Home Quarantine and its Socio-economic Impact on the Jordanian Society during Covid-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused immense suffering in several aspects of human life worldwide. The present study investigates the potential social and economic impacts of Covid-19 on Jordanian society during home quarantine. An online survey was distributed electronically to a sample of (1115) members of the Jordanian society. In the forty-questions, we attempted to examine the impact of the quarantine on the people on the socio-economic level using a 5- point Likert scale. The paper came out with the following findings. First, the members of the Jordanian society are affected more economically than socially; however, Jordanian women are found to be more affected on the social and economic levels. Second, people working in the private sector, daily workers, business owners, retirees and the unemployed are more adversely affected economically than those working in the governmental (public) sector. We offer a set of recommendations, foremost of which is to cease the closure of childcare centres (nurseries and kindergartens) to safeguard womens economic participation and augment its ratio and to safeguard the limited gains of women. In addition, to support the workers in the private sector and daily workers during the pandemic. It recommended conducting further similar studies related to the period of recovery from the spread of the virus to define the requirements for overcoming the repercussions of the pandemic

NGS implementation for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 variants in Chicagoland: An institutional perspective, successes and challenges

Identification of SARS-CoV-2 lineages has shown to provide invaluable information regarding treatment efficacy, viral transmissibility, disease severity, and immune evasion. These benefits provide institutions with an expectation of high informational upside with little insight in regards to practicality with implementation and execution of such high complexity testing in the midst of a pandemic. This article details our institution’s experience implementing and using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) to monitor SARS-CoV-2 lineages in the northern Chicagoland area throughout the pandemic. To date, we have sequenced nearly 7,000 previously known SARS-CoV-2 positive samples from various patient populations (e.g., outpatient, inpatient, and outreach sites) to reduce bias in sampling. As a result, our hospital was guided while making crucial decisions about staffing, masking, and other infection control measures during the pandemic. While beneficial, establishing this NGS procedure was challenging, with countless considerations at every stage of assay development and validation. Reduced staffing prompted transition from a manual to automated high throughput workflow, requiring further validation, lab space, and instrumentation. Data management and IT security were additional considerations that delayed implementation and dictated our bioinformatic capabilities. Taken together, our experience highlights the obstacles and triumphs of SARS-CoV-2 sequencing

Image_1_NGS implementation for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 variants in Chicagoland: An institutional perspective, successes and challenges.JPEG

Identification of SARS-CoV-2 lineages has shown to provide invaluable information regarding treatment efficacy, viral transmissibility, disease severity, and immune evasion. These benefits provide institutions with an expectation of high informational upside with little insight in regards to practicality with implementation and execution of such high complexity testing in the midst of a pandemic. This article details our institution’s experience implementing and using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) to monitor SARS-CoV-2 lineages in the northern Chicagoland area throughout the pandemic. To date, we have sequenced nearly 7,000 previously known SARS-CoV-2 positive samples from various patient populations (e.g., outpatient, inpatient, and outreach sites) to reduce bias in sampling. As a result, our hospital was guided while making crucial decisions about staffing, masking, and other infection control measures during the pandemic. While beneficial, establishing this NGS procedure was challenging, with countless considerations at every stage of assay development and validation. Reduced staffing prompted transition from a manual to automated high throughput workflow, requiring further validation, lab space, and instrumentation. Data management and IT security were additional considerations that delayed implementation and dictated our bioinformatic capabilities. Taken together, our experience highlights the obstacles and triumphs of SARS-CoV-2 sequencing.</p