Erratum: Evaluation of intra- and inter-lab variability in quantifying SARS-CoV-2 in a state-wide wastewater monitoring network (Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology (2023) DOI: 10.1039/D2EW00737A)

The affiliation of author Zuzana Bohrer was incorrect in the original manuscript. It should appear as given here. The Royal Society of Chemistry apologises for these errors and any consequent inconvenience to authors and readers. © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Evaluation of intra- and inter-lab variability in quantifying SARS-CoV-2 in a state-wide wastewater monitoring network

In December 2019, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019, was first reported and subsequently triggered a global pandemic. Wastewater monitoring, a strategy for quantifying viral gene concentrations from wastewater influents within a community, has served as an early warning and management tool for the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in a community. Ohio built a collaborative statewide wastewater monitoring network that is supported by eight labs (university, government, and commercial laboratories) with unique sample processing workflows. Consequently, we sought to characterize the variability in wastewater monitoring results for network labs. Across seven trials between October 2020 and November 2021, eight participating labs successfully quantified two SARS-CoV-2 RNA targets and human fecal indicator virus targets in wastewater sample aliquots with reproducible results, although recovery efficiencies of spiked surrogates ranged from 3 to 75%. When SARS-CoV-2 gene fragment concentrations were adjusted for recovery efficiency and flow, the proportion of variance between laboratories was minimized, serving as the best model to account for between-lab variance. Another adjustment factor (alone and in different combinations with the above factors) considered to account for sample and measurement variability includes fecal marker normalization. Genetic quantification variability can be attributed to many factors, including the methods, individual samples, and water quality parameters. In addition, statistically significant correlations were observed between SARS-CoV-2 RNA and COVID-19 case numbers, supporting the notion that wastewater surveillance continues to serve as an effective monitoring tool. This study serves as a real-time example of multi-laboratory collaboration for public health preparedness for infectious diseases. © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry

Knowledge and Awareness of General People about Covid19 Infection, an Online Study in Eastern India

Background: The biggest pandemic of this decade has caused global, social, and economic disruption(1). Misinformation spread via news and social media has created widespread xenophobia, discrimination, fear, misbehavior to people, doctors, other health care workers(2). All these factors put a huge burden on the mental health of the population. In this background, we tried to assess the awareness about covid 19 after about one year of struggle during the second wave. Methodology: An anonymous questionnaire was prepared by the Department of Psychiatry of College of Medicine & Sagore Dutta Hospital,Kolkata. The Questionnaire includes basic knowledge of the people, epidemiological characteristics, anxiety, and depression. The Questionnaire circulated through the online platform. Responses were recorded in the excel sheet. Result(s): Most of the respondents (594, 98.7%) know that Covid 19 is a viral disease. 82.6% (497) people believe that the most important aspect of this disease is infectivity and not mortality (93,15.4%). 80.6% believe that hand washing, social distancing, lockdown all three are essential in containing the disease. Most of the participants were happy with the steps taken by Government. Discussion(s): Most of the participants in this study knew that covid 19 is a viral infection and the important aspect of the disease is infectivity, not mortality. So the majority of the persons were aware of the basic pathology of the disease. And they believe that safety measures will restrict disease.Copyright © 2023, Institute of Medico-legal Publication. All rights reserved.

Pathophysiologic Mechanism of Hematological Abnormalities in COVID-19 Patients and its Implication in the Prognosis and Disease Severity: A Retrospective Study in a Tertiary Care COVID Hospital

