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  1. Oct 2021
    1. In several European countries, adolescents and young adults are among the worst affected by outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease. Catchup campaigns are helping address immunisation gaps arising from low MMR uptake in the early years of the 21st century, but low vaccination rates may also stem from complacency about the need to stay up to date with vaccination schedules.
    1. During the COVID-19 pandemic, information is being rapidly shared by public health experts and researchers through social media platforms. Whilst government policies were disseminated and discussed, fake news and misinformation simultaneously created a corresponding wave of “infodemics.” This study analyzed the discourse on Twitter in several languages, investigating the reactions to government and public health agency social media accounts that share policy decisions and official messages. The study collected messages from 21 official Twitter accounts of governments and public health authorities in the UK, US, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Spain, and Nigeria, from 15 March to 29 May 2020. Over 2 million tweets in various languages were analyzed using a mixed-methods approach to understand the messages both quantitatively and qualitatively. Using automatic, text-based clustering, five topics were identified for each account and then categorized into 10 emerging themes. Identified themes include political, socio-economic, and population-protection issues, encompassing global, national, and individual levels. A comparison was performed amongst the seven countries analyzed and the United Kingdom (Scotland, Northern Ireland, and England) to find similarities and differences between countries and government agencies. Despite the difference in language, country of origin, epidemiological contexts within the countries, significant similarities emerged. Our results suggest that other than general announcement and reportage messages, the most-discussed topic is evidence-based leadership and policymaking, followed by how to manage socio-economic consequences.
    1. Background Conflicting evidence has emerged regarding the relevance of smoking on risk of COVID-19 and its severity.Methods We undertook large-scale observational and Mendelian randomisation (MR) analyses using UK Biobank. Most recent smoking status was determined from primary care records (70.8%) and UK Biobank questionnaire data (29.2%). COVID-19 outcomes were derived from Public Health England SARS-CoV-2 testing data, hospital admissions data, and death certificates (until 18 August 2020). Logistic regression was used to estimate associations between smoking status and confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, COVID-19-related hospitalisation, and COVID-19-related death. Inverse variance-weighted MR analyses using established genetic instruments for smoking initiation and smoking heaviness were undertaken (reported per SD increase).Results There were 421 469 eligible participants, 1649 confirmed infections, 968 COVID-19-related hospitalisations and 444 COVID-19-related deaths. Compared with never-smokers, current smokers had higher risks of hospitalisation (OR 1.80, 95% CI 1.26 to 2.29) and mortality (smoking 1–9/day: OR 2.14, 95% CI 0.87 to 5.24; 10–19/day: OR 5.91, 95% CI 3.66 to 9.54; 20+/day: OR 6.11, 95% CI 3.59 to 10.42). In MR analyses of 281 105 White British participants, genetically predicted propensity to initiate smoking was associated with higher risks of infection (OR 1.45, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.91) and hospitalisation (OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.13 to 2.27). Genetically predicted higher number of cigarettes smoked per day was associated with higher risks of all outcomes (infection OR 2.51, 95% CI 1.20 to 5.24; hospitalisation OR 5.08, 95% CI 2.04 to 12.66; and death OR 10.02, 95% CI 2.53 to 39.72).Interpretation Congruent results from two analytical approaches support a causal effect of smoking on risk of severe COVID-19.
    1. Billions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered around the world, dramatically reducing SARS-CoV-2 incidence in some settings. Many studies suggest vaccines provide a high degree of protection against infection and disease, but precise estimates vary and studies differ in design, outcomes measured, dosing regime, location, and circulating virus strains. Here we conduct a systematic review of COVID-19 vaccines as of August 2021. We included efficacy data from Phase 3 clinical trials for 13 vaccines within the WHO Emergency Use Listing evaluation process and real-world effectiveness for 5 vaccines with observational studies meeting inclusion criteria. Vaccine metrics collected include effects against asymptomatic infection, any infection, symptomatic COVID-19, and severe outcomes including hospitalization and death, for both partial and complete vaccination, and against SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. In addition, we review the epidemiological principles behind the design and interpretation of vaccine effects and explain important sources of heterogeneity between studies.
    1. A union representing Massachusetts state troopers sought to make a splash this week in its fight against the state’s coronavirus vaccine mandate. Dozens of troopers had submitted resignation paperwork over the mandate, the State Police Association of Massachusetts announced Monday after an adverse court ruling. It suggested that the mandate-linked resignations would deplete an agency that is “already critically short staffed.”
    1. “The J&J results exceed expectations,” Yale Radiology and Public Health Professor @thehowie says about the COVID-19 vaccine. “They continue to point out that the J&J vaccine is highly effective even as a one dose vaccine.”
  2. Sep 2021
    1. In February 2020 the U-Report for Humanitarian Action initiative, a joint effort of Office of Innovation , Programme division , Communication for development and Office of Emergency programmes developed a U-Report Information chatbot to support COVID-19 Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE). As of 20th June 2020, U-Report’s Covid-19 bot has been  Accessed by over 6 million people Across 52 countries Over 7 million interactions Over 20 million young people and communities engaged on COVID-19 through U-Report
    1. Objective: Past research suggests that having a stronger ability to regulate feelings and behaviors can help individuals cope during stressful events, but little is known about why and when this might be the case. We examined if being more focused on prevention (i.e., health security motives) impacted personal well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also examined possible underlying mechanisms for this effect, and whether perceived social support buffered it. Design: We conducted a pre-registered longitudinal study over one month (N = 1,269). Main outcome measures: Regulatory focus, worry for health (T1), adherence to preventive measures (T2, two weeks after T1), loneliness, negative and positive affect, frequency of social interactions, and perceived social support (T3, two weeks after T2). Results: Prevention scores (T1) increased the adherence to health behaviors (T2), which then predicted negative affect (T3). Exploratory results further showed that prevention scores predicted more loneliness and more negative affect (T3), but only for individuals with fewer social interactions and less perceived social support. Conclusions: Security motives in threatening times can be a double edge sword, with benefits for health behaviors and negative consequences for personal well-being. Having a strong social network during these times appears to alleviate these consequences.
    1. Participants performed a categorization training task, where each trial presented an example scenario in which an individual makes a claim based on an observation, and participants marked which fallacy or bias, if any, the individual in the scenario was committing. In two studies, we measure the effect of this training task on critical thinking, measured using an open-ended critical thinking assessment, both pre- and post-training. In Study 1, we pilot these materials in an online college course across a full academic semester and observe credible improvements in critical thinking performance. In Study 2, we conduct a pre-registered randomized controlled experiment using online research participants and observe credible improvements in critical thinking relative to no training, and relative to comparable learning activities focused on conventional curricular content. We infer that the categorization training task facilitated inductive learning of patterns of biased and flawed reasoning, which improved participants’ ability to detect and identify such patterns in the delayed open-ended critical thinking assessment. Such categorization training shows promise as an effective and practical method for improving learners’ resistance to online disinformation.
    1. Here, we aim to investigate the effect of background uncertainty on decision making systematically. After reviewing the existing empirical studies, we argue that two types of uncertainty should be distinguished: a) ambiguity, i.e., uncertain outcomes without probability information, and b) risk, i.e., uncertainties involving probabilities regarding a negative outcome. We test the hypothesis that the type of uncertainty moderates the effect of background uncertainty on risk preferences. To test our hypothesis, we conducted four experimental studies. In this project we host all analyses scripts, data and linked preregistration of Study 3 and Study 4.
    1. The news media can influence how the public and policymakers feel about vaccination. Perhaps under the impression that such messages can be fear-inducing and thus mobilizing, the media often laments low immunization rates. This could, however, activate a powerful descriptive social norm (“many people are not getting vaccinated”) and may be especially ill-advised in the absence of a herd-immunity explanation (that if enough people have immunity through vaccination, the virus is contained). To identify typical media practices, we analyzed the content of 160 vaccination-related news stories by nine highest-trafficked news websites in Serbia, published July–December 2017, around the start of the measles outbreak. We coded both the news story as a whole and every vaccination-rate mention (N = 339). News stories framed current vaccination rates and changes in vaccination rates in a predominantly negative way (175/241 and 67/98, respectively) (e.g., “only 50% vaccinated”, “fewer parents vaccinating their children”). A total of 24/86 of news stories mentioning vaccination rates did not provide any numerical values. Reference groups for vaccination rates were rarely specified. Out of the 32 news stories mentioning the term herd or collective immunity, 11 explained the effect. We show that even routine communication of vaccination rates can be biased through (often negatively valenced) attribute frames and imprecise descriptions. We provide initial recommendations for news media organizations and journalists, including strategies to promote positive dynamic norms and prescriptive norms and explain benefits of herd immunity.
    1. Background Pre-Delta, vaccination reduced transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from individuals infected despite vaccination, potentially via reducing viral loads. While vaccination still lowers the risk of infection, similar viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals infected with Delta question how much vaccination prevents onward transmission. Methods We performed a retrospective observational cohort study of contacts of SARS-CoV-2-infected index cases using contact testing data from England. We used multivariable logistic regression to investigate the impact of index case and contact vaccination on transmission, and how this varies with Alpha and Delta variants (classified using S-gene detection/calendar trends) and time since second vaccination. Results 51,798/139,164(37.2%) contacts tested were PCR-positive. Two doses of BNT162b2 or ChAdOx1 vaccines in Alpha variant index cases independently reduced PCR-positivity in contacts (aOR, adjusted odds ratio vs. unvaccinated=0.18[95%CI 0.12-0.29] and 0.37[0.22-0.63] respectively). The Delta variant attenuated vaccine-associated reductions in transmission: two BNT162b2 doses reduced Delta transmission (aOR=0.35[0.26-0.48]), more than ChAdOx1 (aOR=0.64[0.57-0.72]; heterogeneity p<0.001). Variation in viral load (Ct values) explained only a modest proportion of vaccine-associated transmission reductions. Transmission reductions declined over time since second vaccination, for Delta reaching similar levels to unvaccinated individuals by 12 weeks for ChAdOx1 and attenuating substantially for BNT162b2. Protection from vaccination in contacts also declined in the 3 months after second vaccination. Conclusions Vaccination reduces transmission of Delta, but by less than the Alpha variant. The impact of vaccination decreased over time. Factors other than PCR-measured viral load are important in vaccine-associated transmission reductions. Booster vaccinations may help control transmission together with preventing infections.
    1. Exponential growth is frequently underestimated, an error that can have a heavy social cost in the context of epidemics. To clarify its origins, we measured the human capacity to extrapolate linear and exponential trends in scatterplots. Four factors were manipulated: the function underlying the data (linear or exponential), the response modality (pointing or venturing a number), the scale on the y axis (linear or logarithmic), and the amount of noise in the data. While linear extrapolation was precise and largely unbiased, we observed a consistent underestimation of noisy exponential growth, present for both pointing and numerical responses. A biased ideal-observer model could explain these data as an occasional misperception of noisy exponential graphs as quadratic curves. Importantly, this underestimation bias was mitigated by participants’ math knowledge, by using a logarithmic scale, and by presenting a noiseless exponential curve rather than a noisy data plot, thus suggesting concrete avenues for interventions.
    1. The uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of understanding how attitudes towards uncertainty affect well-being. Intolerance of uncertainty is a trait associated with anxiety, worry, and mood disorders. As adaptive emotion regulation supports well-being and mental health, it is possible that intolerance of uncertainty decreases the capacity to use adaptive emotion regulation and increases the use of maladaptive strategies. However, little research exists on the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and use of cognitive emotion regulation strategies, such as reappraisal and suppression. Study 1 demonstrated that scores on the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale were associated with greater worry related to the COVID-19 pandemic, decreased capacity to implement reappraisal, and greater self-reported use of suppression in daily life. Study 2 provided a preregistered replication of these findings. These results suggest that intolerance of uncertainty may impact mental health by reducing the capacity and tendency to use adaptive emotion regulation.
    1. The COVID-19 pandemic caused millions of deaths and unprecedented disruptions on societies. Negative impacts are coupled with optimism the pandemic may shift public opinion on other cross-national crises. Comparing matched samples of New Zealanders assessed before and after nationwide lockdowns in 2020 (Ns = 15,815), we show the pandemic enhanced participants’ political efficacy, which in turn amplified respondents’ pro-environmental attitudes. Climate beliefs and concern increased as a function of political efficacy, and similar effects were observed for support for a government subsidy for public transport and decrease in support for government spending on new motorways. The crisis might offer a window-of-opportunity to foster sustainability actions.
