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Daily Archives: September 2, 2021
Global Polymerase Chain Reaction Technologies and (2021 to 2026) – Featuring Abbott Laboratories, Bioneer and Qiagen Among Others -…
Posted: September 2, 2021 at 2:27 pm
DUBLIN, September 02, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Technologies and Global Markets 2021-2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
The global market for PCR technology should grow from $10.5 billion in 2021 to $13.7 billion by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.4% for the period of 2021-2026.
The reagents and consumables market for PCR technology should grow from $6.3 billion in 2021 to $8.4 million by 2026, at a CAGR of 6.0% for the period of 2021-2026.
The software market for PCR technology should grow from $590.8 million in 2021 to $776.1 million by 2026, at a CAGR of 5.6% for the period of 2021-2026.
This report examines the market potential of PCR technology. It offers a detailed analysis of the competitive environment, regulatory scenario, technological advances, drivers and restraints, and opportunity and trends in market growth. The report also covers market projections to 2026 and market rankings for key players. The report discusses the market share of PCR technologies based on type of product, technology and application.
This report segments the global market by four geographical regions: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Rest of the World (RoW). For the purpose of this report, North America includes the U.S., Canada and Mexico; the European region includes Germany, U.K., France and Rest of Europe; the Asia-Pacific region includes China, India, Japan, and the Rest of Asia-Pacific; and RoW includes the Middle East, Africa and South America. For market estimates, data is provided for the year 2020 as the base year, 2019 as the historical year and forecasts are through year-end 2026.
Companies Mentioned
Abbott Laboratories
Agilent Technologies Inc.
Becton, Dickinson And Co.
Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc.
Biofire Diagnostics Llc
Bioneer Corp.
Eppendorf Ag
F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.
Qiagen Nv
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.
Report Includes
70 data tables and 15 additional tables
An updated review of the global market for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technologies
Analyses of the global market trends, with data from 2019-2020, estimates for 2021 and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2026
Discussion of major factors driving the growth of the PCR market, industry structure, regulatory scenario, and penetration of technologies in molecular diagnosis of infectious diseases
Estimation of market size and revenue sales forecast for PCR products, and corresponding market share analysis by product, technology type, application, and geographic region
Impact of the COVID-19 on the market for PCR technology, R&D efforts and the need to reinvent medical ventilators, current status and impact on Medtech
Highlights of emerging technology trends, opportunities and gaps estimating current and future demand for PCR technology in clinical diagnostics
Identification of the companies that are best positioned to meet this demand because of their proprietary technologies, strategic alliances or other advantages
Competitive landscape of the major players operating in the global market, their competitive environment and product portfolio analysis
Key Topics Covered:
Story continues
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Summary and Highlights
Chapter 3 Background and Technology Overview
Evolution of PCR
Principles of PCR
Instruments and Components of PCR
Instruments
Target DNA
Primers
Enzyme and Enzyme Concentration
Buffers
Magnesium Concentration
Deoxyribonucleoside Triphosphates
Types of PCR
Reverse Transcription PCR
Nested PCR
Hot Start and Touchdown PCR
Inverse PCR
Multiplex PCR
Quantitative PCR
Traditional vs. Real-Time PCR
Design of Primer for PCR
Primer Selection
Primer Length
Melting Temperature
Specificity
G/C Content
3' End Sequence
PCR Quantification Methods
Absolute Quantification
Relative Quantification
Components of Quantitative PCR
DNA Binding Dyes
Probes in qPCR
Controls for qPCR Experiments
Chapter 4 COVID-19 and R&D
Potential Targets for COVID-19 Drug Development
Basigin (CD147)
C-C Chemokine Receptor Type 5 (CCR5)
Envelope Protein (E) (SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19)
Epithelial Sodium Channel (ENaC)
Histamine N-Methyltransferase (HMT)
Interleukin-6 Receptor Subunit ? (IL-6RA)
Membrane Glycoprotein (M) (SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19)
Nucleocapsid (N) (SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19)
R&D on COVID-19
COVID-19 Clinical Trial Landscape
Chapter 5 Regulatory Structure of the COVID-19 Diagnostics Industry
Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program (CTAP)
Clinical Trials being Conducted during COVID-19 Pandemic
Response to Drug Shortages
National Regulatory Agencies for Ongoing Clinical Trials
U.S. FDA
Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (U.K.)
European Medicines Agency
COVID-19 Testing
Chapter 6 Polymerase Chain Reaction: Market Dynamics
Market Dynamics
Market Drivers
Market Restraints
Market Opportunities
Chapter 7 Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic
Outbreak
Progression of COVID-19
Incubation Period
Epidemiology
Collaboration Between Organizations and Governments
Spread of Disease
Current Status and Impact on Medical Technology
Elective and Noncritical Procedures
Shift in Manufacturing
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WHO releases new compendium of innovative health technologies for COVID-19 and other priority diseases – World Health Organization
Posted: at 2:27 pm
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for innovative health technologies that can help countries improve health outcomes by providing shortcuts to solutions despite lack of infrastructure and resources. However, many of the new technologies that have come to market are unaffordable or unsuitable for low- and middle-income countries.
To ensure that all countries benefit from health innovation, WHO has compiled a compendium of 24 new technologies that can be used in low-resource settings.
Innovative technologies are accelerating access to healthcare everywhere, but we must ensure that they are readily available in all health facilities, fairly priced and quality-assured, said Dr Maringela Simo, WHO Assistant Director General for Access to Health Products. WHO will continue to work with governments, funders and manufacturers to promote sustainable supplies of these tools during and beyond the COVID emergency.
The compendiums main objective was to select and assess technologies that can have an immediate and future impact on COVID-19 preparedness and response, potentially improve health outcomes and quality of life, and/or offer a solution to an unmet medical need. 15 of these technologies are already commercially available in countries, while the rest are still at the prototype stage.
The compendium includes simple items ranging from a colourized bleach additive, which allows the naked eye to identify non-sterilized surfaces and objects, to more complex though easy-to-use equipment such as a portable respiratory monitoring system and ventilators with an extended battery that can be used where electricity is not available or unstable. The list also includes a deployable health facility for emergencies decked out in a shipping container.
Some of these technologies are already in use and have proven their value through pilot programmes. For example, the solar powered oxygen concentrator has been highly effective in treating pneumonia, which kills 900,000 children a year, in a regional childrens hospital in Somalias Galmudug state.