Introduction: Worldwide there was recent outbreak of a novel Corona Virus infection i.e. SARS COV19. Although it involves primarily the pulmonary system other systems like Cardiovascular, renal, neurological, hematological systems are also significantly involved by SARS COV19 infection. Aim(s): In this study our aim was to analyze the pathophysiologic mechanism of hematological abnormalities in COVID-19 patients and its role in risk stratification, severity & prognosis of the disease. Material(s) and Method(s): In this study we have analyzed the clinical presentation and pathological laboratory results of hematological abnormalities retrospectively from previous records of COVID-19 patients admitted to our hospital. All the hematological parameters i.e. changes in Hb%, WBC Count, Platelet Count and Coagulation Profile parameters i.e. PT-INR, aPPT& D-dimer were analyzed and correlated with the disease severity and its prognosis. Statistical analysis was done be x2 test. Result(s): In our study the most common hematological abnormality was Lymphopenia followed by Leukocytosis and majority of the patient were >60 Yrs. age with male predominance. Conclusion(s): Among all the hematological abnormalities coagulation parameter D-dimer (elevated levels) are most significantly associated with disease severity. Among the other hematological abnormalities the most common abnormality was Lymphopenia which along with combined features of Anemia, Leukocytosis andNeutrophilia were also significantly associated with disease severity. So, monitoring & evaluation of hematological parameters could be a crucial step towards risk stratification & management of COVID-19 patients. Copyright © 2023, Institute of Medico-legal Publication. All rights reserved.

Impact of QR-Codes as a Disruptive Technology during the Covid-19 Contagion

Introduction In the world economy, QR codes became very popular, and their prominence is expanding rapidly. The QR-codes look a bit like barcodes, but are made up of square patterns. As businesses are increasingly embracing these technologies, QR codes are becoming more popular, QR code readers are being integrated into smartphones. Apple released iOS 11 to search QR codes using the smartphone camera back in 2017 which is now a game-changing marketing strategy for businesses and retailers. Objective: The objective of the paper is to conduct an extensive theoretical review on the growth of QR codes in the digital era and QR codes' reach as contactless payment solutions. Methodology: A bibliometric review by refereeing quality articles published in highly ranked journal. Conclusion: When the QR code reader was integrated into the new Android smartphone camera, it proved to be a key differentiator. Following the global COVID-19 contagion, there has been a nudge for contactless activities and remote resource allocation, such as online work, payments and online classes among others. QR-codes have seen a spectacular increase in usage across all aspects of life. © 2022 The authors.

Sustainable marketing and customer value

Anticipating that marketing will experience a strategic change in the new normal post COVID-19, this book sets out to capture interesting insights from researchers and practitioners through in-depth research on the myriad aspects of industrial transformation. It discusses the facets in which markets can be reached sustainably delivering value to people, planet and create prosperity. Sustainable Marketing and Customer Value establishes an overview and framework for major ideas that connect marketing, consumption and sustainability. It addresses dominant areas of research of sustainability from the marketing perspective, the origin of interest in sustainability, as well as the practice of deprioritising sustainability ideas in pursuit of short-term business goals. Research scholars and business students will find this book of primary relevance, but it is also written for marketing academics and professionals, especially those in large corporations. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Subrata Chattopadhyay, Sundeep Singh Sondhi and Arunava Dalal;individual chapters, the contributors. All rights reserved.

Infrastructure Defcits in Indian Cities amid COVID-19: Key Opportunities and Challenges for Policy and Practice

Acknowledging the linkages between inadequacies of urban infrastructure with the urban trajectory of COVID-19, this chapter engages with the vulnerabilities of the Indian cities and plausible deepening of the current crisis. The pandemic effects reflect to a significant degree of social and spatial inequalities in housing and access to basic services – all of which are essential for combating the COVID-19. This is a logical result of dysfunctional urban policies, poor financial health and absence of effective governance structures in the Indian cities and an excessive bias towards privatization of urban infrastructure and decision-making in recent decades. These limitations underscore the urgent need to improve the availability of urban services for all through augmenting public investment and better management of urban services as well as co-creation of contextually specific solutions through genuinely empowered city Governments, community participation and streamlining the ground level urban data. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Indranil De, Soumyadip Chattopadhyay, Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan, and Kingshuk Sarkar;individual chapters, the contributors.