    1. Many people practiced COVID-19-related safety measures in the first year of the pandemic, but Republicans were less likely to engage in behaviors such as wearing masks or face coverings than Democrats, suggesting radical disparities in health practices split along political fault lines. We developed an “intervention tournament” which aimed to identify the framings that would promote mask wearing among a representative sample of Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. (N = 4,931). Seven different conditions reflecting different moral values and factors specific to COVID-19—including protection from harm (self), protection from harm (community), patriotic duty, purity, reviving the economy, threat, and scientific evidence—were implemented to identify which framings would “win” in terms of promoting mask wearing compared to a baseline condition. We found that Republicans had significantly more negative attitudes toward masks, lower intentions to wear them, and were less likely to sign or share pledges on social media than Democrats, which was partially mediated by Republicans, compared to Democrats, perceiving that the threat of COVID-19 was lower. None of our framing conditions significantly affected Republicans’ or Democrats’ attitudes, intentions, or behaviors compared to the baseline condition, illustrating the difficulty in overcoming the strength of political polarization during COVID-19.
    1. CLAIM: Those who have had COVID-19 have natural immunity against the disease and do not need a vaccine. No one should be vaccinated without first testing for COVID-19 antibodies. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Studies have shown that infection from COVID-19 provides short-term immunity, but that protection fades over time. In addition, natural immunity differs from person to person. Even those who have had COVID-19 can benefit from the vaccine because it boosts existing immunity. THE FACTS: Social media users are spreading misleading information about immunity after COVID-19.
    1. This is a short technical brief with important steps and resources on how country programs can track and address rumors around COVID-19 (as needed). The guide includes a number of great resources and links while also sharing nuggets from global, collective thinking around rumors.
    1. In May 2012, the Decade of Vaccines (DoV) (1) collaboration presented for ratification a Global Vaccination Action Plan to the World Health Assembly. This document acknowledges that all stakeholders must do better with public acceptance of vaccination. Here, we propose a comprehensive new framework for vaccination advocacy that calls for a better understanding of public perceptions to build and sustain individual and community acceptance of vaccines.
    1. The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is the first pandemic in history in which technology and social media are being used on a massive scale to keep people safe, informed, productive and connected. At the same time, the technology we rely on to keep connected and informed is enabling and amplifying an infodemic that continues to undermine the global response and jeopardizes measures to control the pandemic.  
    1. Anti-vaccine sentiment can be extremely resistant to change, making it difficult to promote childhood vaccines. Thus, there is a need for effective strategies to communicate the benefits of vaccination to vaccine hesitant parents. Understanding how anti-vaccine advocates successfully persuade parents against vaccinating their children can provide insight into communication tactics that could be incorporated into vaccine promotion efforts. The internet is an important source of vaccine information for many parents, and plays a role informing vaccine hesitancy. To understand what might make anti-vaccine websites so convincing, we used persuasion theory as a lens to examine what information was being presented, and the persuasive tactics being used to communicate the information. We conducted a content analysis of 480 anti-vaccine websites. Four trained coders coded sites for the content of the vaccine information being presented, types of persuasive tactics used, and values and lifestyle norms associated with anti-vaccine advocacy. Anti-vaccine websites contain a considerable amount of misinformation, most commonly that vaccines are dangerous, cause autism and brain injury. Websites used both scientific evidence and anecdotes to support these claims. Values such as choice, freedom, and individuality were linked to anti-vaccine beliefs. The most commonly co-promoted behaviors included the use of alternative medicine and homeopathy, and eating a healthy or organic diet. Anti-vaccine websites use a battery of effective persuasive techniques to forward their agenda. The use of similar persuasive techniques and tapping into parents’ values and lifestyles are potentially useful strategies for vaccine promotion communication.
    1. Misinformation poses significant challenges to evidence-based practice. In the public health domain specifically, treatment misinformation can lead to opportunity costs or direct harm. Alas, attempts to debunk misinformation have proven sub-optimal, and have even been shown to “backfire”, including increasing misperceptions. Thus, optimized debunking strategies have been developed to more effectively combat misinformation. The aim of this study was to test these strategies in a real-world setting, targeting misinformation about autism interventions. In the context of professional development training, we randomly assigned participants to an “optimized-debunking” or a “treatment-as-usual” training condition and compared support for non-empirically-supported treatments before, after, and six weeks following completion of online training. Results demonstrated greater benefits of optimized debunking immediately after training; thus, the implemented strategies can serve as a general and flexible debunking template. However, the effect was not sustained at follow-up, highlighting the need for further research into strategies for sustained change.
    1. Science communication can be a tough game. There is so much noise — and misinformation — circulating in popular culture that it can be difficult to create a message that resonates.
    1. Loud, proud and wrong took center stage on podiums across the NBA, with star players gladly spouting off misinformation and nonsense reminiscent of presidential campaigns of recent vintage.
    1. It’s clear who loses from health misinformation. Mothers lose children after seeking advice in Facebook free-birth groups, measles break out in anti-vaxx communities, children with autism are poisoned from being fed bleach marketed as a miracle cure, and people die from misleading hope about a fake COVID-19 cure.
    1. Two studies investigated the effectiveness of a self-affirmation exercise on vaccine safety beliefs and intent to vaccinate future children. In Study 1, a sample of 585 parents with at least one child under the age of 18 in the home participated through Amazon’s MTurk. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 x 2 design. Participants read either correcting information refuting a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism or a control passage about bird feeding. Additionally, participants either completed a self-affirmation exercise where they reflected on their personal values or in a control condition in which they reflected on least-personally-important values that might be important to others. Participants exposed to the correcting information were less likely to believe that vaccines cause serious side effects, but no less likely to believe that the MMR vaccine causes autism. For parents with initially positive vaccine attitudes, there was no effect of condition on intent to vaccinate a future child. For parents with initially negative vaccine attitudes, self-affirmation was ineffective in the presence of correcting information and resulted in less intention to vaccinate in the absence of correcting information. This effect was partially replicated in Study 2 (N = 576), which provided no correcting information but otherwise followed the same procedure as Study 1.
    1. The main objective of this study was to determine whether one of the most commonly employed pro-vaccination strategies based on the "myths vs. facts" format can be considered an effective tool to counter vaccines misinformation. Sixty parents were randomly presented with either a control message or a booklet confronting some common myths about vaccines with a number of facts. Beliefs in the autism/vaccines link and in vaccines side effects, along with intention to vaccinate one's child, were evaluated both immediately after the intervention and after a 7-day delay to reveal possible backfire effects. Data provided support for the existence of backfire effects associated with the use of the myths vs. facts format, with parents in this condition having stronger vaccine misconceptions over time compared with participants in the control condition. The myths vs. facts strategy proved to be ineffective. Efforts to counter vaccine misinformation should take into account the many variables that affect the parents' decision-making.
    1. Internews first developed our rumour tracking methodology in 2014 in Liberia, in order to address the deadly Ebola outbreak. Since then, we’ve implemented rumour tracking as a way to address misinformation during humanitarian crises in numerous countries and contexts, reaching hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries. This guide was authored by Viviane Lucia Fluck, PhD, and produced with financial support from the United States Agency for International Development. The rumor tracking methodology, which is part of Internews’ Learning Collection, includes three parts: Context, Case Studies, and a How To Guide. The How To Guide is usually packaged separately for ease of use.
    1. The proliferation of disinformation online amidst the DRC’s outbreak of the Ebola virus is a serious threat to global health. Efforts to curb bad information and conspiracy theories on social media about the disease and other health issues have been no more successful in health than in other contexts.
    1. Pakistan is one of just two countries where polio is still endemic (Afghanistan is the other). The global initiative to eradicate polio in Pakistan has experienced varying degrees of success, but has been complicated by ongoing distrust in the motives of global health authorities and recent spikes in polio-related misinformation on social media. 
    1. How the US vaccine effort derailed and why we shouldn’t be surprisedLow vaccine rates may be the predictable outcome subject to entrenched social forces that have diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1980s, health researchers say
    1. The past several months have seen thousands of hospitals announce COVID-19 vaccination requirements for staff and clinicians as a condition of employment. <!--//--><![CDATA[// ><!-- document.addEventListener("googletagEvent", function () { let hideOnMobile = "0"; let isMobileQuery = false; if (typeof window.dataLayerValues === "undefined" || !window.dataLayerValues.hasOwnProperty('isMobileQuery') || window.dataLayerValues.isMobileQuery) { isMobileQuery = window.dataLayerValues.isMobileQuery; } // Don't display the ad unit if this is a mobile browser and we're supposed to hide the unit in mobile view. if (isMobileQuery && hideOnMobile === '1') { console.log("[debug] [mobile] [skipping] ad unit: ", 'content-embed-one'); return; } let hideOnDesktop = "0"; // Don't display this ad unit if this is a desktop broser and we're supposed to hide the mobile ad unit if(!isMobileQuery && hideOnDesktop === '1') { //console.log("[debug] [desktop] [skipping] ad unit on: ", 'content-embed-one',"hideOnDesktop:",hideOnDesktop); return; } //console.log("[debug] content-embed-one","firing"); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display('content-embed-one'); }); }); //--><!]]> Although controversial, the policies picked up steam when Pfizer and BioNTech’s Comirnaty received a full regulatory approval and then really kicked into gear when the Biden administration made workforce vaccination a requirement for Medicare and Medicaid participation. Most health system leaders and professional organizations have been supportive of the requirement, with some describing vaccination as “the logical fulfillment of the ethical commitment of all healthcare workers to put patients as well as residents of long-term care facilities first.” <!--//--><![CDATA[// ><!-- document.addEventListener("googletagEvent", function () { let hideOnMobile = "0"; let isMobileQuery = false; if (typeof window.dataLayerValues === "undefined" || !window.dataLayerValues.hasOwnProperty('isMobileQuery') || window.dataLayerValues.isMobileQuery) { isMobileQuery = window.dataLayerValues.isMobileQuery; } // Don't display the ad unit if this is a mobile browser and we're supposed to hide the unit in mobile view. if (isMobileQuery && hideOnMobile === '1') { console.log("[debug] [mobile] [skipping] ad unit: ", 'ad-slot_1__mobile'); return; } let hideOnDesktop = "1"; // Don't display this ad unit if this is a desktop broser and we're supposed to hide the mobile ad unit if(!isMobileQuery && hideOnDesktop === '1') { //console.log("[debug] [desktop] [skipping] ad unit on: ", 'ad-slot_1__mobile',"hideOnDesktop:",hideOnDesktop); return; } //console.log("[debug] ad-slot_1__mobile","firing"); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display('ad-slot_1__mobile'); }); }); //--><!]]> However, some executives and industry figures have warned that mandates might place provider organizations in a bind as disgruntled employees choose to walk away rather than comply.
    1. This week the Royal Society of Medicine held a webinar “Vaccines, variants and infections: the position this winter.” Almost 18 months after the UK’s first lockdown, Jacqui Wise listened to experts’ predictions
    1. Dear vaccinated, We did not take your freedom. The government did. We are not holding your freedoms to ransom. The government is. If we are a danger to you, then your vaccine doesn't work. If it does, then you should already be free. The government has lied to you.
    1. AbstractAs the COVID-19 pandemic continues causing problems around the world, Chile is facing a new episode of increasing cases and deaths. However, at the same time, the country has succeeded in providing vaccines for an important part of its population over a short period.What are the factors behind this successful process? What are the challenges faced by the country today? This article explores potential explanations for the “Chilean paradigm”, regarding the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Borrowing from implementation science frameworks, the analysis proposed an alternative explanation—based on multiple actors, approaches, and history—as opposed to one in which the outcome is due mainly to the government’s performance.The rapid and extensive coverage of vaccination can be explained by the role played by the government and the academia in securing vaccines through a pragmatic approach; the capacity built at local level, as well as the coordination between the health system and local authorities; and favorable vaccine culture, developed through the implementation of the National Immunization Program. Short and long-term elements (such as investment in infrastructure and relationships between stakeholders, and actions carried out during the pandemic), as well as contextual factors (such as the political and socioeconomic context), provide a more complex story to explain the observed outcomes.While other countries could try to follow the Chilean example, the article shows that short-term actions are necessary but might not be sufficient to achieve results. At a global level, the situation calls for rethinking how countries will face these global challenges, including issues such as international cooperation and global health governance.
    1. Three recent polls show that a majority of Americans support vaccine mandates.  The popularity of vaccine requirements has risen as the Delta variant surged. Hardline opposition to getting vaccinated has fallen to a new low. 
