The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Since the onset of the pandemic, several groups have reported a decreased number of patients admitted to hospital with acute ischemic stroke.However, up to now, only a few studies have attempted to quantify the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the incidence and treatment rates of acute stroke [1-8], and none have included data from an entire country during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the present study was to perform a detailed analysis of variations in the acute stroke pathway in Slovakia during 2 months of the outbreak, using the same time period from 2019 and 2 months of 2020 before the outbreak as comparators. This was possible thanks to the

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Introduction: The aim of our study was to determine whether the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the quality of acute care of stroke. Methods: Data from the stroke register at the National Health Information Centre were analysed. Clinical data from two time periods (the first wave: March–April 2020; the second wave: October–November 2020) were compared using an independent sample t-test and the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney two sample rank-sum test. Results: The total number of patients admitted with stroke during the second wave of COVID-19 was 1848, versus 1698 in the first wave. The proportion of patients treated by IVT was similar in both waves (275 (20.7%) vs 333 (22.1%), p = 1, difference in location: −0,0003, 95% CI: −5.0 to 5.95). We found no difference in time from the onset of symptoms to treatment (median = 130 min in both waves, p = 0.52, difference in location: 3.99, 95% CI: −6.0 to 14.0), nor in the door-to-needle time (median = 29 vs 30 min, p = 0.08, difference in location: −2.99, 95% CI: −5.0 to 0.008) between the first and the second waves of the pandemic. We found no difference in NIHSS (median = 3 vs 4, p = 0.51, difference in location: 0.00007, 95% CI: −0.9 to 0.000006) and mRS (median = 3 in both waves, p = 0.60, difference in location: −0.00004, 95% CI: −0.00004 to 0.00003) at discharge from hospital between the two periods. Conclusion: The severity of the COVID-19 outbreak did not affect the quality of acute stroke care in Slovakia.

This study analysed the implementation of official European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines for the management of ST elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients. Initiatives were aimed at the education of both healthcare professionals and inhabitants. Changes in clinical practice and clinical outputs were analysed using data acquired from the SLOVak registry of Acute Coronary Syndromes (SLOVAKS). From 2007 to 2008 positive changes were noticed at every level of the 'life chain'. The proportion of patients treated by primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and by early reperfusion rose significantly. Total ischaemic time was shortened by 12 min in patients treated by thrombolysis and by 26 min in patients treated by PCI. In-hospital lethality for STEMI decreased significantly. The weakest point in the management of STEMI patients in Slovakia was the still-significant time loss incurred by patients themselves. Targeted initiatives aimed at implementing official ESC guidelines can significantly improve clinical outcomes in a relatively short period of time.

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Comparative analysis of the world's best practices in the management of solid domestic waste has shown that in the EU and the US a careful sorting of the waste and extracting a useful component, which is later introduced into production cycles, has been carried out for quite a long time. The authors note that in European countries the greatest amount of waste comes from industry and in particular from mining and construction. The EU is implementing a number of projects in the field of waste processing and recycling, which have begun to increase the use of aluminum waste, processing of which leads to the production of high-quality alloys. In Russia, the secondary use of aluminum is extremely poorly developed, and most of the waste that is processed in the EU is to be disposed of in Russia. Taking into account the energy resources necessary for the production of metal from primary raw materials, the prospects for the development of the processing industry become evident. It has also been revealed that Russian energy-related manufacturing enterprises do not implement recycling technology, which is so widely used in Europe and the US, i.e. the resulting waste after treatment is put back into production and additional sources of energy are obtained at the outlet, which could be useful in various branches of the economy. The proposed prospects for the effective organization of industrial waste processing are the expansion of the raw material base and the increase in the level of recycling, through the involvement of waste in production cycles.

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As a result of comparative analysis of statistical data on the amount of waste and storage areas in the territory of the Volgograd region, it is revealed that to date, there is an increase in the share of used, recycled wastes in the total volume of generated production and consumption wastes. However, the regional waste management system does not ensure a complete clean-up of the territory and effective implementation of activities in this area. The Volgograd region is characterized by significant anthropogenic pressures on regional components of the environment, which are caused by intensive activities of many industrial enterprises and transport. The main trends observed in the sphere of waste management in the region are a steady increase in the volume of waste generation, followed by their placement in landfills and unauthorized dumps; pollution of the environment with industrial, communal and agricultural wastes. There are practically no capacities and technologies in the region for the involvement of waste in economic circulation. The identified peculiarities and problems in the organization of waste processing actualize the need to develop the measures on improving the waste management system in the region: the combination of direct and two-stage waste removal, the exclusion of storage of unsorted waste at landfills, the reconstruction of container sites and the development of a container and garbage park, the construction of waste sorting/garbage processing complexes, in connection with the increase in the volume of production and consumption wastes, which remains one of the main environmental problems in the Volgograd region.