MSMEs in India during Lock and Unlock Times: Policy Responses and Coping Strategies

The MSME sector in India has emerged as one of the worst affected segments due to COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter – drawing on emerging literature including Government policy documents, reports and insights from survey-based studies – discusses the effectiveness of Government policies and schemes in terms of awareness and access and explores possible coping strategies adopted by the MSMEs towards reviving the sector. Our analysis suggests that the MSME sector has witnessed varying degrees of setbacks and a preponderant majority of MSME units did not get any benefits from wide array of Government schemes and programs. These units adopted various coping strategies including scaling down of business, diversifying product and services;embracing new marketing strategy;rescheduling bank loans;drawing on savings and accessing support from informal sources to revive their operation. This chapter calls for a comprehensive and policy-sensitive database to understand the exact needs and problems of the MSME sector, reframing of Government schemes, capacity building and digital support for facilitating MSMEs access to new and innovative marketing options and strengthening of social welfare schemes. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Indranil De, Soumyadip Chattopadhyay, Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan, and Kingshuk Sarkar;individual chapters, the contributors.

Introduction: The COVID-19 Pandemic, Challenges and Policy

This chapter is a prelude to the book. It provides an overview of the book with its approach, theoretical background, and relevance of the chapters. A pandemic constrains human freedom in many ways. The COVID-19 pandemic has jeopardized freedom of movement and access to employment, health care, and basic public services. The different chapters of the book show how the pandemic has adversely affected almost all sectors of the economy, multitude of lives in variety of ways. The findings from different chapters of the book have been discussed in this chapter from the perspective of different unfreedoms or lack of freedoms imposed by the pandemic, and how these unfreedoms feed on to each other. The role of institutions and public policies in unleashing unfreedom, which forms the meat of the book, has also been discussed. Taking a cue from the rest of the chapters, this chapter also discusses the policy implications which may become important knowledge to deal with the pandemic or any similar emergencies in the future. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Indranil De, Soumyadip Chattopadhyay, Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan, and Kingshuk Sarkar;individual chapters, the contributors.

COVID-19 Pandemic, Public Policy, and Institutions in India: Issues of Labour, Income, and Human Development

This book looks at the institutional and governance issues faced by India during the frst and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and its adverse impact on the vulnerable sectors and groups. The book is split into four parts, with preceding chapters informing later ones. Part One outlines the approach of the study, in particular their examination of policy responses and the effect of the pandemic. Part Two delves into the governance challenges in containing the pandemic while giving the theoretical rationale for institutional responses. Part Three looks at how the pandemic affected economically vulnerable households, workers, and small industries. The effect of pandemic on the informal sector is also detailed. Lastly, Part Four examines the impacts and responses of Indian public infrastructure and services to the pandemic, in particular the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health care and schooling. It also explores the challenges caused by infrastructure inadequacies in Indian cities. The book closes by looking at how businesses in the private sector have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on Corporate Social Responsibility. The book will be a useful reference to researchers, policymakers, and practitioners who are interested in institutions and development, especially in the context of India. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Indranil De, Soumyadip Chattopadhyay, Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan, and Kingshuk Sarkar;individual chapters, the contributors.

An Efficient Algorithm to Recommend Covid-19 Related Solutions

With the rise of Covid-19, the open-source community has devoted a huge amount of time into developing technical solutions to stop the spread of the virus. Useful solutions like symptom trackers and extensive analysis on existing datasets are a small drop in the massive number of solutions developed by people. But with the massive number of projects or solutions, it is time consuming for a motivated person to find an appropriate solution to put his time into. Therefore, seeing the inspiring amount of work done by the open source community, we are suggesting an efficient algorithm to recommend projects that are Coronavirus related to which the user can get recommendations for projects according to their preference such as language. © 2022 IEEE.