    1. Now that covid-19 vaccination of children in the UK is starting, it is essential that the legal basis of consent for a medical intervention in this group are well understood
    1. As of 28 July 2021, 60% of adults in the United States had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and more than 34 million cases had been reported. Given the uncertainty regarding undocumented infections, the population level of immunity against COVID-19 in the United States remains undetermined.Objective:To estimate the population immunity, defined as the proportion of the population that is protected against SARS-CoV-2 infection due to prior infection or vaccination.Design:Statistical and simulation modeling to estimate overall and age-specific population immunity.Setting:United States.Participants:Simulated age-stratified population representing U.S. demographic characteristics.Measurements:The true number of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the United States was inferred from data on reported deaths using age-specific infection-fatality rates (IFRs). Taking into account the estimates for vaccine effectiveness and protection against reinfection, the overall population immunity was determined as the sum of protection levels in vaccinated persons and those who were previously infected but not vaccinated.Results:Using age-specific IFR estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it was estimated that as of 15 July 2021, 114.9 (95% credible interval [CrI], 103.2 to 127.4) million persons had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the United States. The mean overall population immunity was 62.0% (CrI, 58.4% to 66.4%). Adults aged 65 years or older were estimated to have the highest immunity level (77.2% [CrI, 76.2% to 78.6%]), and children younger than 12 years had the lowest immunity level (17.9% [CrI, 14.4% to 21.9%]).Limitation:Publicly reported deaths may underrepresent actual deaths.Conclusion:As of 15 July 2021, the U.S. population immunity against COVID-19 may still have been insufficient to contain the outbreaks and safely revert to prepandemic social behavior.
    1. OTTAWA -- Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam says “active” discussions are underway with various countries, including the U.S., to permit the entry of Canadians with mixed COVID-19 vaccine doses.
    1. As the anti-vaccine movement escalates its rhetoric, doctors warn that they're dealing with the fallout: "They’re starting to target people, the messengers — nurses and doctors."
    1. The number of people in these ivermectin groups have exploded. So has the number of people in the groups who have contracted COVID, since the groups are largely filled with unvaccinated people seeking "alternative therapies." So they developed a makeshift “protocol.”
    1. We have been asked on WhatsApp whether pregnant women will be prioritised for booster Covid-19 vaccines, and what the current guidance is. 
    1. Could a simple rule of thumb help to find the truth? People struggle with integrating many putative cues to deception into an accurate veracity judgement. Heuristics simplify difficult decisions by ignoring most of the information and relying instead only on a few but highly diagnostic cues (’Use the best, ignore the rest’). We examined whether people would be able to tell lie from truth when instructed to make decisions based on a single, diagnostic cue (verifiability and richness in detail). We show that these simple judgements by lay people allowed to discriminate dishonest from honest statements. These judgements performed at or above state-of-the-art, resource-intensive content analysis by trained coders. For a tech- and training-free approach, heuristics were surprisingly accurate, and hold promise for practice.
    1. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the mental health of many individuals and has caused global increases in psychological distress. Research has shown that social support, psychological flexibility, and coping mechanisms are important protective factors against psychological distress. However, recent evidence suggested that psychological flexibility might not be a coping mechanism but could be the mechanisms to determine the type of coping approach an individual will employ during stressful events. In this study, we test a novel theoretical mediation model to identify if, during stressful events (i.e., COVID-19), individuals perceived level of social support directly increases their psychological flexibility; and if the effect of psychological flexibility on psychological distress is mediated by approach and avoidant coping strategies. To test the model, 360 participants completed the following surveys: COVID-19 concerns scale, the multidimensional scale of perceived social support, the comprehensive assessment of acceptance and commitment therapy, and the brief COPE. Results show that most participants report a high level of psychological distress. One novel finding in our study was the mediating role of coping mechanism between psychological flexibility and psychological distress. Our results partially confirm that psychological flexibility might influence the type of coping an individual will employ during stressful events. Within the context of COVID-19, we have shown that social support, psychological flexibility and the types of coping mechanisms individuals employ have an impact on their levels of psychological distress. However, we argue that the proposed model could be applied to other stressful events.
    1. Misinformation about COVID-19 is a major threat to public health. Using five national samples from the UK (n= 1050 and n= 1150), Ireland (n = 700), the USA (n = 700), Spain (n= 700) and Mexico (n= 700), we examine predictors of belief in the most common statements about the virus that contain misinformation. We also investigate the prevalence of belief in COVID-19 misinformation across different countries and the role of belief in such misinformation in predicting relevant health behaviours. We find that while public belief in misinformation about COVID-19 is not particularly common, a substantial proportion views this type of misinformation as highly reliable in each country surveyed. In addition, a small group of participants find common factual information about the virus highly unreliable. We also find that increased susceptibility to misinformation negatively affects people's self-reported compliance with public health guidance about COVID-19, as well as people's willingness to get vaccinated against the virus and to recommend the vaccine to vulnerable friends and family. Across all countries surveyed, we find that higher trust in scientists and having higher numeracy skills were associated with lower susceptibility to coronavirus-related misinformation. Taken together, these results demonstrate a clear link between susceptibility to misinformation and both vaccine hesitancy and a reduced likelihood to comply with health guidance measures, and suggest that interventions which aim to improve critical thinking and trust in science may be a promising avenue for future research.
    1. We identified the 2,000 most active Twitter accounts in the vaccine discourse from 2019, identifying both vaccine opponents and proponents. Only 17% of this sample appeared to be bots.  In addition to tweeting about vaccines, vaccine opponents also tweeted about conservative politics and conspiracy theories. Vaccine proponents tended to represent doctors, researchers, or health organizations, but also included non-medical accounts.On February 20, we collected the most recent tweets for each account and automatically extracted 35 distinct topics of conversation related to COVID-19 (roughly 80,000 tweets). Topics were categorized as: more reliable (public health updates & news), less reliable (discussion), and unreliable (misinformation). Misinformation included conspiracy theories, unverifiable rumors, and scams promoting untested prevention/cures.Vaccine opponents shared the greatest proportion (35.4%) of unreliable information topics including a mix of conspiracy theories, rumors, and scams.  Vaccine proponents shared a much lower proportion of unreliable information topics (11.3%). Across both vaccine proponents and vaccine opponents, the largest single topic of conversation was “Disease & Vaccine Narratives,” a discussion-based topic where users made comparisons between COVID-19 and other diseases—most notably influenza. These messages likely added to public confusion around the seriousness and nature of COVID-19 that endures months later. In the context of an ‘infodemic,’ efforts to address and correct misinformation are complicated by the high levels of scientific uncertainty. Focusing on only the most conspicuous forms of misinformation—blatant conspiracy theories, bot-driven narratives, and known communities linked by conspiracist ideologies—is one approach to addressing misinformation, but given the complexity of the current moment, this strategy may fail to address the more subtle types of falsehoods that may be shared more broadly. 
    1. ObjectiveUsing longitudinal methods to assess regional associations between social media posts about vaccines and attitudes and actual vaccination against influenza in the US.MethodsGeolocated tweets from U.S. counties (N = 115,330) were analyzed using MALLET LDA (Latent Dirichlet allocation) topic modeling techniques to correlate with prospective individual survey data (N = 3005) about vaccine attitudes, actual vaccination, and real-life discussions about vaccines with family and friends during the 2018–2019 influenza season.ResultsTen topics were common across U.S. counties during the 2018–2019 influenza season. In the overall analyses, two of these topics (i.e., Vaccine Science Matters and Big Pharma) were associated with attitudes and behaviors. The topic concerning vaccine science in November-February was positively correlated with attitudes in February-March, r = 0.09, BF10 = 3. Moreover, among respondents who did not discuss the influenza vaccine with family and friends, the topic about vaccine fraud and children in November-February was negatively correlated with attitudes in February-March and with vaccination in February-March, and April-May (rs = −0.18 to −0.25, BF10 = 4–146). However, this was absent when participants had discussions about the influenza vaccine with family and friends.DiscussionRegional vaccine content correlated with prospective measures of vaccine attitudes and actual vaccination.ConclusionsSocial media have demonstrated strong associations with vaccination patterns. When the associations are negative, discussions with family and friends appear to eliminate them. Programs to promote vaccination should encourage real-life conversations about vaccines.
    1. People’s inability to update their memories in light of corrective information may have important public health consequences, as in the case of vaccination choice. In the present study, we compare three potentially effective strategies in vaccine promotion: one contrasting myths vs. facts, one employing fact and icon boxes, and one showing images of non-vaccinated sick children. Beliefs in the autism/vaccines link and in vaccines side effects, along with intention to vaccinate a future child, were evaluated both immediately after the correction intervention and after a 7-day delay to reveal possible backfire effects. Results show that existing strategies to correct vaccine misinformation are ineffective and often backfire, resulting in the unintended opposite effect, reinforcing ill-founded beliefs about vaccination and reducing intentions to vaccinate. The implications for research on vaccines misinformation and recommendations for progress are discussed.
    1. We have each spent more than 50 years doing research that has had little impact. Even more lamentable is that our field, judgment and decision making (JDM), has on the whole had little impact during that span. We attribute that failure to the use of methodologies that emphasize testing models rather than looking for differences in behavior. The “cognitive revolution” led the field astray, toward the goal of studying model fit rather than comparing observable results. With modeling as the goal, experimentation was stultified. Simple tasks became dominant. Although a poor metaphor for real decision making, the gambling paradigm has lasted forever because the inputs to the decision are known to the researcher and thus easily modeled.
    1. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a significant toll on the global population, but biotechnology has a big role to play in arresting the spread of the virus. However, the adoption of biotechnologies may be held back by cognitive biases. In particular, omission bias – the observation that people are more sensitive to the negative outcomes of acting than to those of failing to act – has been suggested to influence vaccination decision making. Omission bias might also underpin attitudes towards newer biotechnologies. In this study, we explored the role of omission bias in vaccination, gene editing, and nanotechnology decision-making using a US sample (N = 613). We examined participant’s risk choices across these three biotechnologies, focussing on the point at which they would use the respective biotechnology to treat a fictional illness (COVID-23). Although our findings are nuanced, overall we observed evidence consistent with an omission bias across all three biotechnologies.
    1. The early signs were not good. France is a poster child for vaccine scepticism and surveys last year revealed a lack of enthusiasm for any COVID-19 vaccine. In the 2016 Vaccine Confidence Index, France was the hesitancy hotspot. Just 41% of people agreed that vaccines are safe. A similar EU study in 2018 suggested some improvement but, as COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out, there was reason for pessimism in Paris. There was no reason to hope that minds would change during a public health crisis. During the 2009/2010 H1N1 flu pandemic, vaccine uptake in France was abysmal. Even among GPs, flu vaccine uptake in 2010 was low. A study on attitudes to COVID-19 vaccines published in April 2021, predicted 29% refusal rates. 
    1. Knowing what misinformation is being shared can help you generate effective messaging.These insights are based on a combination of automated media monitoring and manual review by public health data analysts. Media data are publicly available data from many sources, such as social media, broadcast television, newspapers and magazines, news websites, online video, blogs, and more. Analysts from the Public Good Projects triangulate this data along with other data from fact checking organizations and investigative sources to provide an accurate, but not exhaustive, list of currently circulating misinformation.
    1. Here’s a round up of the latest key developments: Coronavirus has caused male life expectancy in the UK to drop for the first time since records began. A boy born between 2018 and 2020 is expected to live until he is 79 years old - a drop from 79.2 years for 2015-2017, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. The number of people testing positive for Covid-19 in England has dropped to its lowest level since the end of June. Novavax has announced that it has applied to the World Health Organization for an emergency-use listing of its Covid-19 vaccine. The listing is a prerequisite for export to several countries participating in the Covax vaccine-sharing facility Covid-19 could resemble the common cold by spring next year as people’s immunity to the virus is boosted by vaccines and exposure, a leading British expert has said. Prof Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, said the UK was “over the worst”. Portugal will lift almost all remaining Covid-19 restrictions, allowing full occupancy in restaurants and cultural venues from 1 October, the prime minister, Antonio Costa, said on Thursday. Thailand is considering cutting hotel isolation requirements for vaccinated tourists in half to one week in a bid to attract foreign visitors again. It comes amid delays to plans to waive quarantine and reopen Bangkok and other tourist destinations from next month after the pandemic caused a collapse in the country’s tourism industry Covid deaths in Russia, where 820 people died from the virus in the last 24 hours, matched the all-time one-day high reached in August. Since the start of the pandemic, Russia has recorded 7,354,995 coronavirus cases. The US Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized a booster dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for those ages 65 and older and some high-risk Americans, paving the way for a quick rollout of the shots, Reuters reports. In the UK, record numbers of children and young people are seeking access to NHS mental health services, figures show, as the devastating toll of the pandemic is revealed in a new analysis. In just three months, nearly 200,000 young people have been referred to mental health services – almost double pre-pandemic levels, according to the report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. More than 100 countries face cuts to public spending on health, education and social protection as the Covid-19 pandemic compounds already high levels of debt, a new report says. The International Monetary Fund believes that 35 to 40 countries are “debt distressed” – defined as when a country is experiencing difficulties in servicing its debt, such as when there are arrears or debt restructuring. A judge in the Netherlands has ruled that a 12-year-old boy can be administered a Covid vaccine against the wishes of his father. The unnamed boy in the city of Groningen had argued that he needed a vaccine to safely visit his dying grandmother. AstraZeneca has announced a deal with a startup founded by an Imperial College London vaccinologist to develop and sell drugs based on its self-amplifying RNA technology platform in other disease areas. That’s it from me. I’m handing over to my colleague Nadeem Badshah now. Thanks so much for joining me today.