Studies have demonstrated that reliable access to oxygen can reduce child deaths due to pneumonia by 35%. Given the shortage of oxygen in numerous countries, the concentrator is a critical tool in the treatment of hospitalized COVID patients.
WHO has been assessing innovative technologies for the last 10 years, some of the selected products are now addressing priority health problems in low-resource settings. A critical example is a smartphone application that allows the user to instantly record accurate blood pressure measurements. According to a report released by WHO last week, the number of adults aged 3079 years with hypertension has increased from 650 million to 1.28 billion in the last thirty years and almost half these people do not know they have hypertension.
Smartphones are widely available, even in the most remote areas or low-resource settings. The software-based platform transforms existing smartphones into a medical device capable of measuring blood pressure accurately, with no need to add any other devices or accessories. The other advantage of the app is that even in the absence of a trained health worker, patients can self-test and better manage their blood pressure.
The compendium provides a full assessment of the technologies, carried out by a group of international experts working with WHO technical teams, on the basis of: compliance with WHO specifications regarding performance, quality and safety; suitability in low-resource settings; affordability; ease of use; and regulatory approval status. This information is vital to help governments, non-governmental organizations and funders decide which products to procure.
Conclusions on the suitability of each technology is communicated through a simple traffic light scoring system, indicating whether the product is recommended (for use without any known limitations); recommended with caution (limitations may have been identified related to maintenance and need for trained staff); or not recommended (inappropriate, unsafe or unaffordable).
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AMD to Present at the Deutsche Bank 2021 Technology Conference – Yahoo Finance
Posted: at 2:27 pm
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced that Devinder Kumar, executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, will present at the Deutsche Bank 2021 Technology Conference on a virtual basis on Friday, September 10, 2021 at 2:05pm ET/11:05am PT. A real-time video webcast of the presentation can be accessed on AMDs Investor Relations website ir.amd.com.
About AMD
For 50 years, AMD has driven innovation in high-performance computing, graphics and visualization technologies the building blocks for gaming, immersive platforms and the data center. Hundreds of millions of consumers, leading Fortune 500 businesses and cutting-edge scientific research facilities around the world rely on AMD technology daily to improve how they live, work and play. AMD employees around the world are focused on building great products that push the boundaries of what is possible. For more information about how AMD is enabling today and inspiring tomorrow, visit the AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) website, blog, Facebook and Twitter pages.
AMD, the AMD Arrow logo and the combination thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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Western Digital Unveils 20TB HDD with OptiNAND Technology – Tom’s Hardware
Posted: at 2:27 pm
Western Digital has introduced the industry's first 20TB hard drives that integrates an iNAND UFS embedded flash drive (EFD) to improve performance, reliability, and capacity. The company's OptiNAND architecture does not use 3D NAND memory for caching, but to store various metadata to enhance key characteristics of hard drives.
Western Digital's 20TB HDDs with OptiNAND technology are based on nine 2.2TB ePMR (energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording technology) platters, triple-stage actuator technology for more precise positioning of read/write heads, an iNAND UFS drive of unknown capacity that uses 3D TLC NAND memory, and the company's custom system-on-chip (SoC) that controls the drive as well as communication between the HDD and the EFD.
Modern hard drives store gigabytes of metadata on spinning media since it cannot be cost-effectively stored in local DRAM and serial NAND. HDDs storerepeatable runout (RRO) metadata (the share of the position error signal that is repeatable for every spindle revolution) as well as write operations metadata at the track level to account for increased adjacent track interference (ATI). With OptiNAND, RRO and write operations are stored on the iNAND drive, which frees up space on the rotating media, faster metadata availability, and reduces the number of read/write metadata-related operations, which further improve performance (e.g., random read/write performance). Additionally, the EFD stores write operations at the sector level, which optimizes storage requirements and reduce the number of ATI refreshes to increase performance.
As areal density of modern HDDs increases, so does the amount of metadata that needs to be stored on the drive. Also, things like ATI are affecting performance of ePMR-based HDDs stronger than before (something that can be solved with HAMR or MAMR magnetic recording technologies that are designed to greatly improve signal quality or TDMR read heads that can read data more reliably). Therefore, moving metadata from rotating media and placing it on a flash-based drive makes a lot of sense.
In addition, the iNAND EFD can be used to store over 100MB of write cache data in case of emergency power off (EPO) event, which improves reliability of an OptiNAND-enhanced HDD. Normally, drives from Western Digital only store about 2MB of write cache data to serial flash. Furthermore, with an iNAND EFD onboard and appropriate firmware optimizations, HDDs with OptiNAND can reduce their latency.
From a host perspective, Western Digital's OptiNAND architecture-based HDDs should work just like other drives without NAND flash. To that end, at least some customers of the company will be able to install the new drives into existing machines assuming that their 3.5-inch bays can handle slightly higher power consumption of iNAND-enhanced HDDs. Keeping in mind that Western Digital's exascale customers tend to qualify their drives before deploying, expect the drives to start shipping in high volume only several months (or even quarters) down the road.
Western Digital says that its OptiNAND technology will be used across multiple generations of its upcoming HDDs, including those based on ePMR and its successors.
"With our IP and world-class development teams in HDD and flash, we are able to continuously push the boundaries of innovation to improve our customers storage infrastructure,"said Siva Sivaram, president of Global Technology and Strategy, Western Digital."We have had an extraordinary journey of HDD innovation. We changed everything with HelioSeal in 2013; were first to ship energy-assisted HDDs in volume in 2019; and now were going to lead again with OptiNAND technology. This architecture will underpin our HDD technology roadmap for multiple generations as we expect that an ePMR HDD with OptiNAND will reach 50TB in the second half of the decade."
The manufacturer does not say how significantly the addition of an iNAND EFD affects costs of its HDDs, but it is obvious that their bill-of-materials increases with an additional component and a high-performance SoC controller. Keeping in mind that Western Digital's OptiNAND architecture has a number of advantages over traditional HDD architectures, it is likely that the producer will charge a premium for these drives.
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Emerging technology, evolving threats Part II: The asymmetry effect – Security Magazine
Posted: at 2:27 pm
Emerging technology, evolving threats Part II: The asymmetry effect | Security Magazine This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more. This Website Uses CookiesBy closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn MoreThis website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.
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Technology Ireland awards opens for submissions – The Irish Times
Posted: at 2:27 pm
Ibec-affiliated Technology Ireland has announced the launch of its annual industry awards with a new corporate social responsibility category.
