• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.53 no.3
• /
• pp.168-170
• /
• 2020

On December 31, 2019, the Chinese government officially announced that the country had some cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause. By February 8, 2020, there were 24 confirmed cases in Korea, and the number of cases has steadily increased since then. On March 9, 2020, the cumulative number of confirmed cases in Korea was 7382, with 51 deaths. This study examines the characteristics of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak from the perspective of the large-scale number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths. This study is significant in that it emphasizes the precautionary principle in preventing and managing infectious diseases, and makes suggestions for urgently needed public health policies.

• Journal of the FoodService Safety
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.37-44
• /
• 2020

The virus isolated from patients with severe pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan City, Hubei province in China was termed SARS-CoV-2 and the World Health Organization (WHO) named the disease caused by this virus as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The COVID-19 infection has spread rapidly and become a pandemic. In July 2020, there were 13.25 million infected patients and over 570,000 deaths worldwide, and 13,711 infected patients and 294 deaths were reported in South Korea. Since the primary mode of transmission of COVID-19 is through respiratory droplets, the importance of preventive measures, including social distancing, has become important in daily life. In response to the continuous spread of COVID-19, this study developed three guidelines for preventing COVID-19 for the food service industry including childcare centers, institutional foodservices and restaurants by the integration of the manual of controlling foodborne illness. These are included the COVID-19 prevention action methods for food deliverers, for food service administrator, for foodservice works and for customers. All guidelines were designed for easy understanding using illustrations and have been systematically explained subject wise. Thus, these COVID-19 prevention guidelines can be appropriately applied depending on the specific situation and workplace. In addition, they are worthy as educational materials that contribute to the food safety.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
• /
• v.54 no.2
• /
• pp.103-109
• /
• 2022

In December 2019, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in China and spread rapidly around the world, infecting millions of people. Cases of COVID-19 infection were observed to lead to viral pneumonia. Thirty-five patients admitted to the Gyeonggi Medical Center, South Korea, between November 2020 to January 2021, were found to have been infected with the influenza virus A and B, which cause symptoms similar to COVID-19. The records of these patients and those of COVID-19 patients who visited the hospital for medical examination were compared. The study patients included thirty patients with COVID-19 and/or influenza, five of those with influenza alone. A group of 121 patients without infection was used as control. Patients with COVID-19 and influenza had significantly higher lactate dehydrogenase levels than the patients with COVID-19 alone. The erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was higher in patients with COVID-19 alone than in other groups. Significant clinical outliers were observed in the COVID-19 and influenza infection group compared with the COVID-19 alone group. These results are expected to play an important role in the analysis of the hematological data of infected patients and the comparison of simultaneous and single infection data to determine clinical symptoms and other signs. These results may also assist in the development of vaccines and treatments for COVID-19.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• v.85 no.1
• /
• pp.96-97
• /
• 2022

• Korean Journal of Radiology
• /
• v.21 no.7
• /
• pp.925-928
• /
• 2020

• Korean Journal of Radiology
• /
• v.21 no.6
• /
• pp.773-776
• /
• 2020

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.467-476
• /
• 2021

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand the social perceptions of nurses in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak through analysis of media articles. Methods: Among the media articles reported from January 1st to September 30th, 2020, those containing the keywords '[corona or Wuhan pneumonia or covid] and [nurse or nursing]' are extracted. After the selection process, the text mining and topic modeling are performed on 454 media articles using textom version 4.5. Results: Frequency Top 30 keywords include 'Nurse', 'Corona', 'Isolation', 'Support', 'Shortage', 'Protective Clothing', and so on. Keywords that ranked high in Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) values are 'Daegu', 'President', 'Gwangju', 'manpower', and so on. As a result of the topic analysis, 10 topics are derived, such as 'Local infection', 'Dispatch of personnel', 'Message for thanks', and 'Delivery of one's heart'. Conclusion: Nurses are both the contributors and victims of COVID-19 prevention. The government and the nurses' community should make efforts to improve poor working conditions and manpower shortages.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.313-324
• /
• 2020

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which causes serious respiratory illness such as pneumonia and lung failure, was first reported in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, China. The etiological agent of COVID-19 has been confirmed as a novel coronavirus, now known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is most likely originated from zoonotic coronaviruses, like SARS-CoV, which emerged in 2002. Within a few months of the first report, SARS-CoV-2 had spread across China and worldwide, reaching a pandemic level. As COVID-19 has triggered enormous human casualties and serious economic loss posing global threat, an understanding of the ongoing situation and the development of strategies to contain the virus's spread are urgently needed. Currently, various diagnostic kits to test for COVID-19 are available and several repurposing therapeutics for COVID-19 have shown to be clinically effective. In addition, global institutions and companies have begun to develop vaccines for the prevention of COVID-19. Here, we review the current status of epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, and vaccine development for COVID-19.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.156-162
• /
• 2024

Humanity has gone since a long time through several pandemics; we cite H1N1 in 2009 and also Spanish flu in 1917. In December 2019, the health authorities of China detected unexplained cases of pneumonia. The WHO (World Health Organization) has declared the apparition of Covid-19 (novel Coronavirus). In data analysis, multiple approaches and diverse techniques were used to extract useful information from multiple heterogeneous sources and to discover knowledge and new information for decision-making. In this paper, we propose a multidimensional model for analyzing the Coronavirus Covid-19 data (spread and vaccination in European countries).

• Korean Journal of Radiology
• /
• v.25 no.5
• /
• pp.481-492
• /
• 2024

Objective: To evaluate the clinical and imaging characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infection in hospitalized immunocompromised patients in comparison with immunocompetent patients. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study analyzed consecutive adult patients hospitalized for COVID-19 who received at least one dose of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine at two academic medical centers between June 2021 and December 2022. Immunocompromised patients (with active solid organ cancer, active hematologic cancer, active immune-mediated inflammatory disease, status post solid organ transplantation, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome) were compared with immunocompetent patients. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the effect of immune status on severe clinical outcomes (in-hospital death, mechanical ventilation, or intensive care unit admission), severe radiologic pneumonia (≥ 25% of lung involvement), and typical CT pneumonia. Results: Of 2218 patients (mean age, 69.5 ± 16.1 years), 274 (12.4%), and 1944 (87.6%) were immunocompromised an immunocompetent, respectively. Patients with active solid organ cancer and patients status post solid organ transplantation had significantly higher risks for severe clinical outcomes (adjusted odds ratio = 1.58 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 1.01-2.47], P = 0.042; and 3.12 [95% CI, 1.47-6.60], P = 0.003, respectively). Patient status post solid organ transplantation and patients with active hematologic cancer were associated with increased risks for severe pneumonia based on chest radiographs (2.96 [95% CI, 1.54-5.67], P = 0.001; and 2.87 [95% CI, 1.50-5.49], P = 0.001, respectively) and for typical CT pneumonia (9.03 [95% CI, 2.49-32.66], P < 0.001; and 4.18 [95% CI, 1.70-10.25], P = 0.002, respectively). Conclusion: Immunocompromised patients with COVID-19 breakthrough infection showed an increased risk of severe clinical outcome, severe pneumonia based on chest radiographs, and typical CT pneumonia. In particular, patients status post solid organ transplantation was specifically found to be associated with a higher risk of all three outcomes than hospitalized immunocompetent patients.