    2. Thanks for following along – this blog is now closed. You can catch up with the latest coronavirus coverage here.
    1. The 2020 US mortality totaled 2.8 million after early March, which is 17.3% higher than age-population–weighted mortality over the same time interval in 2017 to 2019, for a total excess death count of 413,592. We use data on weekly death counts by cause, as well as life tables, to quantify excess mortality and life years lost from both COVID-19 and non–COVID-19 causes by race/ethnicity, age, and gender/sex. Excess mortality from non–COVID-19 causes is substantial and much more heavily concentrated among males and minorities, especially Black, non-Hispanic males, than COVID-19 deaths. Thirty-four percent of the excess life years lost for males is from non–COVID-19 causes. While minorities represent 36% of COVID-19 deaths, they represent 70% of non–COVID-19 related excess deaths and 58% of non–COVID-19 excess life years lost. Black, non-Hispanic males represent only 6.9% of the population, but they are responsible for 8.9% of COVID-19 deaths and 28% of 2020 excess deaths from non–COVID-19 causes. For this group, nearly half of the excess life years lost in 2020 are due to non–COVID-19 causes.
    1. Vaccines typically require years of research and testing before reaching the clinic, but in 2020, scientists embarked on a race to produce safe and effective coronavirus vaccines in record time. Researchers are currently testing 105 vaccines in clinical trials on humans, and 35 have reached the final stages of testing. More than 75 preclinical vaccines are under active investigation in animals.
    1. Today, President Biden convened heads of state and leaders from international organizations, the private sector, philanthropies, non-government organizations, and other partners for the Global COVID-19 Summit: Ending the Pandemic and Building Back Better, a virtual summit on the margins of the UN General Assembly.
    1. Previous research has demonstrated that higher levels of belief in conspiracy theories are related to higher levels of distrust toward others, greater antisocial tendencies, and more self-centeredness. These findings suggest that conspiracy believers may also be less likely to be generous. However, very little research has thus far investigated this possibility. In the current study, we examined the association between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and generosity across a sample of 45,073 participants from 52 countries. We found that participants with higher COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs were less likely to donate to national and international charities, and that this negative association was stronger for donations to national charities. Exploratory analyses revealed that the discrepancy between national and international charity donations was more salient in countries with high levels of corruption, suggesting that conspiracy believers might be more suspicious of ingroups, rather than outgroups, in more corrupt countries.
    1. The current climate surrounding childhood vaccination in the United States is one of confusion and vitriol. Despite the well-documented achievements of vaccines and extensive efforts by the public health community to ensure their safety, vocal critics of vaccination proffer a growing list of theories that link vaccines to an array of medical conditions, most prominently autism. Others question the necessity of newer vaccines, seeing their arrivals not as triumphs of medical research but as overreaches by a profit-obsessed pharmaceutical industry and an accommodating, financially conflicted medical establishment. In response to these charges, physicians, scientists, and government public health officials are routinely on the defensive, refuting allegations of unconfirmed risks, justifying the value of recommended vaccines, and striving to preserve public trust in vaccination overall. While national data suggest that a strong foundation of support for vaccination remains, regional clusters of unvaccinated children and increases in nonmedical exemptions from state school-entry vaccination requirements are causes for alarm among advocates of vaccines. Even more worrisome is research suggesting that the safety of vaccines is a growing concern among many parents [1]. The contours of the current debate regarding vaccination may be notable for their novelty—new vaccines, new recommendations, new research evidence, and new trends in diagnoses, to name a few examples. Just as striking, however, are the echoes in contemporary vaccine debates of the history of such movements. At the heart of these conflicts are the complex, long-contested relationships among citizens, science, and the state and their implications for public health policy and practice. The historical antecedents of contemporary vaccine hesitancy and refusal reveal that the present state of affairs is not an unprecedented crisis but an opportunity for renewed education, dialogue, and consensus-building regarding the value of vaccines.
    1. The phenomenon known as vaccine hesitancy (a term that includes the concepts of indecision, uncertainty, delay and reluctance) is complex, closely linked to social contexts, and has different determinants: historical period, geographical area, political situation, complacency, convenience and confidence in vaccines. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that vaccine hesitancy and any proxy of it should be constantly monitored. Given the growing importance and pervasiveness of information and communication technologies (ICTs), the new media could be exploited in order to track lay-people's perceptions of vaccination in real time, thereby enabling health-care workers to actively engage citizens and to plan ad hoc communication strategies. Analysis of so-called "sentiments" expressed through the new media (such as Twitter) and the real-time tracking of web-related activities enabled by Google Trends, combined with the administration of specific online "surveys" on well-defined themes to target groups (such as health-care workers), could constitute a "Fast data monitoring system" that yields a snapshot of perceptions of vaccination in a given place and at a specific time. This type of dashboard could be a strategic tool that enables public services to organize targeted communication actions aimed at containing vaccine hesitancy.
    1. Influenza vaccines have a long history of safety and demonstrated efficacy; however, they are seldom used in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Although reasons for underuse are multifactorial and differ from country to country, the need for up to twice-annual reformulation and yearly vaccination are obstacles to influenza prevention in LMICs. Major efforts are underway to produce next-generation influenza vaccines that provide durable protection against drifted strains, and such vaccines could address these unmet needs. However, additional information is required to influence immunization policies in most LMICs. Better estimates of vaccine impact on important public health outcomes, more affordable vaccines, improved programmatic suitability, and strengthened immunization delivery infrastructures are needed and must be considered early during the development of new vaccines if widespread adoption in LMICs is to be achieved.
    1. Background: Despite the availability of a universal influenza vaccination program in the United States and Canada, seasonal influenza vaccine (SIV) uptake among the elderly remains suboptimal. Understanding the factors that determine SIV uptake in this important population subgroup is essential for designing effective interventions to improve seasonal influenza vaccination among the elderly. We evaluated the determinants of SIV uptake in the elderly in the United States and Canada. Methods: We systematically searched relevant bibliographic databases and websites from 2000 to 2017 for population-based clinical trials or observational studies conducted in community-based elderly individuals in the United States or Canada, irrespective of health status. Two reviewers independently screened the identified citations for eligibility using a two-stage sifting approach to review the title/abstract and full-text article. We gathered data on determinants of uptake (any vaccine receipt) and adherence (receipt of vaccine in more than one season) to seasonal influenza vaccination. Where possible, we pooled the data using inverse variance methods to minimize the variance of the weighted average. Results: Five cross-sectional studies on SIV uptake (none on adherence) from the United States met our eligibility criteria. Being older (pooled odds ratio [POR] = 1.44, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] = 1.11, 1.86); White (POR = 1.33, 95% CI = [1.10, 1.64]); and having higher income (POR = 1.06, 95% CI = [1.04, 1.09]); and health insurance (POR = 1.40, 95% CI = [1.25, 1.55]) were associated with increased SIV uptake. Conclusion: Older, ethnically White, higher income elderly individuals with access to health insurance coverage and a regular health care provider have higher SIV uptake in the United States. There was limited evidence for other socioeconomic and health-related determinants. Further studies are needed to provide an evidence base for planning more effective influenza vaccination programs in the United States.
    1. An annual influenza (flu) vaccination is recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for all people 6 months and older who do not have contraindications to vaccination; vaccination is the primary way to prevent sickness and death caused by flu.[1] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analyzed data from two telephone surveys, the National Immunization Survey-Flu (NIS-Flu) and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), to estimate flu vaccination coverage for the U.S. population during the 2018–19 flu season. Vaccination coverage with ≥1 dose of flu vaccine was 62.6% among children 6 months through 17 years, an increase of 4.7 percentage points from the 2017–18 flu season and 3.6 percentage points higher than coverage in the 2016–17 season. Flu vaccination coverage among adults ≥18 years was 45.3%, an increase of 8.2 percentage points from the 2017–18 flu season and 2.0 percentage points higher than the 2016–17 season. Vaccination coverage varied by state, ranging from 46.0%–81.1% among children and from 33.9%–56.3% among adults, and of the ten states with the lowest coverage for children eight were also among the ten states with the lowest coverage for adults. Interpretation of the estimates in this report should take into account limitations of the surveys, including reliance on self-report/parental-report of vaccination status, low response rates, and level of consistency with findings from other surveys and data sources. CDC is exploring the use of administrative data sources to track flu vaccination coverage. To improve flu vaccination coverage, healthcare providers are encouraged to offer influenza vaccination during routine health care visits and hospitalizations, continuing to offer vaccination as long as influenza viruses are circulating. For people who cannot visit a doctor’s office during the flu season, there are alternative and convenient places available for flu vaccinations. Improvements in vaccination coverage could provide greater benefit; in a recently published study, CDC estimated that increasing coverage by five percentage points could have prevented another 4,000 to 11,000 hospitalizations, depending on the severity of the season.[2]
    1. Depersonalisation is a common dissociative experience characterised by distressing feelings of being detached or ‘estranged’ from one’s self and body and/or the world. The COVID-19 pandemic forced millions of people to socially distance from others and to change life habits. We have conducted an online study on 622 participants worldwide to investigate the relationship between digital media-based activities and distal social interactions in influencing peoples’ sense of self during the lockdown as opposed to before the pandemic. We found that increased use of digital media-based activities and online social e-meetings correlated with higher feelings of depersonalisation. We also found that people reporting higher experiences of depersonalisation also reported enhanced vividness of negative emotions (as opposed to positive emotions). Our study also reveals a weak negative correlation between the frequency of physical exercise during the lockdown and the occurrence of depersonalisation experiences. Finally, participants who reported that lockdown influenced their life to greater extent had higher occurrences of depersonalisation experiences. Our findings may help address key questions regarding well-being during a lockdown, in the general population. Our study points to potential risks related to an overly sedentary and hyper-digitalized life habits that may induce feelings of living in one’s ‘head’ (mind), disconnected from one’s body, self and the world.
    1. During the COVID-19 pandemic, government-mandated protection measures such as contact restrictions and mask wearing significantly affected social interactions. In the current preregistered study we hypothesized that such measures could influence self-reported mood and the ability to recognize emotional expressions from the eye region of faces. We found that mood was positively related to face-to-face but not to virtual interactions. This suggests that contact restrictions leading to a decrease in face-to-face compared to virtual interactions may be related to negative mood. We also found slight improvements in emotion recognition from the eyes in a student sample tested during the pandemic relative to a comparable sample tested prior to the pandemic although these differences were restricted to female participants.
    1. The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine has been shown to be safe and highly effective in young children ages 5 to 11 years, the companies announced early Monday morning. The news should help ease months of anxiety among parents and teachers about when children, and their close contacts, might be shielded from the coronavirus.
    1. Antiviral drugs are among the most researched tools for treating covid-19. They either prevent a virus entering a host cell or prevent it from being able to replicate once it is inside.And yet, over 18 months into the pandemic, finding ones that are effective against SARS-CoV-2 has proved challenging.
