Practices towards SARS-CoV-2 transmission prevention among Polish high school students

Background

Adolescents play a significant role in SARS-CoV-2 spread. The study objective was to assess practices towards COVID-19 among final year Polish high school students.

Methods

Between December 2020-March 2021 an online cross-sectional survey was conducted. Multistage random sampling selected 24 high schools in the Lubuskie region then 51 classes. Students' practices were assessed by an anonymous questionnaire. Significance was tested by Chi-square test.

Results

Response rate was 72.3%; 638 students (360 females) participated (mean age 18.4±0.6 years); 68.7% attended schools in the cities with <100,000 inhabitants; 31.5% were in the science program. Most (81.3%) declared they always used masks in public spaces in the last month (74.3% males vs 86.1% females, p < 0.001; 77.2% of those living in smaller vs 90.5% in larger cities, p < 0.001; 89.6% in the science program vs 77.6% - in the other programs, p < 0.001); 35% always avoided crowded areas (26.9% males vs 39.4% females, p = 0.001; 29.5% living in smaller vs 47% in larger cities, p < 0.001; 43.8% in the science program vs 30.9% - in the other programs, p = 0.002); 24.3% declared always keeping social distance (19.4% males vs 27.2% females, p = 0.02), 29.9% stated they did not touch their faces (25% males vs 33.3% females, p = 0.02; 27.2% living in smaller vs 36% in larger cities, p = 0.02; 37.8% in the science program vs 26.3% - in the other programs, p = 0.003). Among those wearing masks - uncovered noses (64.6%) and masks around the neck (42.3%; 48.1% males vs 38.9% females, p = 0.02) were the most frequent incorrect practices.

Conclusions

Most high school students, in particular males, living in small cities and attending non-science program have inappropriate preventive practices towards COVID-19. Health education programs are urgently needed to better equip students with COVID-19 prevention skills.

Key messages

The study shows data of final year high-school students' practices towards COVID-19 and maybe used by public health experts to better address educational campaigns oriented to Polish adolescents. Health education aimed at high school students would be crucial to improve compliance with SARS-CoV-2 infection control procedures.

Translocation trisomy dup(21q) and free trisomy 21 can be distinguished by interphase-FISH

The possibility of distinguishing in routine diagnostics translocation trisomy dup(21q) from disomy 21 as well as from free trisomy 21 using interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with a single copy probe (LSI 21) localized on chromosome 21q22.13-q22.2 is described. In free trisomy 21 and translocation trisomy dup(21q) 94%-98% of the nuclei exhibit 3 specific signals, while in disomy 21 only up to 6% of them have 3 false positive signals. Furthermore, reliable differentiation between free and translocation trisomy dup(21q) can be achieved by evaluating the percentage of nuclei with one single and two co-localized chromosome 21q22.13-q22.2 specific signals in 50-100 interphase nuclei. While in translocation trisomy 75+/-4.3% are co-localized due to a chromosomal rearrangement, in free trisomy 21 only 40+/-2.83% of the nuclei have two co-localized signals by chance. No differences in interphase signal distribution could be detected in two cases with a dicentric chromosome dup(21q) compared to one case with a monocentric one, a comparison not previously carried out. In addition, the single copy probe LSI 21 was compared with the alphoid probe D13Z1/D21Z1 which was found to be unsuitable for such assays due to polymorphisms in the á satellite regions of chromosome 21.