.71%) vs. 6/13 (46.15%), P=0.203], and initial symptoms were not related with immunized influenza vaccine (P=0.267). Compared to parameters in pediatric patients with normal body temperatures, patients with fever had higher C reactive protein (CRP) (P<0.001). Conclusions: Pediatric COVID-19 patients with BCG vaccinations exhibit similar clinical manifestations compared to those without BCG vaccinations, and the severity of symptoms in pediatric patients may be related to the maturity of immune function.