    1. pandemics: where everyone’s actions only affect themselves & their family and never anyone else
    1. @HPRU_BSE @JoshCompton2011 @WlliamCrozierIV @SeifertColleen @d_j_flynn @M_B_Petersen @tinaeliassi @UlliEcker @BrendanNyhan @JaneSuit @DanLarhammar @mariabaghramian @PieroBianucci @a_b_powell @ProfDFreeman @andrew_chadwick @ipanalysis @SineadPLambe @SJVanders @mariejuanchich 6/6
    2. @julieleask @profrapp @roozenbot @PhilippMSchmid @GaleSinatra @emilythorson @ekvraga @LeticiaBode @lkfazio @JasonReifler @philipplenz6 @jayvanbavel @AndyPerfors @MicahGoldwater @M_B_Petersen @Karen_Douglas @CorneliaBetsch @ira_hyman @lingtax @annaklas_ @DerynStrange @adamhfinn 5
    3. @olbeun @SciBeh @lombardi_learn @kostas_exarhia @stefanmherzog @commscholar @johnfocook @Briony_Swire @Sander_vdLinden @DG_Rand @kendeou @dlholf @ProfSunitaSah @HendirkB @gordpennycook @andyguess @emmapsychology @ThomsonAngus @UMDCollegeofEd @gavaruzzi @katytapper @orspaca 4/n
    4. The latest on public attitudes now at https://c19vax.scibeh.org/pages/publicattitudes… More facts about COVID https://c19vax.scibeh.org/pages/covidfacts… And information about healthcare professionals vis-a-vis COVID: https://c19vax.scibeh.org/pages/healthpros… 3/n
    5. The latest on vaccine mandates on our page at https://c19vax.scibeh.org/pages/vaxmandates… Updates to the issue of risk perception at https://c19vax.scibeh.org/pages/riskperception… 2/n
    6. Major update to the wiki underlying our COVID-19 Vaccination Communication Handbook https://sks.to/c19vax 1/n
    1. What do the data on hospital admissions show?An analysis of UK data from the National Immunisation Management Service (NIMS) and the Coronavirus Clinical Information Network (CO-CIN),1 endorsed by the UK Scientific and Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE),2 shows that of 40 000 patients with covid-19 who were admitted to hospital between December 2020 and July 2021 a total of 33 496 (84%) had not been vaccinated. It found that 5198 (13%) of these patients had received their first vaccine and 1274 (3%) their second. A total of 611 patients with previous covid-19 (reinfection) were not included in the analysis.Is the picture similar for deaths?The important figure here is the number of “breakthrough” deaths, those involving covid-19 that occurred in someone who had received both vaccine doses and had a first positive PCR test result at least 14 days after the second vaccination dose. Data from the Office of National Statistics show that 256 (0.5%) of the 51 281 covid related deaths that occurred in England between 2 January and 2 July 2021 were breakthrough deaths.3 Nearly two thirds (61.1%) of the breakthrough deaths were in men, whereas 52.2% of other covid-19 deaths were in men. And 13.1% of breakthrough deaths were people who were identified from hospital episode data or causes of death as likely to have been immunocompromised, compared with 5.4% for other covid-19 deaths. SAGE noted this trend in its latest minutes, stating, “Vaccination generally reduced the odds of in-hospital mortality, although immunocompromised patients in the study had persistently high risk of mortality after both first and second dose vaccines.”4
    1. At a certain point, it was no longer a matter of if the United States would reach the gruesome milestone of 1 in 500 people dying of covid-19, but a matter of when. A year? Maybe 15 months? The answer: 19 months.Given the mortality rate from covid and our nation’s population size, “we’re kind of where we predicted we would be with completely uncontrolled spread of infection,” said Jeffrey D. Klausner, clinical professor of medicine, population and public health sciences at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. “Remember at the very beginning, which we don’t hear about anymore, it was all about flatten the curve.”
    1. There is no perfect option and it is a matter of choosing "the best set of trade-offs that we would wish to have", said Associate Professor Hsu Li Yang, an infectious diseases expert at the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health.
    1. How does Australia’s coronavirus vaccine rollout and schedule compare with other countries, and when will Australia reach 70% and 80% double dose vaccination? We bring together the latest numbers on the vaccination rate in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and other states, as well as stats, maps, live data and Indigenous vaccination rates.
    1. People living with chronic conditions such as Down’s syndrome and dementia remain among the most vulnerable to Covid-19 even after vaccination, research has found.The study, based on data from more than 6.9 million vaccinated adults, 5.2 million of whom had received both doses, found that being vaccinated offers powerful protection against hospitalisation for almost all groups. However, a risk calculator based on the data shows that some groups remain at particular risk and may benefit from booster vaccine doses and treatments such as monoclonal antibodies.
    1. Rates of infection and of severe illness were substantially lower in people aged over 60 who received a booster (third) dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine than in those who had only two doses, Israeli researchers have reported.1
    1. AbstractObjectives To derive and validate risk prediction algorithms to estimate the risk of covid-19 related mortality and hospital admission in UK adults after one or two doses of covid-19 vaccination.Design Prospective, population based cohort study using the QResearch database linked to data on covid-19 vaccination, SARS-CoV-2 results, hospital admissions, systemic anticancer treatment, radiotherapy, and the national death and cancer registries.Settings Adults aged 19-100 years with one or two doses of covid-19 vaccination between 8 December 2020 and 15 June 2021.Main outcome measures Primary outcome was covid-19 related death. Secondary outcome was covid-19 related hospital admission. Outcomes were assessed from 14 days after each vaccination dose. Models were fitted in the derivation cohort to derive risk equations using a range of predictor variables. Performance was evaluated in a separate validation cohort of general practices.Results Of 6 952 440 vaccinated patients in the derivation cohort, 5 150 310 (74.1%) had two vaccine doses. Of 2031 covid-19 deaths and 1929 covid-19 hospital admissions, 81 deaths (4.0%) and 71 admissions (3.7%) occurred 14 days or more after the second vaccine dose. The risk algorithms included age, sex, ethnic origin, deprivation, body mass index, a range of comorbidities, and SARS-CoV-2 infection rate. Incidence of covid-19 mortality increased with age and deprivation, male sex, and Indian and Pakistani ethnic origin. Cause specific hazard ratios were highest for patients with Down’s syndrome (12.7-fold increase), kidney transplantation (8.1-fold), sickle cell disease (7.7-fold), care home residency (4.1-fold), chemotherapy (4.3-fold), HIV/AIDS (3.3-fold), liver cirrhosis (3.0-fold), neurological conditions (2.6-fold), recent bone marrow transplantation or a solid organ transplantation ever (2.5-fold), dementia (2.2-fold), and Parkinson’s disease (2.2-fold). Other conditions with increased risk (ranging from 1.2-fold to 2.0-fold increases) included chronic kidney disease, blood cancer, epilepsy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronary heart disease, stroke, atrial fibrillation, heart failure, thromboembolism, peripheral vascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. A similar pattern of associations was seen for covid-19 related hospital admissions. No evidence indicated that associations differed after the second dose, although absolute risks were reduced. The risk algorithm explained 74.1% (95% confidence interval 71.1% to 77.0%) of the variation in time to covid-19 death in the validation cohort. Discrimination was high, with a D statistic of 3.46 (95% confidence interval 3.19 to 3.73) and C statistic of 92.5. Performance was similar after each vaccine dose. In the top 5% of patients with the highest predicted covid-19 mortality risk, sensitivity for identifying covid-19 deaths within 70 days was 78.7%.Conclusion This population based risk algorithm performed well showing high levels of discrimination for identifying those patients at highest risk of covid-19 related death and hospital admission after vaccination.
    1. Doctors are still watching the data to see if there’s a Labor Day weekend bump, but generally speaking they say efforts in Connecticut are working, as the numbers show.However, the Centers for Disease Control is also watching two new variants. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('ad-681744'); }); For the third time in the last week, the governor’s daily COVID update shows a drop in hospitalizations.
    1. Getting people to agree to covid-19 vaccination is an ongoing challenge in the US. But one demographic group shines, reports Joanne Silberner
    1. A cheap 5-minute test can accurately determine whether you have had covid-19 in the past or determine whether you have protection from a vaccine by detecting antibodies in blood or saliva. When a person is infected with the coronavirus or is vaccinated against it, their immune system produces antibodies to fight the virus. These antibodies continue to be produced for at least six months, so they can be used to detect a past infection or vaccine response. Tests for coronavirus antibodies already exist, but they tend to be expensive, complicated or not very accurate.
    1. A better understanding of the metabolic alterations in immune cells during severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection may elucidate the wide diversity of clinical symptoms experienced by individuals with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Here, we report the metabolic changes associated with the peripheral immune response of 198 individuals with COVID-19 through an integrated analysis of plasma metabolite and protein levels as well as single-cell multiomics analyses from serial blood draws collected during the first week after clinical diagnosis. We document the emergence of rare but metabolically dominant T cell subpopulations and find that increasing disease severity correlates with a bifurcation of monocytes into two metabolically distinct subsets. This integrated analysis reveals a robust interplay between plasma metabolites and cell-type-specific metabolic reprogramming networks that is associated with disease severity and could predict survival.
    1. Germany has decided to stop using the coronavirus infection rate as its yardstick for deciding if restrictions should be in force to contain the spread of the virus, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday.
    1. A link is plausible and should be investigated Common side effects of covid-19 vaccination listed by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) include a sore arm, fever, fatigue, and myalgia.1 Changes to periods and unexpected vaginal bleeding are not listed, but primary care clinicians and those working in reproductive health are increasingly approached by people who have experienced these events shortly after vaccination. More than 30 000 reports of these events had been made to MHRA’s yellow card surveillance scheme for adverse drug reactions by 2 September 2021, across all covid-19 vaccines currently offered.1Most people who report a change to their period after vaccination find that it returns to normal the following cycle and, importantly, there is no evidence that covid-19 vaccination adversely affects fertility. In clinical trials, unintended pregnancies occurred at similar rates in vaccinated and unvaccinated groups.2 In assisted reproduction clinics, fertility measures and pregnancy rates are similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated patients.34
    1. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented upheaval for universities and their delivery of education and training. Many institutions have adapted to lockdown and social distancing requirements by moving teaching and research online.This resulted in a huge change in the teaching and learning dynamic between staff and students, with the suspension of face-to-face teaching (including lectures, seminars and one-to-one sessions) as well as placements and other programme specific activities that required direct contact with others. Many students were restricted to halls or other university accommodation, others (UK and overseas) returned home to continue their studies online. Although research has been conducted on the impacts of Covid-19; particularly around the experiences, behaviour and wellbeing of university students, very little focused specifically on academic staff during the pandemic and none on those just in psychology
    1. Risk of severe disease drops by factor of almost 20 in people over 60 — but some dispute the benefits of offering a third dose.
    1. Despite the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines, the United States has a depressed rate of vaccination as of September 2021. Understanding the psychology of collective vaccine refusal, particularly the sources of variation across U.S. sub-populations, can aid in designing effective intervention strategies to increase vaccination across different regions. Here, we demonstrate that county-level moral values (i.e., Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity) are associated with COVID-19 vaccination rates across 3,106 counties in the contiguous United States. Specifically, in line with our hypothesis, we find that fewer people are vaccinated in counties whose residents prioritize moral concerns about bodily and spiritual purity. Further, we find that stronger endorsements of concerns about fairness and loyalty to the group predict higher vaccination rates. These associations are robust after adjusting for structural barriers to vaccination, the demographic make-up of the counties, and their residents' political voting behavior. Our findings have implications for health communication, intervention strategies based on targeted messaging, and our fundamental understanding of the moral psychology of vaccination hesitancy and behavior.
    1. It looks different in the regions when it comes to the proportion of 16- and 17-year-olds who have been vaccinated before starting school. In the Uppsala Region, just over 70 per cent were vaccinated even on Friday, while the Kronoberg Region vaccinated just under eleven per cent even on Thursday. "We hope that it provides good conditions for upper secondary schools," says Erik Sköldenberg, chief physician in the Uppsala Region.
    1. A new wave of COVID-19 cases caused by the highly transmissible delta variant is exacerbating the worldwide public health crisis, and has led to consideration of the potential need for, and optimal timing of, booster doses for vaccinated populations.1 Although the idea of further reducing the number of COVID-19 cases by enhancing immunity in vaccinated people is appealing, any decision to do so should be evidence-based and consider the benefits and risks for individuals and society. COVID-19 vaccines continue to be effective against severe disease, including that caused by the delta variant. Most of the observational studies on which this conclusion is based are, however, preliminary and difficult to interpret precisely due to potential confounding and selective reporting. Careful and public scrutiny of the evolving data will be needed to assure that decisions about boosting are informed by reliable science more than by politics. Even if boosting were eventually shown to decrease the medium-term risk of serious disease, current vaccine supplies could save more lives if used in previously unvaccinated populations than if used as boosters in vaccinated populations.
    1. A majority of Americans — including suburban voters — support vaccine mandates for federal workers as well as private companies, according to the latest installment of the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index.
    1. The risk of 12-15 year old healthy boys experiencing cardiac adverse events such as myocarditis after their second dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is around four times adolescents’ risk of being admitted to hospital as a result of infection with SARS-CoV-2, a preprint study has found.1
    1. “Dumpster diving” is a term used to describe studies using data from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System database by authors, almost always antivaxxers, who don’t understand its limitations. Last week, non-antivax doctors who should know better fell into this trap when they promoted their study suggesting that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are more dangerous to children than the disease.
    1. As the U.S. continues inoculating adults and adolescents, questions remain about vaccinating the 48 million kids under the age of 12. With the delta variant raging, almost five times as many children are being hospitalized for COVID-19. The American Academy of Pediatrics has called on the FDA to pick up the pace. William Brangham discusses with Dr. Lee Beers, president of the academy.
    1. A simple blood test could help predict which people with covid-19 are likely to get severely ill and need to go on a ventilator. The test measures levels of antibodies in the blood that are directed against molecules released by dead blood cells, including their own DNA.