A Spotlight on Novel Coronavirus (COVID - 19) with Various Types of Strains

Deadly COVID-19 viruses have raised a pandemic situation in the year 2019, causing serious and contagious respiratory infections in humans. SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) is the main causative agent for this disease outbreak. The pandemic created a critical impact on the global economy. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in late 2019 was followed by a period of relative evolutionary stasis that lasted about 11 months. Since, late 2020, SARS-CoV-2 evolution has been characterized by the emergence of sets of mutations. This resulted so far, in over 2.7 million deaths and near about 122 million infection cases. Most mutations in the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) genome are either deleterious and swiftly purged or relatively neutral. As far as the concern is the variants it impacts the virus characteristics, including antigenicity and transmissibility in response to the modification of the human immune profile. In recent days, COVID-19 affected cases are rapidly increasing and it became difficult to inhibit this virus as they are continuously mutated in the host cell forming various new strains like B.1.1.7, B.1.351, P.1, P.2, B.1.1.529, etc. These monitoring, surveillance of variation, and sequencing efforts within the SARS-CoV-2 genome enabled the rapid identification of the first some of Variants of Concern (VOCs) in late 2020, where genome changes became the most observable impact on virus biology and disease transmission. In this review article, we tried to focus and spot the light on the genetic diversification of various strains, their nature, similarities and dissimilarities, mechanism of action, and the prophylactic interventions which could prevent this life-threatening disease in the long run.

Emotional and Behavioural issues in children during early Phases of school opening after Covid 19 Pandemic in Eastern India

Introduction: The Covid 19 pandemic was first officially noted in China in late 2019. After that, the virus spread globally. At that time it was a new virus and we did know nothing about the virus. So lock down or home confinement was the only option to control the spread of the virus(1). During that time children suffered the most as they were confined at home(2). During this period they showed various behavioural problems and when restrictions were withdrawn they still showed some behavioural issues. Methodology: We conducted a cross-sectional study using an English questionnaire. The questionnaire was validated by five independent psychiatrists who were finally excluded from the study. Responses from the parents of randomly selected 76 children were recorded. We included the children aged between 3 to 12 years and who previously used to go to school. Result(s): 40.8 % of children were of 6 to 10 years of age and the male and females were almost equal in number in our study (M: F = 40:36). Maximum children are from urban residences (about 59.2%) and the nuclear family (56.6%) followed by joint families (38.2%) and single-parent families (5.3%). In most of the cases (61.8%) father is the only earning member followed by both parents working (34.2%) and in only 3.9% of cases, the mother is the only earning member of the family. About 76.3% of parents observed behavioural issues in their children. The problems were mostly observed in 6 to 10 yrs of age. Males showed the problem most often than females (M:F = 33:25). Children from urban areas showed behavioural problems more often. Discussion(s): Most of the parents reported that their children were having different sorts of problems during this period(3). The families of small children aged 6 to 10 yrs of age were facing various problems more often. The children of this age group showed problems more often as they were isolated at home. Previously they were in the discipline of school and society. Due to the sudden release of pressure, all routine activities got disturbed. Copyright © 2022, Institute of Medico-legal Publication. All rights reserved.

Correlation of D-Dimer Level with Severity of Pneumonia, Hospital Stay and Mortality in Case of Covid-19 Infection: A Retrospective Study an a Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: Worldwide there was a pandemic of novel corona virus infection in which one of the major concern was the risk of thrombosis and the mortality associated with it. Aim(s): In this study our aim was to observe the changes in D-dimer levels during disease progression and its correlations with severity of Pneumonia, duration of hospital stay and mortality of COVID-19 patients. Material(s) and Method(s): In this study we reported the clinical, radiological and pathological laboratory results of 432 cases of confirmed COVID-19 infection. In these patients their clinical presentation, concentration of D-dimer, coagulation parameters, CBC, severity of Pneumonia on HRCT, hospital stay and higher mortality were retrospectively analyzed. Result(s): All the statistical variables were expressed in % and compared withx2 test. Out of the 432 cases in 45 cases (10.41%) the D-dimer values were >2.4microg/ml and in 15 cases the value were very high (3.47%). When correlated these patients found to have severe degree of pneumonia, longer hospital stay and higher mortality rate in comparison to patients with D-dimer level of <2.4 microg/ml. Conclusion(s): D-dimer level could be used as an early marker for the clinical classification, risk stratification and improved management of COVID-19 patients. Copyright © 2022, Institute of Medico-legal Publication. All rights reserved.

COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND MIGRANT WORKERS: India and the world

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), almost 64% of international migrants were migrant workers in 2017. The ILO suggests that both the countries of origin and destination gain from the contribution of the migrant workers - in destination countries, the migrant workers contribute to growth and development, while the countries of their origin largely benefit from their remittances and from the skills they acquire during their migration experience once they come back. The intra-country migrant workers play an important role in the economic dynamics of countries like India. This chapter considers the cases of both intra-country and inter-country migrant workers. The Covid-19 pandemic has severely disrupted economic activities worldwide, leading to large-scale retrenchment. Recovery prospect of employment varies across sectors. For international migrant workers, the retrenchment has serious long-run consequences for the economic health of their countries of origin due to drop in remittances. The miserable situation of the migrant workers in India following the sudden lockdown created concern all over the world. This chapter makes an attempt to study the impact of Covid-19 on migrant workers separately for those who were forced to come back to their countries of origin and those who could not, along with the impact on their countries of origin and destination and also the situation of migrant workers in India and discusses some policy options at national and multilateral levels to address the problems faced by migrant workers. The entire analysis is based on data from ILO, United Nations, World Bank and various international agencies and newspapers. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Rajib Bhattacharyya, Ananya Ghosh Dastidar and Soumyen Sikdar;individual chapters, the contributors.

HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE POST-COVID ERA: India and the world

With the imposition of Lockdown in the wake of the Pandemic, the functioning of the Indian universities came to a halt. As the Indian economy is limping back to normalcy, restoration of normalcy in teaching-learning is taking longer with the online mode emerging as a viable alternate mode. Though introduction of online mode began more than a decade ago, the sudden disruption caused by the Pandemic has expedited the adoption on a much wider scale. This chapter looks at the transformative changes the Indian higher education sector is undergoing in the Post-Covid era with policy support from the National Education Policy 2020 and popularization of online platforms by the government. It is argued that some of these changes are structural as these redefine the concepts of time and space associated with the university as a site for learning and research. Further, this chapter looks at India’s position in the global knowledge space in terms of world university ranking, research collaboration, students’ mobility and India’s preparedness to embrace the new normal at the global level. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Rajib Bhattacharyya, Ananya Ghosh Dastidar and Soumyen Sikdar;individual chapters, the contributors.

Dead Bodies - A Potential Source of Infection for COVID -19

The recent Covid-19 pandemic has raised a lot of questions regarding the mode of transmission of the virus. The rapid spread across the globe has compelled researchers to focus on this issue. Theories claiming droplet transmission, fbmites as well as airborne transmission have cropped up. The primary concern for the autopsy surgeons is whether the dead bodies harbor the virus and if so for how long. The present study was undertaken to find out the possibility of the virus being isolated from the human cadavers by testing at specified intervals after death. Out of the 74 cases examined, 59.5% of cases tested positive 1 day after death and 20.5% were still positive 5 days after death. The diflerence between males and females was not significant. The age of the subjects in our study ranged from 20 days to 90 years. The results of the study clearly indicate that the virus persists in the human cadavers for a sufficient period of time to act as a potential source of infection. Adequate precautionary measures while packing the body and autopsy examination are of utmost essential to prevent the spread of the disease among the dead body handlers and the family members while performing the last rites © 2022. Journal of Indian Academy of Forensic Medicine.All Rights Reserved.