The awards, now in their 29th year, seek to highlight successful entrepreneurship and the diversity of the Irish technology sector.
This year the awards will take place on November 25th and will be streamed online.
Among the ten categories this year are awards for women in technology, outstanding achievement in international growth, tech innovation of the year, tech 4 good initiatives and company of the year.
Last years overall winner was Fenergo, which recently became the States latest tech unicorn after reaching a valuation of more than $1 billion after it sold a majority stake in the business to Astorg and Bridgepoint. Other previous winners include Keywords Studios, the Dublin-headquartered but London-listed company that provides a raft of services to the video games industry, and elearning company LearnUpon
Irish software and digital technology companies are urged to submit entries for the awards by October 1st. Entry is free.
The ongoing pandemic made 2021 another difficult year. Yet, uniquely amongst EU countries, Irelands economy continued to grow. Much of this success was due to the resilience and innovation of our technology sector, said Technology Ireland director Una Fitzpatrick.
We are delighted to celebrate that success through these awards and highlight the technology sector as the engine driving Irelands economic and social post pandemic recovery, she added.
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Technology Ireland awards opens for submissions - The Irish Times
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An Introduction to the Light Microscope, Light Microscopy Techniques and Applications – Technology Networks
Posted: at 2:27 pm
Some of the most fundamental processes in nature occur at the microscopic scale, far beyond the limits of what we can see by eye, which motivates the development of technology that allows us to see beyond this limit. As early as the 4th century AD, people had discovered the basic concept of an optical lens, and by the 13th century, they were already using glass lenses to improve their eyesight and to magnify objects such as plants and insects to better understand them.1 With time, these simple magnifying glasses developed into advanced optical systems, known as light microscopes, which allow us to see and understand the microscopic world beyond the limits of our perception. Today, light microscopy is a core technique in many areas of science and technology, including life sciences, biology, materials sciences, nanotechnology, industrial inspection, forensics and many more. In this article, we will first explore the basic working principle of light microscopy. Building on this, we will discuss some more advanced forms of light microscopy that are commonly used today and compare their strengths and weaknesses for different applications.
What is light microscopy?
Parts of a microscope and how a light microscope works
Early microscopes used an illumination system comprising sunlight that was collected and reflected onto the sample by a mirror. Today, most microscopes use artificial light sources such as light bulbs, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or lasers to make more reliable and controllable illumination systems, which can be tailored to a given application. In these systems, light from the source is typically collected using a condenser lens and then shaped and optically filtered before being focused onto the sample. Shaping the light is essential to achieve high resolution and contrast, and often includes controlling the sample area that is illuminated and the angles at which light impinges on it. Optical filtering of the illumination light, using optical filters that modify its spectrum and polarization, can be used to highlight certain features of a sample, to improve the visibility of weak signatures or to observe a samples fluorescence.
The imaging system collects illuminating light that has interacted with the sample and produces a magnified image that can be viewed (Figure 1). This is achieved using two main groups of optical elements: first, an objective lens that collects as much light from the sample as possible and second, an eyepiece lens which relays the collected light to the observers eye or a camera system. The imaging system may also include elements such as apertures and filters that select certain portions of light from the sample, for example to see only light that has been scattered off the sample, or only light of a certain color or wavelength. As in the case of the illumination system, this type of filtering can be extremely useful to single out certain features of interest that would remain hidden when imaging all the light from the sample.
Overall, both the illumination and the imaging system play a key role in how well a light microscope performs. To get the best out of light microscopy in your application, it is essential to have a good understanding of how a basic light microscope works, and what variations exist today.
Simple and compound microscopes
A single lens can be used as a magnifying glass which increases the apparent size of an object when it is held close to the lens. Looking through the magnifying glass at the object, we see a magnified and virtual image of the object. This effect is used in simple microscopes, which consist of a single lens that images a sample held clamped into a frame and illuminated from below, as is shown in Figure 2. This type of microscope can achieve a magnification of typically 2-6 x, which is sufficient to study relatively large samples. However, achieving higher magnification and better image quality requires the use of more optical elements, which led to the development of the compound microscope (Figure 3).
In a compound microscope, the sample is illuminated from the bottom to observe transmitted light, or from the top to observe reflected light. Light from the sample is collected by an optical system consisting of two main lens groups: the objective and the eyepiece, whose individual powers multiply to enable much higher magnifications than those achieved by a simple microscope. The objective collects light from the sample and typically has a magnification of 40-100 x. Some compound microscopes feature multiple objective lenses on a rotating turret known as a nose piece, allowing the user to choose between different magnifications. The image from the objective is picked up by the eyepiece, which magnifies the image again and relays it to the users eye, with typical eyepieces having a magnification of 10 x. Therefore, the total magnification of a compound microscope, which is the product of the objective magnification and the eyepiece magnification, typically lies in the range of 400-1000 x.
r = 0.61 (/NA)
In standard compound microscopes (Figure 4a), the sample (often on a glass slide) is held on a stage that can be moved manually or electronically for higher precision, and the illumination system is in the lower part of the microscope, while the imaging system is above the sample. However, the microscope body can usually also be adapted to particular uses. For example, stereo microscopes (Figure 4b) feature two eyepieces at a slight angle to each other, allowing the user to see a slightly three-dimensional image. In many biology applications, an inverted microscope design (Figure 4c) is used, where both the illumination system and the imaging optics are below the sample stage to facilitate placing e.g., containers of cell cultures onto it. Finally, comparison microscopes (Figure 4d) were often used in forensics, for example to compare fingerprints or bullets by eye before the advent of digital microscopy, which allowed images to be saved and compared.
Types of light microscopy
In the following, we will present a selection of different light microscopy techniques available today, discuss their main operating principles and the strengths and weaknesses of each technique.
Bright field microscopy (BFM) is the simplest form of light microscopy, where the sample is illuminated from above or below, and light transmitted through or reflected from it is collected to form an image that can be viewed. Contrast and color in the image are formed because absorption and reflection vary over the area of the sample. BFM was the first type of light microscopy developed and uses a relatively simple optical setup, which allowed early scientists to study microorganisms and cells in transmission. Today, it is still very useful for the same purposes, and is also widely used to study other partially transparent samples such as thin materials in transmission mode (Figure 5), or microelectronics and other small structures in reflection mode. However, the magnification of BFM is limited to 1300 x and it is not suitable for imaging highly transparent samples.
