The work of waste during COVID-19: logics of public, environmental, and occupational health

From chaos to clarity: The scientometric breakthrough in COVID-19 research

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed the world for over three years, generating unprecedented social changes in recent human history.

AIMS

We aimed to scientometrically summarize a global and temporal overview of publications on COVID-19 in the two worst years of the pandemic and its progression in early 2022, after the start of vaccination.

METHODS

Using the Web of Science database, this review covered the period from late 2019 to March 2022 and included all publications identified using the following terms: "SARS-CoV-2", "COVID-19", "Coronavirus Disease 19", and "2019-nCoV". We retrieved 268,904 publications, with evident global spreading, demonstrating that the pandemic triggered worldwide scientific research efforts.

RESULTS

Within the dataset, 195 countries have published about Covid-19. In initial publications, a solid trend in genotyping, sequencing, and detection of the virus was evident; however, in the development of the pandemic, new knowledge and research focus gained relevance, with continental solid trends, revealed by the keywords sustainability (eastern Europe); material sciences (Asia); public and mental health (Africa); information sciences (western Europe); education (Latin America). It identified high-impact research, mainly on diagnosis and vaccines, but also equally essential topics for returning life to the new normal, such as mental health, education, and remote work. The world experienced a highly transmissible infection that proved how fragile we are regarding organization and society.

CONCLUSIONS

It is necessary to learn from such an event and establish a protocol of actions and measures to be taken and avoided in a health emergency, aiming to act differently from the chaos experienced during the pandemic. Following the One Health approach, humanity must be aware of the need for more sustainable attitudes, given the inseparability of human beings from the environment.

A review on medical waste treatment in COVID-19 pandemics: Technologies, managements and future strategies

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 few years ago, the increasing of the number of medical waste has become a huge issue because of their harmful impact to environment. A major concern associated to the limitation of technologies for dealing with medical waste, especially conventional technologies, are overcapacities since pandemic occurs. Moreover, the outbreak of new viruses from post COVID-19 should become a serious attention to be prevented not only environmental issues but also the spreading of viruses to new pandemic near the future. The high possibility of an outbreak of new viruses and mutation near the future should be prevented based on the experience associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the last 3 yr. This review presented information and strategies for handling medical waste during the outbreak of COVID-19 and post-COVID-19, and also information on the current issues related to technologies, such as incineration, pyrolysis/gasification, autoclaves and microwave treatment for the dealing with high numbers of medical waste in COVID-19 to prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus, their advantages and disadvantages. Plasma technology can be considered to be implemented as an alternative technology to deal with medical waste since incinerator is usually over capacities during the pandemic situation. Proper treatment of specific medical waste in pandemics, namely face masks, vaccine vials, syringes, and dead bodies, are necessary because those medical wastes are mediums for transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Furthermore, emission controls from incinerator and plasma are necessary to be implemented to reduce the high concentration of CO2, NOx, and VOCs during the treatment. Finally, future strategies of medical waste treatment in the perspective of potential outbreak pandemic from new mutation viruses are discussed in this review paper.Implications: Journal of the air and waste management association may consider our review paper to be published. In this review, we give important information related to the technologies, managements and strategies for handling the medical waste and control the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus, starting from proper technology to control the high number of medical waste, their pollutants and many strategies for controlling the spreading of SARS-CoV-2 virus. Moreover, this review also describes some strategies associated with control the transmission not only the SARS-CoV-2 virus but also the outbreak of new viruses near the future.