Vaccines against COVID-19 have been developed in unprecedented time. However, the effectiveness of any vaccine is dictated by the proportion of the population willing to be vaccinated. This ...observational population-based study examines intentions to be vaccinated against COVID-19 throughout the pandemic.
In November 2020, longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of 7,547 U.S. adults enrolled in the Understanding America Study were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression. Participants reported being willing, undecided, and unwilling to get vaccinated against COVID-19 across 13 assessments conducted from April to October 2020. Public attitudes to vaccination against COVID-19 were also assessed on a 4-point Likert-type scale.
Willingness to vaccinate declined from 71% in April to 53.6% in October. This was explained by an increase in the percentage of participants undecided about vaccinating (from 10.5% to 14.4%) and the proportion of the sample unwilling to vaccinate (from 18.5% to 32%). The population subgroups most likely to be undecided/unwilling to vaccinate were those without a degree (undecided: RR=2.47, 95% CI=2.04, 3.00; unwilling: RR=1.92, 95% CI=1.67, 2.20), Black participants (undecided: RR=2.18, 95% CI=1.73, 2.74; unwilling: RR=1.98, 95% CI=1.63, 2.42), and female participants (undecided: RR=1.41, 95% CI=1.20, 1.65; unwilling: RR=1.29, 95% CI=1.14, 1.46). Participants who were older or were on higher incomes were least likely to be undecided or unwilling to vaccinate. Concerns about potential side effects of a vaccine were common.
Intentions to be vaccinated against COVID-19 have declined rapidly during the pandemic, and close to half of Americans are undecided or unwilling to be vaccinated.
Widespread uptake of COVID-19 vaccines will be essential to controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccines have been developed in unprecedented time and quantifying levels of hesitancy towards ...vaccination among the general population is of importance.
Systematic review and meta-analysis of studies using large nationally representative samples (n ≥ 1000) to examine the percentage of the population intending to vaccinate, unsure, or intending to refuse a COVID-19 vaccine when available. Generic inverse meta-analysis and meta-regression were used to pool estimates and examine time trends. PubMed, Scopus and pre-printer servers were searched from January-November 2020. Registered on PROSPERO (CRD42020223132).
Twenty-eight nationally representative samples (n = 58,656) from 13 countries indicate that as the pandemic has progressed, the percentage of people intending to vaccinate decreased and the percentage of people intending to refuse vaccination increased. Pooled data from surveys conducted during June-October suggest that 60% (95% CI: 49% to 69%) intend to vaccinate and 20% (95% CI: 13% to 29%) intend to refuse vaccination, although intentions vary substantially between samples and countries (I2 > 90%). Being female, younger, of lower income or education level and belonging to an ethnic minority group were consistently associated with being less likely to intend to vaccinate. Findings were consistent across higher vs. lower quality studies.
Intentions to be vaccinated when a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available have been declining across countries and there is an urgent need to address social inequalities in vaccine hesitancy and promote widespread uptake of vaccines as they become available.
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Objectives
It has been shown that psychological distress rose rapidly as the COVID‐19 pandemic emerged and then recovered to pre‐crisis levels as social lockdown restrictions were eased in the United ...States. The aim of the current study was to investigate psychosocial and behavioural factors that may explain the rise and fall of distress during the initial months of the COVID‐19 crisis.
Design
This study examined six waves of longitudinal nationally representative data from the Understanding America Study (UAS) collected between March and June 2020 (N = 7,138, observations = 34,125).
Methods
Mediation analysis was used to identify whether changes in distress (PHQ‐4) during the COVID‐19 pandemic were explained by the following factors: perceived infection risk and risk of death, perceived financial risks, lifestyle changes resulting from the virus, perceived discrimination related to the virus, and changes in substance use and employment status.
Results
All mediating factors played a role in explaining changes in distress and together accounted for 70% of the increase in distress between 10‐18 March and 1‐14 April and 46.4% of the decline in distress between 1‐14 April and early June 2020. Changes in perceived health risks were most important in explaining changes in distress followed by changes in lifestyle and the perceived financial risks associated with COVID‐19.
Conclusions
This study provides longitudinal population‐based evidence detailing the mediating factors explaining changes in distress during the COVID‐19 crisis. Perceived health risks associated with the virus may play a key role in explaining rising and falling levels of psychological distress during the COVID‐19 pandemic.
In classical models of radiation toxicity, DNA is the molecule that is most affected by ionizing radiation (IR). However, recent data show that the amount of protein damage caused during irradiation ...of bacteria is better related to survival than to DNA damage. In this Opinion article, a new model is presented in which proteins are the most important target in the hierarchy of macromolecules affected by IR. A first line of defence against IR in extremely radiation-resistant bacteria might be the accumulation of manganese complexes, which can prevent the production of iron-dependent reactive oxygen species. This would allow an irradiated cell to protect sufficient enzymatic activity needed to repair DNA and survive.