    1. BackgroundAs the world begins the rollout of multiple COVID-19 vaccines, pandemic exit strategies hinge on widespread acceptance of these vaccines. In this study, we perform a large-scale global exploratory study to examine the levels of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and explore sociodemographic determinants of acceptance.MethodsBetween October 31, 2020 and December 15, 2020, 26,759 individuals were surveyed across 32 countries via nationally representative survey designs. Bayesian methods are used to estimate COVID-19 vaccination acceptance and explore the sociodemographic determinants of uptake, as well as the link between self-reported health and faith in the government’s handling of the pandemic and acceptance.ResultsHere we show that intent to accept a COVID-19 vaccine is low in Lebanon, France, Croatia, and Serbia and there is population-level polarisation in acceptance in Poland and Pakistan. Averaged across all countries, being male, over 65, having a high level of education, and believing that the government is handling the pandemic well are associated with increased stated acceptance, but there are country-specific deviations. A belief that the government is handling the pandemic well in Brazil and the United States is associated with lower vaccination intent. In the United Kingdom, we find that approval of the first COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020 did not appear to have an impact on the UK’s vaccine acceptance, though as rollout has continued into 2021, the UK’s uptake exceeds stated intent in large-scale surveys conducted before rollout.ConclusionsIdentifying factors that may modulate uptake of novel COVID-19 vaccines can inform effective immunisation programmes and policies. Differential stated intent to accept vaccines between socio-demographic groups may yield insights into the specific causes of low confidence and may suggest and inform targeted communication policies to boost confidence.
    1. The COVAX Global Supply Forecast aims to provide an up-to-date overview of the supply of safe and effective vaccines to the COVAX Facility. Our goal is to offer economies participating in COVAX as much clarity as possible on when we expect the doses we have secured to start arriving. To this end, we provide both a global overview as well as specific regional forecasts. The latest edition of this forecast also includes a detailed overview and analysis of changes from the previous edition (July 2021).There are many uncertainties affecting the supply of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021, not least around manufacturing capacity, export restrictions, regulatory approvals, funding availability, and the readiness of countries themselves to begin their national COVID-19 vaccination programmes.In recognition of the fast-changing nature of COVAX’s supply outlook, and of the need to balance uncertainty in global supply with predictability for its participants, COVAX is committed to regularly updating this forecast.
    1. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students worldwide have experienced fundamental changes to their learning. Schools had to shift to distance education as part of the effort to stop the spread of the virus. Although distance learning undoubtedly resulted in challenges for all students, there is much concern that it exacerbated existing educational inequalities and led to disadvantages – particularly for students who were already struggling academically and lacking support from family and school. The aim of this paper was to investigate the possible impact of family and child characteristics, school performance prior to lockdown, and support at home and from school during lockdown in coping with self-regulated distance learning during times of COVID-19. The paper draws on data from a two-wave longitudinal study surveying 155 lower secondary school students aged 13–14years from a rural-alpine region in Austria. Data were collected 1year before the start of the pandemic and directly after schools had returned to in-class teaching after the first lockdown. Our findings support the notion that distance learning poses a substantial risk for exacerbating existing educational disadvantages. They show that coping with out-of-school learning was especially challenging for students with low academic achievement and learning motivation prior to the pandemic. Furthermore, findings demonstrate that the support from parents and teachers foster students’ capabilities to cope with the self-regulatory demands connected with distance learning. Although the importance of competencies for self-regulated learning became particularly evident in the context of the pandemic, from our findings, it can be concluded that in the future, schools should strengthen their investment in promoting competencies for self-regulated learning. Self-regulation must be recognized as an essential educational skill for academic achievement and life-long learning.
    1. The home confinement imposed on people to fight the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the flow of time by disrupting daily life, making them feel that time was passing slowly. The aim of this longitudinal study was to evaluate the evolution over time of this subjective experience of time and its significant predictors (boredom, decreased happiness, life rhythm, and sleep quality). Twso samples of French participants were followed up: the first for several weeks during the first lockdown (April 2020) and then 1year later (April 2021; Study 1), and the second during the first lockdown (April 2020) and then 6months (November 2020) and 1year later (April 2021; Study 2). Our study shows that the French participants have the feeling that time has passed slowly since the beginning of the first lockdown and that it has not resumed its normal course. This is explained by a persistent feeling of boredom characteristic of a depressive state that has taken hold in the population. The findings therefore suggest that the repeated contexts of confinement did not contribute to re-establishing a normal perception of time, to which a subjective acceleration of time would have testified.
    1. Models that make predictions about the COVID-19 pandemic are complicated by the fact that people change their behaviour in response to these predictions. Lucie White discusses how we can deal with this, based on a recent paper with Philippe van Basshuysen, Donal Khosrowi and Mathias Frisch.
    1. Only 2 percent of the 1.3 billion people who live in Africa have been vaccinated. Yet there are plenty of surplus doses in wealthy countries. Fair distribution has been little more than an illusion so far.
    1. Does inadequate risk communication during uncertain times trigger the rise of conspiratorial ideas? We hypothesize that, where government COVID-19 risk communication started early, as measured by the number of days between the start of the communication campaign and the first case in the country, citizens are less likely to turn to conspiratorial explanations for the pandemic, which typically assign blame to powerful actors with secret interests. In Study 1a, we find strong support for our hypothesis in a global sample of 111 countries, using daily Google search volumes for QAnon as a measure of interest in QAnon, which is a conspiracy theory contending, among other things, that COVID-19 is a conspiracy orchestrated by powerful actors and aimed at repressing civil liberties. The effect is robust to a variety of sensitivity checks. In Study 1b, we show that the effect is not explainable by pre-pandemic cross-country differences in QAnon interest, nor by ‘secular’ rising interest in QAnon amid the pandemic. A one-standard deviation (26.2days) increase in communication lateness is associated with a 26% increase in QAnon interest. In pre-registered Study 2, we find limited support for the proposition that early communication reduces self-reported pandemic-related conspiratorial ideation in a sample of respondents from 51 countries. Overall, our results provide evidence that interest in extreme ideas, like QAnon, are highly responsive to government risk communication, while less extreme forms of conspiracism are perhaps less so.
    1. AS A growing body of data suggests that vaccine-induced protection from covid-19 declines over time, many nations are gearing up to roll out a booster programme. Israel has already begun, while the US, France and Germany have all announced plans to begin rolling out third doses. Some other countries, including the UK, are holding back, with results from a key trial of third shots expected imminently.
    1. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a deep impact on the lives of the entire world population, inducing a participated societal debate. As in other contexts, the debate has been the subject of several d/misinformation campaigns; in a quite unprecedented fashion, however, the presence of false information has seriously put at risk the public health. In this sense, detecting the presence of malicious narratives and identifying the kinds of users that are more prone to spread them represent the first step to limit the persistence of the former ones. In the present paper we analyse the semantic network observed on Twitter during the first Italian lockdown (induced by the hashtags contained in approximately 1.5 millions tweets published between the 23rd of March 2020 and the 23rd of April 2020) and study the extent to which various discursive communities are exposed to d/misinformation arguments. As observed in other studies, the recovered discursive communities largely overlap with traditional political parties, even if the debated topics concern different facets of the management of the pandemic. Although the themes directly related to d/misinformation are a minority of those discussed within our semantic networks, their popularity is unevenly distributed among the various discursive communities.
    1. To mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the globe implemented Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs), one of which being Working From Home (WFH). In this paper we present an ethnographic investigation into the adaptations of working spaces and habits due to the adoption of WFH. We interviewed 12 participants from different industry contexts in order to cover a wide range of tools and practices used to conduct remote work. We focus on the importance and benefits of the different technologies available and how they impact collaboration. We discuss challenges experienced by participants in organizing their workspace at home, the impact of workload on practices, and the growing worries about isolation. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the changing physical, social and technological environments in designing new ways of working and collaborating remotely. From our results, we finally derive new directions for the HCI and CSCW research agenda on the topic of WFH.
    1. Within the context of social balance theory, much attention has been paid to the attainment and stability of unipolar or bipolar societies. However, multipolar societies are commonplace in the real world, despite the fact that the mechanism of their emergence is much less explored. Here, we investigate the evolution of a society of interacting agents with friendly (positive) and enmity (negative) relations into a final stable multipolar state. Triads are assigned energy according to the degree of tension they impose on the network. Agents update their connections to decrease the total energy (tension) of the system, on average. Our approach is to consider a variable energy ε∈[0,1]<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><mi>ε</mi><mo>∈</mo><mo>[</mo><mn>0</mn><mo>,</mo><mn>1</mn><mo>]</mo></mrow></math> for triads which are entirely made of negative relations. We show that the final state of the system depends on the initial density of the friendly links ρ0<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><msub><mi>ρ</mi><mn>0</mn></msub></math>. For initial densities greater than an ε<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mi>ε</mi></math>-dependent threshold ρc0(ε)<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msubsup><mi>ρ</mi><mn>0</mn><mi>c</mi></msubsup><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>ε</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></math>, a unipolar (paradise) state is reached. However, for ρ0≤ρc0(ε)<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msub><mi>ρ</mi><mn>0</mn></msub><mo>≤</mo><msubsup><mi>ρ</mi><mn>0</mn><mi>c</mi></msubsup><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>ε</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></math>, multipolar and bipolar states can emerge. We observe that the number of stable final poles increases with decreasing ε<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mi>ε</mi></math> where the first transition from bipolar to multipolar society occurs at ε∗≈0.67<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><msup><mi>ε</mi><mo>*</mo></msup><mo>≈</mo><mn>0.67</mn></mrow></math>. We end the paper by providing a mean-field calculation that provides an estimate for the critical (ε<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mi>ε</mi></math> dependent) initial positive link density, which is consistent with our simulations.
    1. The Delta variant has caused a resurgence in COVID-19 cases and deaths, threatening earlier gains made by the Biden Administration in tackling the pandemic. President Biden on Thursday laid out an ambitious comprehensive six-point COVID Action Plan to respond to the variant challenge. It gives appropriate top priority to using executive action to maximize vaccinations and recognizes the direct link between curbing the virus and reopening schools, workplaces, transportation hubs, entertainment venues and other vital segments of our economy.
    1. What is already known about this topic? mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are effective in preventing severe COVID-19 outcomes, including hospitalization. What is added by this report? During February 1–August 6, 2021, vaccine effectiveness among U.S. veterans hospitalized at five Veterans Affairs Medical Centers was 87%. mRNA COVID-19 vaccines remain highly effective, including during periods of widespread circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant. Vaccine effectiveness in preventing COVID-19–related hospitalization was 80% among adults aged ≥65 years compared with 95% among adults aged 18–64 years. What are the implications for public health practice? To protect against COVID-19–related hospitalization, all eligible persons should receive COVID-19 vaccination. Additional studies are needed to understand differences in COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness across age groups.
    1. President Joseph Biden on Sept. 9, 2021, unveiled his revamped strategy to confront the pandemic, outlining an approach that focuses heavily on attempting to reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans.
    1. Nine in ten eligible adults in the Republic of Ireland have been fully vaccinated, the Irish health service has said.
    1. On Thursday, President Joe Biden released his much-anticipated six-part plan to stem the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Vaccine distribution matters, surely. But as we have seen so acutely over the last two months, distribution alone is insufficient to stem the spread of Covid-19. The new plan to combat Covid-19 doubles down on many of the things that we know work to reduce the spread of the virus -- vaccines, testing and masking. But it also leaves some holes.
    1. Recent NHS performance data show that the NHS is currently under huge pressures. Although lifting all coronavirus restrictions in England on 19 July 2021 hasn’t resulted in the feared 100,000 covid cases a day, the NHS is still nevertheless under pressure, with NHS leaders saying that it feels like “winter in summer.”
    1. The COVID-19 pandemic poses great challenges to higher education. Universities had to change their infrastructure to full remote teaching and learning environments in a very short time. Lecturers and students were forced to adjust their established routines and concepts of teaching and learning. During the first nationwide lockdown in Germany, we explored students' anticipations regarding the risks and chances of this challenging situation. They were asked about the negative and positive effects of this sudden switch to online university courses and the relevance personally ascribed to each of these expected effects. A sample of 584 students provided 3,839 statements, which were examined by means of qualitative content analysis. While 57.7% of the statements concerned negative effects, 42.3% dealt with positive ones. The range of expected negative and positive effects was wide, but key themes emerged particularly frequently. While the mentioned effects were generally considered to be of high personal relevance, negative effects were rated as significantly more relevant, but with only a small effect size. The relevance of negative effects was considered higher by master students than by bachelor students. Relevance ratings were significantly higher for the first effect mentioned compared with all subsequent effects, indicating an ease-of-retrieval effect, which is relevant from both a methodological and content perspective. The results provide important insights into students' perspectives on remote learning that will be significant beyond the current pandemic, as they can guide sustainable measures by exploiting opportunities and mitigating risks. We discuss practical implications and methodological limitations of the study.