Figure 5: Bright field microscopy. Left: Transmission mode - flakes of graphite (dark grey) and graphene (lightest grey) as seen in a bright field microscope. Here, the difference in brightness seen on the image is proportional to the thickness of the graphite layer. Right: Reflection mode - flakes of graphene and graphite on a SiO2 surface. Small surface contaminants are also visible. Credit: Author.
Figure 7: Phase contrast microscopy of a human embryonic stem cell colony. Credit Sabrina Lin, Prue Talbot, Stem Cell Center University of California, Riverside.
Figure 8: Differential interference contrast microscopy. Left: Schematic setup for DICM. Right: Live adult Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) nematode imaged by DICM. Credit: Bob Goldstein, Cell Image Library. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY 3.0).
Figure 9: Polarization microscopy. Photomicrograph of olivine adcumulate, formed by the accumulation of crystals with different birefringence. Variations of thickness and refractive index across the sample result in different colors. Credit: R. Hill, CSIRO.
Figure 10: Fluorescence microscopy. Left: Working principle - illumination light is filtered by a short-pass excitation filter and reflected towards the sample by a dichroic mirror. Fluorescence from the sample passes the dichroic mirror and is additionally filtered by an emission filter to remove residual excitation light in the image. Right: Fluorescence image of molecules hosted in an organic crystal (crystal outline shown dashed yellow). The background is not completely dark due to fluorescence from other molecules and the crystal material. Credit: Author.
Figure 11: Immunofluorescence microscopy. Two interphase cells with immunofluorescence labeling of actin filaments (purple), microtubules (yellow), and nuclei (green). Credit: Torsten Wittmann, NIGMS Image Gallery.
A disadvantage of TPM is that the probability of two-photon absorption is much lower than single-photon absorption and thus requires high-intensity illumination such as pulsed lasers to achieve a practical fluorescence signal intensity.
Figure 13: Two-photon microscopy. Thin optical section of pollen, showing fluorescence mostly form the outer layers. Credit: Michael Cammer, Cell Image Library.
Total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) is a fluorescence microscopy technique that allows 2D fluorescence images to be made of an extremely thin (approximately 100 nm thick) sample slice.10 This is achieved by exciting the fluorescence of the sample by evanescent fields of the illuminating light, which occur when it undergoes total internal reflection at a boundary between two materials of different refractive index (n). Evanescent fields have the same wavelength as the illuminating light but are tightly bound to the interface. In TIRF microscopy, the excitation light typically undergoes total internal reflection at the interface between a glass slide (n = 1.52) and the aqueous medium (n = 1.35) the sample is dispersed in. The intensity of the evanescent field falls off exponentially with distance from the interface, such that only fluorophores close the interface are observed in the final image. This also leads to a strong suppression of fluorescence background from areas outside the slice, which allows weak fluorescence signals to be picked up, for example when localizing single molecules. This makes TIRF extremely useful to observe the weak signal of fluorescent proteins (Figure 15) involved in intercellular interactions, but also requires the sample to be dispersed in an aqueous medium, which may limit the types of samples that can be measured.
Figure 16: Sample preparation for expansion microscopy. A cell is first stained and then linked to a polymer gel matrix. The cell structure itself is then dissolved (digested), allowing the stained parts to expand isotropically with the gel, allowing the stained structure to be imaged with more detail.
Deconvolution in light microscopy
Figure 17: Image deconvolution. Left: Original fluorescence image. Right: Image after deconvolution, showing increased detail. Credit: Author.
Light microscopy vs electron microscopy
Summary and conclusion
Light microscopy techniques comparison table
Technique
Advantages
Limitations
Typical applications
Bright field microscopy
Relatively simple setup with few optical elements
Low contrast, fully transparent objects cannot be imaged directly and may require staining
Imaging colored or stained samples15 and partially transparent materials16
Dark field microscopy
Reveals small structures and surface roughness, allows imaging of unstained samples
High illumination power required can damage the sample, only scattering image features seen
Imaging particles in cells,17 surface inspection18
Phase contrast microscopy
Enables imaging of transparent samples
Complex optical setup, high illumination power required can damage the sample, generally darker images
Tracking cell motion,19 imaging larvae20
Differential interference contrast microscopy
Higher resolution than PCM
Complex optical setup, high illumination power required can damage the sample, generally darker images
High resolution imaging of live, unstained cells21 and nanoparticles22
Polarized light microscopy
Strong background suppression from non-birefringent areas of a sample, allows measurement of sample thickness and birefringence
Requires a birefringent sample
Imaging collagen,23 revealing grain boundaries in crystals24
Fluorescence microscopy
Allows individual fluorophores and particular areas of interest in a sample to be singled out, can overcome the resolution limit
Requires a fluorescent sample and a sensitive detector, photobleaching can diminish signal
Imaging cell components, single molecules, proteins25
Immunofluorescence microscopy
Visualize specific biomolecules using antibody targeting
Extensive sample preparation, requires a fluorescent sample, photobleaching
Identifying and tracking cells26 and proteins27
Confocal microscopy
Low background signal, possible to create 3D images
Slow imaging speed, requires a complicated optical system
3D cell imaging, imaging samples with weak fluorescence signals, surface profiling28.
