ABSTRACT
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted on health service access, due to lockdowns and isolation measures. To address this access to telehealth items were expanded. Aim/Objectives: Explore use and satisfaction with telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic in metropolitan Sydney using a cohort of older Australians. Method(s): Data from Wave 3 (2020) of the 45 and Up Study were used. Participants in metropolitan Sydney who answered the telehealth question were included. Satisfaction was measured using a question on likelihood of recommending telehealth. Factors influencing telehealth use and satisfaction were then analysed using Poisson modelling to calculate prevalence ratios (PRs). In addition, associations between telehealth use, satisfaction and delaying GP/specialist healthcare during COVID-19 were modelled. Finding(s): The cohort consisted of 17,190 participants (mean age=70.3 years, 55.1% female). 7,585 (44.1%) participants reported using telehealth in the last 12 months. 83.1% received services via telephone, 3.4% via video and 5.3% via both. Health conditions such as cancer (adjPR=0.18, 95CI=0.11-0.24) or anxiety (adjPR=0.16, 95CI=0.08-0.25) were associated with higher telehealth use. People who report delayed or missed GP or specialist visits due to COVID-19 (adjPR=0.15, 95CI=0.07-0.23, and adjPR=0.17, 95CI=0.08- 0.25 respectively) were more likely to use telehealth. 4185 (55%) reported they 'probably will' or 'definitely will' recommend telehealth. Satisfaction varied with demographics, with self-reported good quality of life having the highest impact (adjPR=0.11, 95CI=-0.06-0.28). Implications: Just under half of the participants used telehealth, with the majority being via telephone. Participants who used telehealth were more likely to have had physical and mental ill health. However, we did not have data on overall health service use for comparison. Having good health was associated with less telehealth use and higher satisfaction with telehealth. We plan to investigate the influence of telehealth on GP access, using MBS items before and after additional telehealth items were introduced.
ABSTRACT
While few would doubt that censorship is a form of surveillance, the practice and theory of censorship does not hold as prominent a place within surveillance studies as one might think. In this paper, we demonstrate the constitutive effects of censorship that seep into the collective mentality and, in Foucauldian terms, "conducts the conduct." We examine the wider socio-political impact of China's censorship of COVID-19. We argue that censorship is a force "at large." By this we refer to the pervasive uptake of censorship practices at different levels and how censorship manifests itself as a form of power unchained, making it difficult, if not impossible, to track and contain its impact, even for the authorities. We argue that censorship surveils the expressed and, by extension, regulates the not-yet-expressed. It surveils what can be perceived and, by extension, pre-conditions the not-yet-conceived. We highlight the domestic impact of how China's censorship regime bends its population into acquiescing to a harmonious denial of its collective prospects and how it curtails the global response.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in widespread changes to how the higher education sector operates. In this paper, the experience of delivering an eight-week undergraduate Software Engineering programme during the pandemic is discussed. The programme in question exhibits a number of unique features, including the intensive nature of the teaching, and the timing of its delivery, which coincided almost exactly with the introduction of lockdown measures. Reflections are offered on the rapid transition to online delivery of three different modules, including consideration of students' wellbeing. The implications for Software Engineering education, and online education more broadly, are considered. © 2020 IEEE.