    1. The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has worsened the physical and mental health of the general population. Healthcare workers have a high risk of suffering a mental disorder after the first wave. In this way, psychologists, who deal with mental health issues and are considered as healthcare workers in many countries, are of interest in this context. The present study aimed to examine anxiety, depression, stress, and obsessions and compulsions across psychologists, healthcare professionals, and the general community. These variables were measured through the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21), as well as the Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), which are related to different sociodemographic variables. The study was carried out after the first wave in Spain through an online questionnaire. Structural equation modeling and a multigroup analysis were carried out across the groups and variables under study. The results suggested that; (i) healthcare workers and general community depicted similar results in anxiety and stress, as well as obsessions; (ii) the group of psychologists depicted better scores than the other groups under study; (iii) stress and anxiety did not predict compulsions in the group of psychologists; (iv) anxiety predicted obsessions for all the professions, while the relationship of this variable with stress was different for each group; and (v) invariance reached a full metric level.
    1. Our aim is to analyze the extent to which the psychosocial aspects can characterize the affective states of the teachers, administrative staff, and undergraduate and postgraduate students during the quarantine. A questionnaire was answered by 1,328 people from the community of the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Spain. The survey was partially designed ad hoc, collecting indicators related to sociodemographic variables, the impact of COVID on the subjects or in their personal context, the psychosocial context of coexistence and perceived social support, characteristics related to the physical context during the quarantine, and labor conditions. Additionally, it included two validated instruments: the Survey Work-Home Interaction–Nijmegen for Spanish Speaking Countries (SWING-SSC) validated in Spanish and PANAS, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Classification and Regression Trees (CART) were performed to identify which variables better characterize the participants' level of positive and negative affective states. Results according to groups showed that students are the ones who have suffered the most as a result of this situation (temporary employment regulation, higher scores in negative work-home and home-work interaction, lower scores in positive home-work interaction, and negative effects of teleworking). Additionally, they reported a higher mean score in interpersonal conflict and worse scores with regard to negative affective states. Based on sex, women were the ones whose environment was shown to be more frequently affected by the pandemic and who exhibited more negative effects of teleworking. In general terms, participants with the highest scores in negative affective states were those who perceived an increase in conflict and a high negative effect from work spilling over into their personal lives. On the contrary, participants with the highest levels of positive affective states were those with medium to low levels of negative home-work interaction, over 42.5 years old, and with medium to high levels of positive work-home interaction. Our results aim to help higher education to reflect on the need to adapt to this new reality, since the institutions that keep pace with evolving trends will be able to better attract, retain, and engage all the members of the university community in the years ahead.
    1. The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic elicits a vast amount of anxiety. In the current study, we investigated how anxiety related to COVID-19 is associated with support for and compliance with governmental hygiene measures, and how these are influenced by populist attitudes, anger at the government, and conspiracy mentalities. We conducted an online survey in April 2020 in four different countries (Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK; N = 2,031) using a cross-sectional design. Results showed that (1) anxiety related to COVID-19 is associated with conspiracy beliefs, anger at the government, and populist attitudes, and (2) support for and compliance with hygiene measures are both positively predicted by anxiety related to COVID-19; however, (3) support for hygiene measures is also predicted by populist attitudes and negatively by conspiracy mentalities, whereas compliance with hygiene measures is more strongly predicted by anger at transgressors (anger at people transgressing the hygiene measures). Consequently, although anxiety related to COVID-19 concerns the health of individual people, it also has political and social implications: anxiety is associated with an increase in anger, either at transgressors or the government.
    1. Low vaccination rates fueling crisis as four pregnant women die in a Mississippi hospital and Kentucky governor calls situation ‘dire’
    1. Kids were much more likely to be hospitalized as the delta variant became widespread, two studies from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Friday found. But children did not appear to contract more serious illness, requiring intensive care, for example, than in previous viral surges.
    1. Background One of the main challenges of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is to be able to make sense of available, but often heterogeneous and noisy data, to characterize the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 infection dynamics, with the additional goal of having better preparedness and planning of healthcare services. This contribution presents a data-driven methodology that allows exploring the hospitalization dynamics of COVID-19, exemplified with a study of 17 autonomous regions in Spain.Methods We use data on new daily cases and hospitalizations reported by the Ministry of Health of Spain to implement a Bayesian inference method that allows making short and mid-term predictions of bed occupancy of COVID-19 patients in each of the autonomous regions of the country.Findings We show how to use given and generated temporal series for the number of daily admissions and discharges from hospital to reproduce the hospitalization dynamics of COVID-19 patients. For the case-study of the region of Aragon, we estimate that the probability of being admitted to hospital care upon infection is 0·090 [0·086-0·094], (95% C.I.), with the distribution governing hospital admission yielding a median interval of 3·5 days and an IQR of 7 days. Likewise, the distribution on the length of stay produces estimates of 12 days for the median and 10 days for the IQR. A comparison between model parameters for the regions analyzed allows to detect differences and changes in policies of the health authorities.Interpretation The amount of data that is currently available is limited, and sometimes unreliable, hindering our understanding of many aspects of this pandemic. We have observed important regional differences, signaling that to properly compare very different populations, it is paramount to acknowledge all the diversity in terms of culture, socio-economic status and resource availability. To better understand the impact of this pandemic, much more data, disaggregated and properly annotated, should be made available.
    1. The explosion of misinformation has undermined public health, uprooted social stability, and threatened the proper functioning of democracies and governance. Helping citizens recognize fake news as fake has been a popular approach in many intervention studies. However, is it possible that fake news that we already know is false still can change our beliefs and attitudes? This paper suggests that the answer is yes. Participants who were thoroughly instructed that they were going to read a made-up article about partisans’ diverging attitude on a novel issue, smoking ban in public places, still end up believing the content. Furthermore, their exposure to the article also shaped their own attitude on the issue based on their partisanship, and the effects are still observable two days later and again ten days later. These findings have profound implications for misinformation research, media practice, polarization and democracy, and common research practices such as deception and debriefing after deception.
    1. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, prior studies have modified the Trier Social Stress Test to be conducted remotely. The current report aimed to extend these studies to test whether a remote Trier Social Stress Test (rTSST) can elicit (a) affective, (b) blood pressure, and (c) heart rate responses relative to a control condition and whether these responses were reliable when assessed one week later. Participants (N = 99, 19.7 ± 3.5 years, 55% female) were randomized to a control or stress condition. Controls completed easier versions of the tasks with a single, friendly researcher. Stress participants performed more difficult versions of the task in front of two judges who participants believed were rating their performance. Blood pressure and heart rate were measured every two minutes throughout, while affect was assessed at baseline, after the final task, and following recovery. The rTSST was feasible to administer with minimal technical issues reported. Results suggest that lower positive affect and higher negative affect were reported during the tasks in the stress condition relative to controls. Similarly, stress participants had higher cardiovascular responses during the tasks relative to controls, except that blood pressure was not elevated during mental arithmetic in stress participants relative to controls. Cardiovascular responses demonstrated good test-retest reliability when assessed one week later, especially when computed using area under the curve methods. Overall, a rTSST can be used to elicit affective and cardiovascular reactivity and provides an opportunity to include participants previously unreachable for in-person laboratory procedures.
    1. In the Covid-19 pandemic, digital social connections have taken on a new level of significance. Building on our previous work, we propose a decentralised service model for a digital resilience network (DRN) which enables people with mental and physical illness as well as those experiencing adverse social events to align themselves, provide peer support, share and access resources. The model has five domains: Biopsychosocial, geographical, technological, information and rule domains. Each application of the model can be described using the five domain descriptors and can thereby function as an index which can allow the individual to navigate the networks according to their individual circumstances.
    1. Within the context of reopening society in the summer of 2021, as the UK moved away from ’lockdown,’ the Government of Wales piloted the return on organised ‘mass gatherings’ of people at a number of test events. Behavioral observations were made at two of the test events to support this process. The research was particularly interested in four key factors: How (1) context within a venue, (2) environmental design, (3) staffing and social norms, and (4) time across an event, affected personal protective behaviors of social distancing, face covering use, and hand hygiene. Data collection was undertaken by trained observers across the above factors. Findings suggest that adherence of attendees was generally high, but with clear indications that levels were shaped in a systematic way by the environment, situational cues, and the passage of time during the events. Some instances of large-scale non-adherence to personal protective behaviors were documented. Overall, there were three main situations where behavioral adherence broke down, under conditions where: (1) staff were not present; (2) there was a lack of environmental signalling (including physical interventions or communications); and (3) later into the events when circumstances were less constrained and individuals appeared less cognitively vigilant. Behavioral observations at events can add precision and identify critical risk situations where/when extra effort is required. The findings suggest a liberal paternal approach whereby state authorities, health authorities and other key organisations can help nudge individuals towards COVID-safe behaviors. Finally, an individual’s intentions are not always matched by their actions, and so behavioral insights can help identify situations and contexts where people are most likely to require additional support to ensure COVID-19 personal protective behaviors are followed and hence protecting themselves and others.
    1. The current research examined the role of values in guiding people’s responses to COVID-19. Results from an international study involving 115 countries (N = 61,490) suggest that health and economic threats of COVID-19 evoke different values, with implications for controlling and coping with the pandemic. Specifically, health threats evoked prioritization of communal values related to caring for others and belonging, whereas economic threats predicted prioritization of agentic values focused on competition and achievement. Concurrently and over time, prioritizing communal values over agentic values was associated with enactment of prevention behaviors that reduce virus transmission, motivations to help others suffering from the pandemic, and positive attitudes toward outgroup members. These results, which were generally consistent across individual and national levels of analysis, suggest that COVID-19 threats may indirectly shape important responses to the pandemic through their influence on people’s prioritization of communion and agency. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
    1. Most people with COVID-19 in the US are legally prevented from knowing which variant infected them. That's because sequencing tests have to be federally approved for results to be disclosed to doctors or patients, and most are not yet. Lab scientists say the process of validating the tests for approval is too costly and time-consuming.
    1. This report summarises the information from the surveillance systems which are used to monitor Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), influenza, and other seasonal respiratory viruses in England. References to COVID-19 represent the disease name and SARS-CoV-2 represent the virus name. The report is based ondata from week 33(between 16August and 22August2021) and for some indicators daily data up to 24August2021. Surveillance indicators suggest that at a national levelCOVID-19 activityremained stable in mostindicators, with slight increases in some indicators,in week 33of 2021.Laboratoryindicators suggest that influenza activity is very low.Overall case rates increased slightlyin week 33. Case rates increased slightly in most age groups andregions and in some ethnic groups. Overall Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 positivity remained stable compared to the previous week.The number of reported acute respiratory incidents in thepast week increased compared tothe previous week. SARS-CoV-2 was identified in the majority of these.COVID-19 hospitalisationsremained stablein week 33. Deaths with COVID-19decreasedin the most recent week.COVID-19 vaccine coverage was 63.9% for dose 1 at the end of week 33. COVID-19vaccine coverage was 55.9% for dose 2 at the end of week 33, reaching over 90% in allcohorts over the age of 65years and over 80% in all cohorts over 50years.Seroprevalencedata indicates that approximately97.7% of blood donors aged 17 and overhave antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 from either infection or vaccination.Increases in seropositivity continue to be observed in those aged 17 to 29,following vaccination rollout.Through Respiratory Datamart, there werenoinfluenza positive samplesdetected in week 33. Other indicators for influenza such as hospital admissions and GP influenza-like illness consultation rates remainverylow. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) positivity increased slightly from 13.9% in week 32 to 14.2% in week 33.Rhinovirus, parainfluenza, adenovirus and human metapneumovirus (hMPV) positivity remained low at 6.8%, 1.2%, 1.1% and 0.8% respectively.
    1. The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID), along with partners at ProMED, the Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, the University of Sussex (UK), HealthMap at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, and healthsites.io, developed a user-friendly tool to both forecast case counts during infectious disease outbreaks and estimate the risk of infectious disease cases arriving from and departing to specific geographic areas. The project — Mapping the Risk of International Infectious Disease Spread — MRIIDS — assessed outbreak events reported on ProMED and HealthMap by combining multiple data streams into a single probabilistic framework.Disease outbreak information is assessed with automated intelligence capabilities that incorporates population density information to estimate the number of cases for specific outbreak events.Additionally, the algorithm provides a risk projection to describe where infectious diseases cases are most likely to arrive from and depart to for specific countries. The information generated by the platform is accessible free of charge and incorporated into a platform with extensive end-user testing.Developed based on data from the 2014-16 West Africa Ebola outbreak, the MRIIDS prototype was designed to be rapidly scalable by extending it to pathogens of significance to humans and animals on a global scale. The tool aims to inform key health decision-makers at national and regional levels of the risks of an outbreak spreading in real-time, and aids government and non-governmental decision-makers as they prepare for the possible arrival of an infectious disease threat to their region.