Two-photon microscopy
Deep sample penetration, low background signal, less photobleaching
Slow imaging speed, requires a complicated optical system and high-power illumination
Neuroscience,29 deep tissue imaging30
Light sheet microscopy
Images only an extremely thin slice of the sample, can create 3D images by rotating the sample
Slow imaging speed, requires a complicated optical system
3D imaging of cells and organisms8
Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy
Strong background suppression, extremely fine vertical sectioning
Imaging limited to thin area of sample, requires a complicated optical system, sample needs to be in aqueous medium
Single molecule imaging,31 imaging molecular trafficking32
Expansion microscopy
Increases effective resolution of standard fluorescence microscopy
Requires chemical processing of the sample, not suitable for live samples
High resolution imaging of biological samples11
B
References1.Rochow TG, Tucker PA. A Brief History of Microscopy. In: Introduction to Microscopy by Means of Light, Electrons, X Rays, or Acoustics. Springer US; 1994:1-21. doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-1513-9_12.Smith WJ. Modern Optical Engineering: The Design of Optical Systems. McGraw-Hill; 1990. ISBN: 00705917413.Shribak M, Inou S. Orientation-independent differential interference contrast microscopy. Collected Works of Shinya Inoue: Microscopes, Living Cells, and Dynamic Molecules. 2008;(Dic):953-962. doi:10.1142/9789812790866_00744.Gao G, Jiang YW, Sun W, Wu FG. Fluorescent quantum dots for microbial imaging. Chinese Chem Lett. 2018;29(10):1475-1485. doi:10.1016/j.cclet.2018.07.0045.Chalfie M, Tu Y, Euskirchen G, Ward W, Prasher D. Green fluorescent protein as a marker for gene expression. Science. 1994;263(5148):802-805. doi:10.1126/science.83032956.Baranov M V., Olea RA, van den Bogaart G. Chasing Uptake: Super-Resolution Microscopy in Endocytosis and Phagocytosis. Trends Cell Biol. 2019;29(9):727-739. doi:10.1016/j.tcb.2019.05.0067.Miller DM, Shakes DC. Chapter 16 Immunofluorescence Microscopy. In: Current Protocols Essential Laboratory Techniques. Vol 10.; 1995:365-394. doi:10.1016/S0091-679X(08)61396-58.Huisken J, Swoger J, Del Bene F, Wittbrodt J, Stelzer EHK. Optical sectioning deep inside live embryos by selective plane illumination microscopy. Science. 2004;305(5686):1007-1009. doi:10.1126/science.11000359.Huisken J. Slicing embryos gently with laser light sheets. BioEssays. 2012;34(5):406-411. doi:10.1002/bies.20110012010.Fish KN. Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) Microscopy. Curr Protoc Cytom. 2009;50(1):273-275. doi:10.1002/0471142956.cy1218s5011.Wassie AT, Zhao Y, Boyden ES. Expansion microscopy: principles and uses in biological research. Nat Methods. 2019;16(1):33-41. doi:10.1038/s41592-018-0219-412.Lam F, Cladire D, Guillaume C, Wassmann K, Bolte S. Super-resolution for everybody: An image processing workflow to obtain high-resolution images with a standard confocal microscope. Methods. 2017;115:17-27. doi: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2016.11.00313.Hedvat C V. Digital microscopy: past, present, and future. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2010;134(11):1666-1670. doi: 10.5858/2009-0579-RAR1.114.Fatermans J, den Dekker AJ, Mller-Caspary K, et al. Single Atom Detection from Low Contrast-to-Noise Ratio Electron Microscopy Images. Phys Rev Lett. 2018;121(5):56101. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.05610115.Zhang C, Huber F, Knop M, Hamprecht FA. Yeast cell detection and segmentation in bright field microscopy. In: 2014 IEEE 11th International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI); 2014:1267-1270. doi:10.1109/ISBI.2014.686810716.Nair RR, Blake P, Grigorenko AN, et al. Fine Structure Constant Defines Visual Transparency of Graphene. Science. 2008;320(5881):1308-1308. doi:10.1126/science.115696517.Xu D, He Y, Yeung ES. Direct Imaging of Transmembrane Dynamics of Single Nanoparticles with Darkfield Microscopy: Improved Orientation Tracking at Cell Sidewall. Anal Chem. 2014;86(7):3397-3404. doi:10.1021/ac403700u18.Neu-Baker NM, Dozier AK, Eastlake AC, Brenner SA. Evaluation of enhanced darkfield microscopy and hyperspectral imaging for rapid screening of TiO2 and SiO2 nanoscale particles captured on filter media. Microsc Res Tech. doi:10.1002/jemt.2385619.Li K, Miller ED, Weiss LE, Campbell PG, Kanade T. Online Tracking of Migrating and Proliferating Cells Imaged with Phase-Contrast Microscopy. In: 2006 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshop (CVPRW06); 2006:65. doi:10.1109/CVPRW.2006.15020. McFadzean JA, Smiles J. Studies of Litomosoides carinii by Phase-contrast microscopy: the Development of the Larvae. J Helminthol. 1956;30(1):25-32. doi:10.1017/S0022149X0003294621.Sun W, Wang G, Fang N, Yeung ES. Wavelength-dependent differential interference contrast microscopy: selectively imaging nanoparticle probes in live cells. Anal Chem. 2009;81(22):9203-9208. doi: 10.1021/ac901623b22.Xiao L, Ha JW, Wei L, Wang G, Fang N. Determining the full three-dimensional orientation of single anisotropic nanoparticles by differential interference contrast microscopy. Angew Chemie Int Ed. 2012;51(31):7734-7738. doi: 10.1002/anie.20120234023.Wolman M, Kasten FH. Polarized light microscopy in the study of the molecular structure of collagen and reticulin. Histochemistry. 1986;85(1):41-49. doi:10.1007/BF0050865224.Slmov M, Oenek V, Vander Voort G. Polarized light microscopy: utilization in the investigation of the recrystallization of aluminum alloys. Mater Charact. 2004;52(3):165-177. doi:10.1016/j.matchar.2003.10.01025.Lichtman JW, Conchello J-A. Fluorescence microscopy. Nat Methods. 2005;2(12):910-919. doi:10.1038/nmeth81726.Franke W, Appelhans B, Schmid E, Freudenstein C, Osborn M, Weber K. Identification and characterization of epithelial cells in mammalian tissues by immunofluorescence microscopy using antibodies to prekeratin. Differentiation. 1979;15(1-3):7-25. doi:10.1111/j.1432-0436.1979.tb01030.x27.Seto S, Layh-Schmitt G, Kenri T, Miyata M. Visualization of the attachment organelle and cytadherence proteins of Mycoplasma pneumoniae by immunofluorescence microscopy. J Bacteriol. 2001;183(5):1621-1630. doi:10.1128/JB.183.5.1621-1630.200128.Pawley J, Pawley JB. Handbook of Biological Confocal Microscopy. 2006;(August 2010). doi:10.1007/978-0-387-45524-229.Ellis-Davies GCR. Two-Photon Microscopy for Chemical Neuroscience. ACS Chem Neurosci. 2011;2(4):185-197. doi:10.1021/cn100111a30.Helmchen F, Denk W. Deep tissue two-photon microscopy. Nat methods. 2005;2(12):932-940. doi:10.1038/nmeth81831.Sako Y, Uyemura T. Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy for single-molecule imaging in living cells. 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What Went Wrong With the Coronavirus Pandemic in Florida – The New York Times
Posted: at 2:26 pm
MIAMI The unexpected and unwelcome coronavirus surge now unfolding in the United States has hit hardest in states that were slow to embrace vaccines. And then there is Florida.
