▎ WuXi AppTec content team editor
The haze of the epidemic has not dissipated for a long time, and the new crown virus has not only disrupted the familiar life of many people, but also silently changed the entire world... From environmental changes to the microbial world, some of this year's studies have found signs of changes in all directions.
There are flu viruses that disappear due to COVID-19
A critical article published in the September issue of Nature pointed out that from April 2020 to August 2021, no more strains of the influenza B virus B/Yamagata lineage have been isolated worldwide, which means that the strains of the virus of this lineage may have become extinct.
Image credit: 123RF
Human influenza virus infection can be divided into three types: A (A), B (B), and C (C). Among them, influenza B virus is divided into two lineages: B/Yamagata and B/Victoria. During the COVID-19 pandemic, influenza A and B virus infections have shown an overall downward trend. Since April 2020, influenza B/Yamagata lineage infection has not occurred.
Researchers believe that this phenomenon is largely due to a series of prevention and control measures taken during the new crown epidemic, mainly including changes in life behavior (such as increasing social distancing, wearing masks) and restrictions on travel and going out. These measures are equally effective in the prevention and control of influenza-like respiratory infectious diseases.
Plastic waste from masks flows into the ocean
According to a study published in PNAS in November this year, from the outbreak of covid-19 to mid-August this year, about 9.2 million tons of plastic waste related to COVID-19 have been generated worldwide, of which about 28,000 tons of plastic waste, including plastic waste contained in gloves and masks, have entered the ocean directly.
About 87.4% of this plastic waste comes from hospitals, while 7.6% is caused by personal use, and the source of waste includes packaging bags and waste left over from COVID-19 testing.
But don't think that this litter will remain in the ocean forever, according to the models given by the study, most of the plastic waste fragments will be transferred from the ocean surface to the beach and the seabed. Three years later, about 70% of this waste generated during the pandemic will wash off on the beach.
The remaining garbage will pile up in the ocean, potentially forming a cluster in the northeastern Pacific ocean and southeastern Indian Ocean, while plastic that has been washed into the Arctic Circle will enter a dead cycle, most likely forming a ring pole plastic aggregation area in 2025.
Wild animals invade the human world
After the arrival of the new crown virus, many places have declared lockdowns or travel bans, which have imposed some restrictions on human activities. According to a study given by Contemporary Biology, the number of local travelers in Santa Cruz, California, has decreased by 50% since the coronavirus arrived. However, this change is also detected by mountain lions that inhabit the vicinity.
After the reduction of human activity, mountain lions began to move towards the edge of the city (Image source: Reference[3])
Mountain lions were originally more afraid of human sounds, so when tourism is prevalent, they will try to stay away when they hear human sounds, and in the past observations of researchers, mountain lions will try to stay away from places where houses exist, because these places often have cars and human noise.
Now, with humans rarely showing up, mountain lions seem to be less fearful of the housing area. According to GPS data installed on them, jaguars have begun to head toward the edge of the city, wandering in areas with low housing density. This phenomenon has also occurred in other parts of the world, such as mountain lions entering downtown Santiago, Chile, or golden jackals traveling to the Tel Aviv-Jaffa urban area of Israel in broad daylight to forage for food.
Academic papers have been reduced and grades have regressed
At the beginning of the outbreak, the average amount of time scientists spent on research was reduced by 7 hours per week. A study in Nature Communications in October found that in the second year of the outbreak, scientists reduced the number of hours they worked per week from 7 hours to 2 hours.
Leaving aside COVID-19-related research, new projects launched in 2020 are 36% fewer than in 2019. The number of papers published by these scientists fell by 9 percent and the number of papers submitted to academic journals by 15 percent. Usually, it takes at least 3 years from the idea of the research idea to the final publication of the paper. So in a few years, we're likely to see a decrease in the number of scientific papers as a result of this pandemic.
For students, the shift from offline to online education seems to have affected their performance, Reuters, US Today and other media have conducted surveys on student performance, in Clark County, Florida, the proportion of F (failing) grades in all grades of the 2020-2021 school year reached 13%, compared with only 6% in the previous year.
Among Broward County students, the percentage of students who received an F grade on the fall exam rose from 6 percent over the same period to 12 percent. The same thing happened in Texas, where fail rates at all schools in Austin skyrocketed during the pandemic, with nearly 12,000 students failing at least one course, a 70 percent increase from the same period last year.
The online world can't hide either
During the pandemic, many people have been forced to stay at home and go out less often. This also allows many people to spend more time in the online world. According to a study by the University of Pennsylvania, advertising content on many live streaming platforms began to increase significantly after the arrival of the new crown.
The largest percentage is energy drinks, which are associated with 74% of advertising content, and other high-calorie snacks, candy and alcohol. More than 30 million people log in every day on the game live streaming platform analyzed by the researchers, which means that many people are also affected by advertising when watching games.
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In addition to the above, there are many familiar things that are slowly changing, such as the transfer of many large conferences to the Internet to reduce carbon emissions, the change in the number of people who drink alcohol during the epidemic has increased the number of people waiting for alcoholic hepatitis-related liver transplants, and even the breastfeeding rate is declining...
When the familiar life is disrupted, we realize that the days without the virus, although ordinary, are beautiful and nostalgic... As we approach 2022, we also hope that the haze of the epidemic will dissipate as soon as possible and let us return to normal life as soon as possible.
Resources:
[1] Koutsakos, M., Wheatley, A.K., Laurie, K. et al. Influenza lineage extinction during the COVID-19 pandemic?. Nat Rev Microbiol (2021).
[3] Wilmers C C, Nisi A C, Ranc N. COVID-19 suppression of human mobility releases mountain lions from a landscape of fear[J]. Current Biology, 2021, 31(17): 3952-3955. e3.
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