    1. More than half of unvaccinated Americans live in households that make less than $50,000 annually, according to the latest Census Bureau data.Why it matters: Making it easier for the working poor to get the COVID-19 vaccine, without dinging their already-low incomes, could help boost the country's vaccination rates.The big picture: Vaccination has been politicized, but juggling work schedules and child care could be bigger factors than politics.
    1. Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration amended the emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for both the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine and the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine to allow for the use of an additional dose in certain immunocompromised individuals, specifically, solid organ transplant recipients or those who are diagnosed with conditions that are considered to have an equivalent level of immunocompromise. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is scheduled to meet Friday to discuss further clinical recommendations regarding immunocompromised individuals. Today’s action does not apply to people who are not immunocompromised.
    1. Researchers with The COVID States Project asked 20,000 people across the nation about whether they believe four debunked claims about COVID vaccines: That the shots alter DNA, implant trackable microchips, cause infertility or contain tissue from aborted fetuses.
    1. Comparison of window ventilation systems and other ventilation or air purification approaches against the aerosol transmission of COVID-19 and for increased air quality in classrooms.
    1. A second dose of the vaccine appears to provide additional protection, and health experts say that boosters will likely be recommended.
    1. What was claimed Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said he doesn’t need the vaccine because he’s healthy. Our verdict This is a misquote from an interview from December. Albert Bourla said he didn’t want to take the vaccine ahead of more vulnerable recipients. He has since been double vaccinated.
    1. OVER a hundred doctors and health professionals have signed an open letter to the Prime Minister calling for an "open and proper scientific debate" about the pandemic policy arguing covid restrictions are based on flawed assumptions.
    1. The SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) variant was first detected in India in December, 2020. Since then, the delta variant has rapidly become the main variant in some regions, including in the UK. As of July 27, 2021, the UK had reported the highest number of SARS-CoV-2 delta variant cases, with 167 856 patients.1StatisticaNumber of SARS-CoV-2 delta variant cases worldwide as of July 27, 2021, by country or territory.https://www.statista.com/statistics/1245971/number-delta-variant-worldwide-by-countryDate: July 27, 2021Date accessed: July 27, 2021Google ScholarIn The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Katherine Twohig and colleagues2Twohig KA Nyberg T Zaidi A et al.Hospital admission and emergency care attendance risk for SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) compared with alpha (B.1.1.7) variants of concern: a cohort study.Lancet Infect Dis. 2021; Aug 27; https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(21)00475-8Google Scholar report that patients infected with the delta variant had more than twice the risk of hospital admission and an increased risk of hospital attendance (emergency care attendance or hospital admission) compared with individuals infected with the alpha (B.1.1.7) variant. Importantly, Twohig and colleagues observed that among non-vaccinated patients, those infected with the delta variant were more than twice as likely as those infected with the alpha variant to be admitted to hospital. However, this study did not investigate whether there was an association between mortality and infection with the delta variant compared with the alpha variant. The findings of this study are important in the context of the worldwide spread of the delta variant and the barriers to achieving high vaccination rates against SARS-CoV-2 in many world regions.
    1. The FDA should demand adequate, controlled studies with long term follow up, and make data publicly available, before granting full approval to covid-19 vaccines, says Peter Doshi On 28 July 2021, Pfizer and BioNTech posted updated results for their ongoing phase 3 covid-19 vaccine trial. The preprint came almost a year to the day after the historical trial commenced, and nearly four months since the companies announced vaccine efficacy estimates “up to six months.” But you won’t find 10 month follow-up data here. While the preprint is new, the results it contains aren’t particularly up to date. In fact, the paper is based on the same data cut-off date (13 March 2021) as the 1 April press release, and its topline efficacy result is identical: 91.3% (95% CI 89.0 to 93.2) vaccine efficacy against symptomatic covid-19 through “up to six months of follow-up.” The 20 page preprint matters because it represents the most detailed public account of the pivotal trial data Pfizer submitted in pursuit of the world’s first “full approval” of a coronavirus vaccine from the Food and Drug Administration. It deserves careful scrutiny.
    1. Covid misinformation top performing Facebook post and advertisers spending billions on misinformation websites The COVID-19 Misinformation Newsletter is prepared by the staff of the Programme on Democracy and Technology (DemTech) at Oxford University. We summarise the latest independent research and high-quality news reporting on the production and consumption of computational propaganda and campaigns to manipulate public understanding of the health crisis. The newsletter is edited by Dr Aliaksandr Herasimenka. It is two-minute read.
    1. BackgroundThe SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) variant was first detected in England in March, 2021. It has since rapidly become the predominant lineage, owing to high transmissibility. It is suspected that the delta variant is associated with more severe disease than the previously dominant alpha (B.1.1.7) variant. We aimed to characterise the severity of the delta variant compared with the alpha variant by determining the relative risk of hospital attendance outcomes.MethodsThis cohort study was done among all patients with COVID-19 in England between March 29 and May 23, 2021, who were identified as being infected with either the alpha or delta SARS-CoV-2 variant through whole-genome sequencing. Individual-level data on these patients were linked to routine health-care datasets on vaccination, emergency care attendance, hospital admission, and mortality (data from Public Health England's Second Generation Surveillance System and COVID-19-associated deaths dataset; the National Immunisation Management System; and NHS Digital Secondary Uses Services and Emergency Care Data Set). The risk for hospital admission and emergency care attendance were compared between patients with sequencing-confirmed delta and alpha variants for the whole cohort and by vaccination status subgroups. Stratified Cox regression was used to adjust for age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, recent international travel, area of residence, calendar week, and vaccination status.FindingsIndividual-level data on 43 338 COVID-19-positive patients (8682 with the delta variant, 34 656 with the alpha variant; median age 31 years [IQR 17–43]) were included in our analysis. 196 (2·3%) patients with the delta variant versus 764 (2·2%) patients with the alpha variant were admitted to hospital within 14 days after the specimen was taken (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 2·26 [95% CI 1·32–3·89]). 498 (5·7%) patients with the delta variant versus 1448 (4·2%) patients with the alpha variant were admitted to hospital or attended emergency care within 14 days (adjusted HR 1·45 [1·08–1·95]). Most patients were unvaccinated (32 078 [74·0%] across both groups). The HRs for vaccinated patients with the delta variant versus the alpha variant (adjusted HR for hospital admission 1·94 [95% CI 0·47–8·05] and for hospital admission or emergency care attendance 1·58 [0·69–3·61]) were similar to the HRs for unvaccinated patients (2·32 [1·29–4·16] and 1·43 [1·04–1·97]; p=0·82 for both) but the precision for the vaccinated subgroup was low.InterpretationThis large national study found a higher hospital admission or emergency care attendance risk for patients with COVID-19 infected with the delta variant compared with the alpha variant. Results suggest that outbreaks of the delta variant in unvaccinated populations might lead to a greater burden on health-care services than the alpha variant.FundingMedical Research Council; UK Research and Innovation; Department of Health and Social Care; and National Institute for Health Research.
    1. What was claimed A Facebook post shows a screengrab from a government website with a list of reported deaths and side effects caused by the Covid-19 vaccines. Our verdict The image in this post is mocked-up and does not actually appear on the site, though it uses figures which do appear there.
    1. Quantification of asymptomatic infections is fundamental for effective public health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Discrepancies regarding the extent of asymptomaticity have arisen from inconsistent terminology as well as conflation of index and secondary cases which biases toward lower asymptomaticity. We searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and World Health Organization Global Research Database on COVID-19 between January 1, 2020 and April 2, 2021 to identify studies that reported silent infections at the time of testing, whether presymptomatic or asymptomatic. Index cases were removed to minimize representational bias that would result in overestimation of symptomaticity. By analyzing over 350 studies, we estimate that the percentage of infections that never developed clinical symptoms, and thus were truly asymptomatic, was 35.1% (95% CI: 30.7 to 39.9%). At the time of testing, 42.8% (95% prediction interval: 5.2 to 91.1%) of cases exhibited no symptoms, a group comprising both asymptomatic and presymptomatic infections. Asymptomaticity was significantly lower among the elderly, at 19.7% (95% CI: 12.7 to 29.4%) compared with children at 46.7% (95% CI: 32.0 to 62.0%). We also found that cases with comorbidities had significantly lower asymptomaticity compared to cases with no underlying medical conditions. Without proactive policies to detect asymptomatic infections, such as rapid contact tracing, prolonged efforts for pandemic control may be needed even in the presence of vaccination.
    1. Objective: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has posed a major threat to pregnant women's mental health. This study aimed to characterize the patterns of perceived stress in pregnant Chinese women during the COVID-19 pandemic, to examine the profile differences on anxiety and resilience, and to investigate whether the differences in these profiles on anxiety were mediated by resilience.
    1. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused more than 160 million infections and more than 3 million deaths worldwide. While effective vaccines are currently being deployed, the adaptive immune determinants that promote viral clearance and confer protection remain poorly defined. Using mouse models of SARS-CoV-2, we demonstrate that both humoral and cellular adaptive immunity contribute to viral clearance in the setting of primary infection. Furthermore, we find that either convalescent mice or mice that receive mRNA vaccination are protected from both homologous infection and infection with a variant of concern, B.1.351. Additionally, we find this protection largely mediated by antibody response and not cellular immunity. These results highlight the in vivo protective capacity of antibodies generated to both vaccine and natural infection.
    1. The illness can still have a big effect on health and daily life, say three people in their 20s, 40s and 50s, who were double-jabbed
    1. BackgroundPreapproval trials showed that messenger RNA (mRNA)–based vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) had a good safety profile, yet these trials were subject to size and patient-mix limitations. An evaluation of the safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine with respect to a broad range of potential adverse events is needed. MethodsWe used data from the largest health care organization in Israel to evaluate the safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine. For each potential adverse event, in a population of persons with no previous diagnosis of that event, we individually matched vaccinated persons to unvaccinated persons according to sociodemographic and clinical variables. Risk ratios and risk differences at 42 days after vaccination were derived with the use of the Kaplan–Meier estimator. To place these results in context, we performed a similar analysis involving SARS-CoV-2–infected persons matched to uninfected persons. The same adverse events were studied in the vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 infection analyses. ResultsIn the vaccination analysis, the vaccinated and control groups each included a mean of 884,828 persons. Vaccination was most strongly associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis (risk ratio, 3.24; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.55 to 12.44; risk difference, 2.7 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 1.0 to 4.6), lymphadenopathy (risk ratio, 2.43; 95% CI, 2.05 to 2.78; risk difference, 78.4 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 64.1 to 89.3), appendicitis (risk ratio, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.02 to 2.01; risk difference, 5.0 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 0.3 to 9.9), and herpes zoster infection (risk ratio, 1.43; 95% CI, 1.20 to 1.73; risk difference, 15.8 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 8.2 to 24.2). SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with a substantially increased risk of myocarditis (risk ratio, 18.28; 95% CI, 3.95 to 25.12; risk difference, 11.0 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 5.6 to 15.8) and of additional serious adverse events, including pericarditis, arrhythmia, deep-vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, myocardial infarction, intracranial hemorrhage, and thrombocytopenia. ConclusionsIn this study in a nationwide mass vaccination setting, the BNT162b2 vaccine was not associated with an elevated risk of most of the adverse events examined. The vaccine was associated with an excess risk of myocarditis (1 to 5 events per 100,000 persons). The risk of this potentially serious adverse event and of many other serious adverse events was substantially increased after SARS-CoV-2 infection. (Funded by the Ivan and Francesca Berkowitz Family Living Laboratory Collaboration at Harvard Medical School and Clalit Research Institute.)
    1. Faced with government suppression and limited resources, doctors and nurses are quietly working with research networks to report reliable data.
    1. Manual for a course on replication and preregistration for students in the Research Master Societal Resilience and the Graduate School for Social Sciences at VU Amsterdam
    1. Recent work indicates that a meaningful portion of online misinformation sharing can be attributed to users merely failing to consider accuracy when deciding what to share. As a result, simply redirecting attention to the concept of accuracy can increase sharing discernment. Here we discuss the relevance of accuracy, and outline a limited-attention utility model that formalizes a theory about inattention to accuracy on social media. Research showing how a simple nudge or prompt that shifts attention to accuracy increases the quality of news that people share (typically by decreasing the sharing of false content) is reviewed. We then discuss outstanding questions relating to accuracy nudges, including the need for more work relating to persistence and habituation, as well as a dearth of cross-cultural research. We also make several recommendations for policy makers and social media companies on how to implement accuracy nudges.
    1. The dramatic consequences of several new waves of COVID-19 infection have had a devastating effect on people's personal lives and the economic situation of the country, which has led to the formation of depressive moods in people of different ages. Behavioral activation is one of the most effective methods to reduce and prevent depression, which is discussed in detail in this article.