While leaders in that state also refused lockdowns and mask orders, they made it a priority to vaccinate vulnerable older people. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, opened mass vaccination sites and sent teams to retirement communities and nursing homes. Younger people also lined up for shots.
Mr. DeSantis and public health experts expected a rise in cases this summer as people gathered indoors in the air-conditioning. But what happened was much worse: Cases spiraled out of control, reaching peaks higher than Florida had seen before. Hospitalizations followed. So did deaths, which are considerably higher than the numbers currently reached anywhere else in the country.
Its a very sad, sad moment for all of us, said Natalie E. Dean, a biostatistician at Emory University who until recently worked at the University of Florida and has closely followed the pandemic in the state. It was really hard to imagine us ever getting back to this place.
The Florida story is a cautionary tale for dealing with the current incarnation of the coronavirus. The United States has used the vaccines as its primary pandemic weapon. But Florida shows that even a state that made a major push for vaccinations Florida ranks 21st among states and Washington, D.C., in giving people of all ages at least one shot can be crushed by the Delta variant, reaching frightening levels of hospitalizations and deaths.
Clearly the vaccines are keeping most of these people out of the hospital, but were not building the herd immunity that people hoped, Mr. DeSantis said at a news conference this past week. Youve got a huge percentage of people adults that have gotten shots, and yet youve still seen a wave.
Morgues and crematories are full or getting there. Public utilities in Orlando and Tampa have asked residents to cut back on water usage so liquid oxygen, which is used in water treatment, can be conserved for hospitals. As of Friday, Florida was recording an average of 242 virus deaths a day, nearly as many as California and Texas combined, though a few states still had a higher per capita rate, according to public health data tracked by The New York Times.
Floridas pandemic data, more scant since the state ended its declared Covid-19 state of emergency in June, reveals only limited information about who is dying. Hospitals have said upward of 90 percent of their patients have been unvaccinated. Exactly why the state has been so hard-hit remains an elusive question. Other states with comparable vaccine coverage have a small fraction of Floridas hospitalization rate.
The best explanation of what has happened is that Floridas vaccination rates were good, but not good enough for its demographics. It has so many older people that even vaccinating a vast majority of them left more than 800,000 unprotected. Vaccination rates among younger people were uneven, so clusters of people remained at risk. Previous virus waves, which were milder than in some other states, conferred only some natural immunity.
And Florida is Florida: People have enjoyed many months of barhopping, party-going and traveling, all activities conducive to swift virus spread.
Unlike in places like Oregon, which is clamping down again, adopting even outdoor mask mandates, Mr. DeSantis continues to stay the course, hoping to power through despite the devastating human toll. A Quinnipiac University poll released this past week found that Mr. DeSantiss approval rating was 47 percent.
He and other state officials have sought to steer away from measures that could curtail infections, banning strict mask mandates in public schools. The biggest school districts imposed them anyway, and on Friday, a state judge ruled that Florida could not prevent those mandates, a decision the Department of Education plans to appeal.
Florida has experienced more deaths than normal from all causes, not just Covid-19 throughout the pandemic. In the early weeks of 2021, with cases surging and the vaccine rollout kicking off, the state averaged 5,600 deaths each week, about a third more than typical for that time of year, according to mortality figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The deaths dropped and then went back up.
These excess deaths are important, both because a number of Covid-19 deaths occur outside hospitals, and because the virus may contribute to deaths from other causes as a result of the strain on the health system.
In the first week of August, the state recorded another 5,600 deaths. But because mortality rates normally drop during summer months, the figure was more than 50 percent above whats typical.
Sept. 2, 2021, 12:52 p.m. ET
Were seeing a ton of people calling us to report the Covid deaths, said Dr. Stephen J. Nelson, the Polk County medical examiner. Theyre typically young people that have been sick for a while.
The picture of who is dying, however, is complicated.
About 82 percent of people 65 and older in the state are fully vaccinated, about average for the nation. That has still left a relatively large number of older people about 819,000 unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated, said Jason L. Salemi, an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida. If the unvaccinated also take fewer other precautions, he added, that would put them directly in the viruss path.
The Delta variant is exceptional at finding vulnerable populations, he said.
The situation in nursing homes, where infections can spread swiftly, has also been problematic. While vaccination rates among older Floridians as a whole have been good, the rate of nursing home residents who are fully vaccinated an average of 73.1 percent in each home is lower than every state but Nevada, according to the C.D.C. About 47.5 percent of nursing home staff members were fully vaccinated as of Aug. 15, the lowest of any state but Louisiana.
Older people are also more likely to have immune deficiencies and comorbidities, making them more susceptible to breakthrough infections and hospitalizations, noted Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. And some, though not all, data have suggested that immunity against infection has waned in older, vaccinated adults; the Biden administration has indicated that those people will be among the first in line for booster shots.
Then there are the younger people, who now make up a larger share of Florida virus deaths. Before June 25, people under 65 made up 22 percent of deaths. Since then, that proportion has risen to 28 percent.
Fifty-six percent of people between the ages of 12 and 64 in Floridas 10 largest counties are fully vaccinated, which is consistent with national figures. But in the rest of the state, that figure is only 43 percent, and in 27 counties, less than 1 in 3 residents in the age group is fully vaccinated.
The heart-wrenching deaths of children remain rare. The deaths of young and middle-aged adults have become routine.
My mom had no prior illnesses she was strong as an ox, said Tr Burrows, whose 50-year-old mother, Cindy Dawkins, died from Covid-19 on Aug. 7. There was literally nothing wrong with her. This just came out of nowhere.
Ms. Dawkins, a mother of four who worked in a restaurant in Boynton Beach, began to feel ill shortly before her birthday, as the family was en route to celebrate in Orlando. Ms. Dawkins developed a cough and shortness of breath. Four days later, she went to a hospital. Doctors placed her on a ventilator. Thirty-two hours later, she was dead.
Her son said she had not gotten vaccinated because she feared possible side effects.
Those who did not get vaccinated are only part of the explanation behind the surge. Many states slammed by the virus earlier developed deep reservoirs of natural immunity from prior infections, affording them higher levels of protection than would be evident from vaccination rates alone.
Not so in Florida. Compared to other states, Florida was spared as devastating a wintertime wave of cases as ravaged other parts of the country in part because warm weather made it possible for people to gather outdoors. That was a boon to Floridas economy and its political leaders but a liability come summertime, when the state was unable to rely on the same wall of natural immunity that is now helping to shield places walloped by the virus this winter.