A founding concept of radiobiology that deals with X-rays, γ-rays and ultraviolet light is that radiation indiscriminately damages cellular macromolecules. Mounting experimental evidence does not fit ...into this theoretical framework. Whereas DNA lesion-yields in cells exposed to a given dose and type of radiation appear to be fixed, protein lesion-yields are highly variable. Extremely radiation resistant bacteria such as Deinococcus radiodurans have evolved extraordinarily efficient antioxidant chemical defenses which specifically protect proteins and the functions they catalyze. In diverse prokaryotes, the lethal effects of radiation appear to be governed by oxidative protein damage, which inactivates enzymes including those needed to repair and replicate DNA. These findings offer fresh insight into the molecular mechanisms of radiation resistance and present themselves as new opportunities to study and control oxidative stress in eukaryotes, including mammalian cells and their cancer cell counterparts.
•A significant but small increase in mental health symptoms early in the pandemic.•Overall, mental health symptoms comparable to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2020.•Larger rises for depressive symptoms ...and those with existing poor physical health.•Overall, in 2020 there was resilience in mental health during the COVID pandemic.
Increases in mental health problems have been observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The objectives were to examine the extent to which mental health symptoms changed during the pandemic in 2020, whether changes were persistent or short lived, and if changes were symptom specific.
Systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies examining changes in mental health among the same group of participants before vs. during the pandemic in 2020.
Sixty-five studies were included. Compared to pre-pandemic outbreak, there was an overall increase in mental health symptoms observed during March-April 2020 (SMC = .102 95% CI: .026 to .192) that significantly declined over time and became non-significant (May-July SMC = .067 95% CI: -.022 to .157. Compared to measures of anxiety (SMC = 0.13, p = 0.02) and general mental health (SMC = -.03, p = 0.65), increases in depression and mood disorder symptoms tended to be larger and remained significantly elevated in May-July 0.20, 95% CI: .099 to .302. In primary analyses increases were most pronounced among samples with physical health conditions and there was no evidence of any change in symptoms among samples with a pre-existing mental health condition.
There was a high degree of unexplained heterogeneity observed (I2s > 90%), indicating that change in mental health was highly variable across samples.
There was a small increase in mental health symptoms soon after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that decreased and was comparable to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2020 among most population sub-groups and symptom types.
The family
exhibits exceptional radiation resistance and possesses all the necessary traits for surviving in radiation-exposed environments. Their survival strategy involves the coupling of metabolic ...and DNA repair functions, resulting in an extraordinarily efficient homologous repair of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) caused by radiation or desiccation. The keys to their survival lie in the hyperaccumulation of manganous (Mn
)-metabolite antioxidants that protect their DNA repair proteins under extreme oxidative stress and the persistent structural linkage by Holliday junctions of their multiple genome copies per cell that facilitates DSB repair. This coupling of metabolic and DNA repair functions has made polyploid
bacteria a useful tool in environmental biotechnology, radiobiology, aging, and planetary protection. The review highlights the groundbreaking contributions of the late Robert G.E. Murray to the field of
research and the emergent paradigm-shifting discoveries that revolutionized our understanding of radiation survivability and oxidative stress defense, demonstrating that the proteome, rather than the genome, is the primary target responsible for survivability. These discoveries have led to the commercial development of irradiated vaccines using
Mn-peptide antioxidants and have significant implications for various fields.
The aim of this study was to demonstrate the role of advanced fabrication technology across a broad spectrum of head and neck surgical procedures, including applications in endoscopic sinus surgery, ...skull base surgery, and maxillofacial reconstruction. The initial case studies demonstrated three applications of rapid prototyping technology are in head and neck surgery: i) a mono-material paranasal sinus phantom for endoscopy training ii) a multi-material skull base simulator and iii) 3D patient-specific mandible templates. Digital processing of these phantoms is based on real patient or cadaveric 3D images such as CT or MRI data. Three endoscopic sinus surgeons examined the realism of the endoscopist training phantom. One experienced endoscopic skull base surgeon conducted advanced sinus procedures on the high-fidelity multi-material skull base simulator. Ten patients participated in a prospective clinical study examining patient-specific modeling for mandibular reconstructive surgery. Qualitative feedback to assess the realism of the endoscopy training phantom and high-fidelity multi-material phantom was acquired. Conformance comparisons using assessments from the blinded reconstructive surgeons measured the geometric performance between intra-operative and pre-operative reconstruction mandible plates. Both the endoscopy training phantom and the high-fidelity multi-material phantom received positive feedback on the realistic structure of the phantom models. Results suggested further improvement on the soft tissue structure of the phantom models is necessary. In the patient-specific mandible template study, the pre-operative plates were judged by two blinded surgeons as providing optimal conformance in 7 out of 10 cases. No statistical differences were found in plate fabrication time and conformance, with pre-operative plating providing the advantage of reducing time spent in the operation room. The applicability of common model design and fabrication techniques across a variety of otolaryngological sub-specialties suggests an emerging role for rapid prototyping technology in surgical education, procedure simulation, and clinical practice.
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