ABSTRACT
This study begins with the historical understanding of race and its modern perspectives as a social construct amid social identity and critical race theories. Next, race and ethnicity are explored within the context of COVID-19, whereby those of non-white backgrounds are seeing different disastrous health outcomes and experiencing heightened levels of racism in the pandemic. Examples and analyses from around the world are then provided, which have resulted in health disparities and increased racism against non-white people, such as the high-rise apartment building disasters, rural Indigenous communities, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Adding fuel to the fire, there have been rumours internationally of certain ethnic groups carrying and spreading COVID-19. © 2022 Pulla et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
ABSTRACT
This article is dedicated to doing a detailed review of the aforementioned book entitled Life Under Lockdown: Lived Experiences and Lessons Learnt by Professor Sanjai Bhatt, Department of Social Work, University of Delhi,3, University Road, Delhi 110007, India;Immediate Past President, National Association of Professional Social Workers in India;Immediate Past President (South Asia), International Council on Social Welfare, Alliance Ambassador, GSSWA © 2022 Bhattacharyya. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
ABSTRACT
Background. The relative advantage of each new variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) depends on its inherent transmissibility and capacity to evade pre-existing immunity. Delta and Omicron are variants of concern that have immune-evasive properties and rapidly displaced variants that preceded their emergence. In the United States, SARS-CoV-2 immunity varies considerably by state, which provides a natural experiment to evaluate the effect of population-level immunity on takeover dynamics of new variants. We hypothesized that if immune evasion was a major driver of fitness compared with previously prevalent variants, Delta and Omicron would become the dominant variants faster in states with higher immunity. Methods. We evaluated changes in variant proportion per week from the first detection of Delta or Omicron in a state until they consistently represented >90% of all sequenced genomes. We used logistic growth curves to characterize the dynamics of variant takeover, evaluating three outcomes: 1) takeover rate, defined as the maximum slope of the logistic curve;2) takeover date, i.e., the estimated date at which variant proportion reached 50% in a state;and 3) time from emergence to dominance, the time taken for variant proportion to increase from 10% to 50%. Next, we estimated the relative proportion of each state that was immune from a combination of infection and full vaccination (for Delta) or boosting (for Omicron) prior to variant takeover. For each outcome, we fit linear regression models to estimate the relationship between population immunity and Delta or Omicron takeover. Results. We found no statistically significant association between takeover rate of Delta or Omicron and immunity (Fig. 1A, B). In contrast, we observed a later takeover date (p< 0.001) and slower time from emergence to dominance (p=0.046) for Omicron in more immune states (Fig. 1D, F). There was a similar but not statistically significant trend for Delta in delayed takeover date (Fig. 1C). genomes in different states with 95% confidence intervals. States are identified by standard two-letter abbreviations;states in the same census geographic region are plotted with the same color. Left panel: Delta, Right panel: Omicron. Immunity is estimated by the combined proportion of the state's population with SARS-CoV-2 infection prior to detection of the new variant in the state and either fully vaccinated (for Delta) or boosted (for Omicron) two weeks prior to takeover. Pearson correlation coefficient (R) and p-value test results are shown for each plot.
ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we argue that the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic has forced governments to attach a higher weight to social welfare over other political objectives in determining trade policies. We make this point by looking at the pandemic package announced by the Indian government during the initial stages of the coronavirus episode. We then analyse this argument in the context of an extended version of the protection for sale model to conjecture about the possible short-run and long-run implications of the pandemic on globalization and its reverse. In our framework, in the short run governments are free to choose unilateral tariff levels according to the changed circumstances. In the long run, these unilateral tariff levels are set by a process of bargaining with trading partners. Three factors emerge as important in determining the future course of globalization: the continued importance given to social welfare, the extent of labour intensity of the import-competing sector and the relative bargaining power of the country. In general, countries attaching more importance to social welfare will reduce tariffs and ease out of the de-globalization process if they have a relatively capital-intensive import-competing sector and low bargaining power in trade negotiations. However, countries with labour-intensive import-competing sectors and some bargaining power in trade negotiations may increase tariffs and further contribute to the de-globalization process. The analysis also gives some rationale to the Indian government’s self-reliance slogan during the announcement of the pandemic economic package and its relative inaction in actual policy front. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Rajib Bhattacharyya, Ananya Ghosh Dastidar and Soumyen Sikdar;individual chapters, the contributors.
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The largest unprecedented and devastating health shock of the twenty-first century appeared with the outbreak of Covid-19 virus. It has brought the world to a standstill and thrown before it the challenge of ‘life or livelihood’. Along with massive economic disruption, it has brought considerable human suffering, and significantly affected socio-cultural relationships, behavioural patterns and psychological attitudes governing human interactions. This introductory chapter seeks to provide an overview of the impact of this pandemic on various aspects of the economy and human life output, employment, trade patterns, educational platforms, changes in social relations, gender discrimination and behavioural patterns. It also attempts to explore the extent of preparedness of South Asian countries, and in particular India, to implement revival policies to overcome the crisis. The chapter also tries to analyse and provide a broad overview of revival policy options for combating possible global recession. Finally, the various issues explored in different chapters of this volume in connection with the corona pandemic are also briefly presented herein. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Rajib Bhattacharyya, Ananya Ghosh Dastidar and Soumyen Sikdar;individual chapters, the contributors.
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Background: COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown has disrupted the daily routine and required an adjustment to ʼnew normal’. The psychological impact of ‘lockdown’ as a social distancing strategy among children needs to be studied well. Aim: To assess the psychological impact of ‘lockdown’ on behaviour of children and adolescents. Methods: An online survey was conducted among parents of 3-15-year-old children by using Google Form. A 35-item self-designed questionnaire was used for the purpose of the study. Total 645 responses were received by the stipulated time. Results: The mean age of the children was 8.3 years (± 3.5). Majority of the children were male (51.6%), 1st born child (82.2%), and studying in primary school (44.8%). Near about onethird on the children became irritable (35.3%), hyperactive (33.3%), defiant/ disobedient (38%), anxious (29.9%), and crying often (32.7%) during the period of lockdown. Near about two-third of the children engaged more in mobile phones (63.4%) and watched television (58.1%) compared to their usual self during lockdown. Near about two-third (58.3%) and onethird (32.2%) of the children reported change in their sleeping and feeding habit respectively. Majority of the male (38.7%) and female (42.6%) children coped well with the lockdown. Conclusion: Index survey suggested that one-third of the children and adolescents were adversely affected due to lockdown.
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The basic Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model is extended to include effects of progressive social awareness, lockdowns and anthropogenic migration. It is found that social awareness can effectively contain the spread by lowering the basic reproduction rate R 0 . Interestingly, the awareness is found to be more effective in a society which can adopt the awareness faster compared to the one having a slower response. The paper also separates the mortality fraction from the clinically recovered fraction and attempts to model the outcome of lockdowns, in absence and presence of social awareness. It is seen that staggered exits from lockdowns are not only economically beneficial but also helps to curb the infection spread. Moreover, a staggered exit strategy with progressive social awareness is found to be the most efficient intervention. The paper also explores the effects of anthropogenic migration on the dynamics of the epidemic in a two-zone scenario. The calculations yield dissimilar evolution of different fractions in different zones. Such models can be convenient to strategize the division of a large zone into smaller sub-zones for a disproportionate imposition of lockdown, or, an exit from one. Calculations are done with parameters consistent with the SARS-COV-2 pathogen in the Indian context.