People have underestimated the role of natural immunity, Dr. Chin-Hong said. Wherever you get hit hard, you kind of get a reprieve from the virus.
There is some question as to whether Floridas vaccination rates, especially in places like Miami and Orlando, might have been inflated by tourists getting shots. Regardless, vaccinations appear to be making Covid-19 cases less severe in Miami-Dade County, which had one of the states highest vaccination rates, according to research by Dr. Jeffrey Harris, a physician and emeritus professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Beyond that, the hot weather has driven people indoors and attracted hordes of vacationers, creating the conditions for Delta to spread. For all of the focus on vaccines, scientists said, the viruss path remains highly dependent on how closely people are packed together, where people are congregating and what precautions they are taking.
For other states whose residents will head indoors as temperatures drop in the fall and winter, Florida offers an important lesson, Dr. Dean said: As in the beginning of the pandemic, hospitalizations need to be kept in check.
The minimum thing we should be achieving is to keep those hospitalization numbers low so its not straining the health care system, because that doesnt just affect Covid patients it affects everyone, she said.
And policymakers, she said, must realize that vaccination rates need to be higher than previously thought to control a more contagious virus variant.
Things can get out of hand, she said. I do believe that this could happen in other states, too.
Lisa Waananen contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
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L.A. school COVID outbreaks increase, some tied to athletics – Los Angeles Times
Posted: at 2:26 pm
Los Angeles County recorded eight coronavirus outbreaks last week in its K-12 schools up from three the previous week. The latest outbreaks led to 72 student infections, an increase from 40 the week before.
But in a sign that school-based COVID-19 safety measures are showing promise, fewer students and staff were exposed to the coronavirus in these outbreaks: 211 people were exposed last week, down from 238 in the prior week the same week that classes began in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest in the nation.
This most likely reflects improved understanding of who is exposed, and great work by schools working to mitigate exposures and unnecessary quarantine of students by using cohorting, distancing strategies and seating charts in their classrooms, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.
Many of the outbreaks are tied to athletic activities or because COVID-19 protocols were not followed. An outbreak is defined by linked cases involving three or more people in which transmission probably occurred at schools or school activities.
Of 17 school outbreaks identified since the beginning of August, eight were tied to youth sports, and another eight to classrooms. The classroom outbreaks have resulted in the infections of 117 students and seven staff members; one person has been hospitalized, Ferrer said.
The risk factors for transmission in schools include inconsistent and incorrect mask use indoors, visibly sick people showing up to school, lack of ventilation measures and lack of physical distancing in places like hallways, cafeterias, break rooms and playgrounds, as well as classrooms, where distancing cannot often done due to lack of space. State and county guidelines encourage but do not mandate physical distancing in classrooms.
Findings from these outbreaks suggests that transmission risk is highest where there is close, unmasked contact with symptomatic people, Ferrer said.
Between Aug. 15-29, among 1.5 million students and 200,000 staff members in Los Angeles County, there were 5,207 reports of coronavirus cases among students and 729 among staff.
But many of the coronavirus cases that are being identified are occurring at schools or sites where there are only one or two cases. Of 1,871 schools and related sites reporting coronavirus cases, 720 of them reported three or more cases.
L.A. Unified has launched an ambitious coronavirus testing program, which requires the screening of every student, teacher and staff member more than half a million people once a week for the foreseeable future. The effort is so vast that the number of tests done weekly through L.A. Unifieds program is equal to more than 50% of the countys weekly test results, according to data provided by the Department of Public Health.
The largest portion of these cases are identified through routine screening, and these are really people who are, in fact, asymptomatic, Ferrer said.
Still, its important to identify these cases so that infected people are removed from the classroom until they recover and are no longer contagious, she said.
Even as many schools in L.A. County have reopened, the overall number of new coronavirus infections countywide has actually declined.
Overall, L.A. County has reported an average of 2,596 new cases per day over the last week. Thats down 25% from two weeks ago, when many schools began to reopen.
The test positivity rate a metric measuring the proportion of tests that confirm coronavirus infection has also decreased notably, from 3.5% on Aug. 17 to 2.5% as of Tuesday.
Los Angeles Countys school-aged children remain in a better position than children in other parts of the country. There are some parts of the nation where pediatric COVID-19 hospitalization rates are at the highest point in the pandemic.
But in L.A. County, COVID-19 hospitalization rates for children are nowhere near [what] they were during our winter surge, Ferrer said.
This pattern may reflect the fact that many adults are vaccinated and that most people are wearing masks, Ferrer said.
Still, the concern about the Delta variant has caused L.A. County health officials to retain a stricter quarantine standard in schools than required by California for at least a few more weeks.
L.A. County officials have ordered unvaccinated students who had close contact with an infected person for at least 15 minutes in one day while within six feet of that person to be sent home and quarantined for at least eight days.
The state, meanwhile, does not require a quarantine for the close contact if both the infected person and close contact were wearing masks during the entire time of exposure.
Ferrer said she wanted to see a couple more weeks of data before relaxing the quarantine standard, to be sure that youre not creating an unintended consequence of creating a lot of spread in schools. COVID-19 vaccines are authorized only for those age 12 and older.
L.A. County health officials, however, did recently eliminate weekly testing requirements for all youth athletes or associated staff if they are fully vaccinated or have a documented coronavirus infection within the last 90 days. Also, weekly testing is no longer required for children younger than 12 if playing outdoors.
The Department of Public Health also removed a requirement that youth athletes and staff get a coronavirus test within 72 hours of a game.
In the Wednesday briefing, Debra Duardo, the superintendent of the Los Angeles County Office of Education, said that three L.A. County school districts have adopted vaccine mandates. Two of the three districts she named, ABC Unified and the Palmdale School District, said the information was incorrect and they do not have a student vaccine mandate. The third district, Culver City Unified, has approved a mandate for students, but it has not yet gone into effect.
A county spokesperson later corrected this information.
Duardo also named 13 districts that are considering vaccines mandates, but the spokesperson said this information is not confirmed and may have changed since an Aug. 19 school district survey.
But there are school systems exploring the option, including Los Angeles Unified and the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified, according to officials in those districts.
The L.A. teachers union has called for mandating vaccines for students.
Times staff writer Laura Newberry contributed to this report.
