Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has put hypertensive patients in densely populated cities at increased risk. Nurse-coordinated home blood pressure telemonitoring (NC-HBPT) may help address this. We screened studies published in English on three databases, from their inception to 30 November 2020. The effects of NC-HBPT were compared with in-person treatment. Outcomes included changes in blood pressure (BP) following the intervention and rate of BP target achievements before and during COVID-19. Of the 1916 articles identified, 27 comparisons were included in this review. In the intervention group, reductions of 5.731 mmHg (95% confidence interval: 4.120–7.341; p < 0.001) in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and 2.342 mmHg (1.482–3.202; p < 0.001) in diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were identified. The rate of target BP achievement was significant in the intervention group (risk ratio, RR = 1.261, 1.154–1.378; p < 0.001). The effects of intervention over time showed an SBP reduction of 3.000 mmHg (−5.999–11.999) before 2000 and 8.755 mmHg (5.177–12.334) in 2020. DBP reduced by 2.000 mmHg (−2.724–6.724) before 2000 and by 3.529 mmHg (1.221–5.838) in 2020. Analysis of the target BP ratio before 2010 (RR = 1.101, 1.013–1.198) and in 2020 (RR = 1.906, 1.462–2.487) suggested improved BP control during the pandemic. NC-HBPT more significantly improves office blood pressure than UC among urban hypertensive patients.

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In the Olympic Games, professional athletes representing their nations compete regardless of economic, political and cultural differences. In this study, we apply gravity model to observe characteristics, represented by 'distances' among nations that directly compete against one another in the Summer Olympics. We use dyadic data consisting of medal winning nations in the Olympic Games from 1952 to 2016. To compare how the dynamics changed during and after the Cold War period, we partitioned our data into two time periods (1952-1988 and 1992-2016). Our research is distinguishable from previous studies in that we newly introduce application of gravity model in observing the dynamics of the Olympic Games. Our results show that for the entire study period, countries that engaged each other in competition in the finals of an Olympic event tend to be similar in economic size. After the Cold War, country pairs that compete more frequently tend to be similar in genetic origin.

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This paper aims to describe the spatiotemporal transmission of COVID-19 and examine how various factors influence the global spread of COVID-19 using a modified gravity model. Log-linearizing the model, we run a negative binomial regression with observational data from 22 January 2020 to 31 December 2020. In the first model, population size and GDP per capita are positively related to the sum of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases within a 10-day window; the values for both variables are statistically significant throughout the study period. However, the significance of geographic distance varies. When a single geographic source exits in the early stage, the value is statistically significant. In the intermediate stage, when disease transmission is explosive between countries, the distance loses its statistical significance due to the emergence of multiple geographic transmission sources. In the containment stage, when the spread of disease is more likely to occur within a country, distance becomes statistically significant. According to the second model, the government’s internal movement control and nonpharmaceutical intervention policy, percentage of the population over 70 years old, and population-weighted density are statistically significant and are positively related to the incidence of COVID-19. By contrast, average monthly temperature, international travel restriction policies, and political regimes are statistically significant and negatively associated with the dependent variable.