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Verbal and physical attacks on health workers surge as emotions boil during latest COVID-19 wave – The Texas Tribune
Posted: at 2:26 pm
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When the security guard at Methodist Hospital San Antonio met the visitor at the door of the childrens emergency room on a Saturday afternoon in early August, the officers request was simple: The man needed to get a temperature screening to make sure he showed no early signs of COVID-19 before entering the hospital.
The man refused, became agitated and began angrily shouting, pulling out his camera to record the guard and hospital staff.
The scene got so tense that San Antonio police were called, but the man whose identity and reason for wanting to enter the hospital werent included in a police account of the incident stormed off in anger before the officer could arrive.
It was, relatively speaking, a small blow-up, but Texas hospital workers and health care officials say incidents like it have been rising in both number and intensity this summer as tensions boil during the delta-fueled fourth surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Our staff have been cursed at, screamed at, threatened with bodily harm and even had knives pulled on them, said Jane McCurley, chief nursing executive for Methodist Healthcare System, speaking at a press conference five days after the incident in the childrens ER. It is escalating. Its just a handful at each facility who have been extremely abusive. But there is definitely an increasing number of occurrences every day.
Nurses and hospital staffers are historically vulnerable to workplace violence due to the nature of their jobs, where they deal with people who are having bad reactions to street drugs or mental breaks and often have to give bad news to patients or family already in extreme pain or emotional distress.
Half of all Texas nurses reported verbal and physical abuse at work in 2016 - the last year Texas health officials surveyed them about it.
But the pandemic has exacerbated the stress that can escalate into threats and violence, as people are now contending with not just the virus but also job loss and other stresses, said Karen Garvey, vice president of patient safety and clinical risk management at Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas.
Garvey said confrontations at Parkland just this year have included people being punched in the chest, having urine thrown on them and inappropriate sexual innuendos or behaviors in front of staff members. The verbal abuse, the name-calling, racial slurs weve had broken bones, broken noses.
Visitors and patients assaulting hospital staff was an epidemic before the pandemic it was just silent to the public, she added. Health care workers have been dealing with this for years, and its become more pronounced with the COVID pandemic.
The pandemic-related rise in tensions across the U.S. is not unique to the hospital industry. Airlines are reporting an increase in aggressive passengers as flight attendants take self-defense classes. Police are reporting an increase in violent crime and road rage incidents.
A similar phenomenon emerged last year when retail and grocery workers became front-line enforcers of mask mandates and limits on gatherings and indoor activities. And it resurfaced last month when parents aggressively confronted teachers at schools over oft-changing mask rules.
But unlike airlines, which can permanently ban passengers, hospitals are more limited in how they can respond or prevent those instances.
A 2013 Texas law made it a felony to assault an emergency room nurse, but legislation that would have expanded that to include nurses in other areas of a hospital died in the Texas Senate earlier this year. A bill addressing the issue is currently being considered in Washington by the U.S. Congress.
With hospitals reporting historic nursing shortages as the pandemic drags on, the fear is that the alarming rate of escalation will be the last straw for nurses who are physically worn out after fighting a pandemic for 18 months, thin on compassion for people who need care after choosing not to be vaccinated and afraid for their own personal safety, said Houston pediatrician Dr. Giancarlos Toledanes.
With the escalation of this violence toward health care workers, were going to lose the workers that are deemed essential, Toledanes said. If the problem continues to compound, then I think its going to make it much more difficult to staff these hospitals.
The Texas Department of State Health Services doesnt track incidents of aggression against hospital staff outside of its regular surveys, the next of which will be done next year, a spokesperson said.
But as health officials across Texas watch hospital ICUs and pediatric units overflow with record numbers of mostly unvaccinated people, they say the surge in aggression toward health care workers is obvious.
Many of the problems being reported in recent months include disagreements over masking and screening protocols that people dont have to follow in other places, particularly after most mandatory protocols were banned in recent months by Gov. Greg Abbott, officials said.
Confrontations are sometimes caused by hours- or dayslong waits in emergency rooms that are so full of COVID-19 patients that there is no room for anyone else, health care workers said.
Tempers are high, said Carrie Kroll, director of advocacy for the Texas Hospital Association. To the point where some systems are putting a security guard at check-in because family members are getting so abusive over the masking and some of the other screening things they need to do.
Families are often upset when they cant visit someone due to COVID-19 rules that limit the number of people who can be bedside or even come inside the hospital, said Serena Bumpus, director of practice at the Texas Nurses Association.
When our family members are sick, we want to be there by their side, and its not that easy to be by our loved ones side anymore because of this increase in the number of COVID patients in our facilities, she said.
At the Katy campus of Texas Children's Hospital west of Houston, Toledanes said some parents get verbally abusive over rules that require them to wait for COVID-19 test results before more than one parent is allowed into a room with a sick child.
With their child in the hospital and theyre the only ones handling everything, it obviously gets stressful, he said. Its escalated a lot more, especially now that weve gotten a little bit stricter with our policies due to the surge.
The threats follow health care workers online as well, and often have to do with philosophical differences over what have become political hot buttons such as masking and vaccinations, Toledanes wrote in a recent column for the online medical magazine MedScape.
Online, healthcare workers, who advocate for masking or vaccination, are often subject to death threats, threats to family members, and verbal abuse on social media, he wrote. Veiled threats of we know who you are and we will find you follow physicians who advocate for masking in schools.
At Parkland, some of the administrations actions to protect the workers include a staff of six mental health peace officers known as the Law Enforcement Intervention for Environmental/Patient Safety staff who are specially trained to respond to high-risk incidents, Garvey said. Administrators have developed a flagging system in the patient record which identifies patients who have been identified as known risks to staff, she said.
Some hospitals have hung signs in hallways reminding families to be courteous and patient with the overworked staff.
In mid-August, the escalating reports prompted the Texas Hospital Association to take to social media with an image of an exhausted nurses face, mask pulled below her chin.
Dont forget the person behind the mask, the image reads.
McCurley said that the increasing violence this year is made worse by the contrast in attitudes workers are seeing now compared with a year ago, when the public seemed to understand that nurses and hospital staff were standing between them and the deadly pandemic.
We were seen as health care heroes and our community responded with love and support, food and gifts, drive-by parades, buses and motorcycles and airplanes, and we felt so much love and support. It gave us the courage to go in and face our own fears of the unknown in the beginning, McCurley said at the August press conference. Today, those health care workers are experiencing abusive behavior by patient families. Its unfathomable that its occurring, and it has to stop.
Disclosure: Texas Children's Hospital and the Texas Hospital Association have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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