Effect of lockdown on Indian economy

The current year, 2020 has witnessed the world wide pandemic of COVID-19 which first originated in the Wuhan district of China. This virus rapidly migrated to the different nations of the globe through close contact of people and actions such as coughing, sneezing and spread of droplet infections. The virus had not only had a drastic impact on the population of the nation but also affected the Indian economy which is seen as one of the worst hits in the last decade. Various sectors such as the manufacturing sector, agriculture and service suffered a major blow due to the cessation of production of various goods and services which brought a drastic decline in the gross domestic product of the nation and the export and import rates. The present study was conducted to determine the effect of the coronavirus on the Indian economy and how the changes or impact could be overcome by the government and the leaders in each sector or industry. © 2021, Universitatea de Vest Vasile Goldis din Arad. All rights reserved.

Knowledge and awareness on mental health of students during quarantine period

Coronavirus, a deadly virus caused an unimaginable pandemic across the globe and in order to limit its spread the lockdown and quarantine initiative was introduced. The mental health of students generally refers to the complete mental well-being and the absence of any mental disorders. This pandemic caused a major fluctuation in mental attitudes and anxiety levels of students. The main aim of this study was to analyze the attitude of students in relation to the quarantine and the mental health of students during the lockdown period. A self administered questionnaire was prepared and circulated. The results were obtained and statistically analysed using SPSS software with a version of 22 and the statistical test used was descriptive statistics. It was found that the majority of students had no change in relationship between friends and family and were able to counteract boredom and laugh every single day of the quarantine. The study concluded that the quarantine period had an effect on attitude and anger levels of students. Teenagers were physically and psychologically affected by the quarantine due to lack of socialization and however proved to be addicted to social media which had a deteriorating rating impact on the quality of life. © 2020 Ubiquity Press. All rights reserved.

The Bass Model: a parsimonious and accurate approach to forecasting mortality caused by COVID-19

Purpose: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has presented unique challenges in terms of understanding its unique characteristics of transmission and predicting its spread. The purpose of this study is to present a simple, parsimonious and accurate model for forecasting mortality caused by COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach: The presented Bass Model is compared it with several alternative existing models for forecasting the spread of COVID-19. This study calibrates the model for deaths for the period, March 21 to April 30 for the USA as a whole and as the US States of New York, California and West Virginia. The daily data from the COVID-19 Tracking Project has been used, which is a volunteer organization launched from The Atlantic. Every day, data is collected on testing and patient outcomes from all the 50 states, 5 territories and the District of Columbia. This data set is widely used by policymakers and scholars. The fit of the model (F-value and its significance, R-squared value) and the statistical significance of the variables (t-values) for each one of the four estimates are examined. This study also examines the forecast of deaths for a three-day period, May 1 to 3 for each one of the four estimates – US, and States of New York, California and West Virginia. Based on these metrics, the viability of the Bass Model is assessed. The dependent variable is the number of deaths, and the two independent variables are cumulative number of deaths and its squared value. Findings: The findings of this paper show that compared to other forecasting methods, the Bass Model performs remarkably well. In fact, it may even be argued that the Bass Model does better with its forecast. The calibration of models for deaths in the USA, and States of New York, California and West Virginia are all found to be significant. The F values are large and the significance of the F values is low, that is, the probability that the model is wrong is very miniscule. The fit as measured by R-squared is also robust. Further, each of the two independent variables is highly significant in each of the four model calibrations. These forecasts also approximate the actual numbers reasonably well. Research limitations/implications: This study illustrates the applicability of the Bass Model to estimate the diffusion of COVID-19 with some preliminary but important empirical analyses. This study argues that while the more sophisticated models may produce slightly better estimates, the Bass model produces robust and reasonably accurate estimates given the extreme parsimony of the model. Future research may investigate applications of the Bass Model for pandemic management using additional variables and other theoretical lenses. Practical implications: The Bass Model offers effective forecasting of mortality resulting from COVID-19 to help understand how the curve can be flattened, how hospital capacity could be overwhelmed and how fatality rates might climb based on time and geography in the upcoming weeks and months. Originality/value: This paper demonstrates the efficacy of the Bass Model as a parsimonious, accessible and theory-based approach that can predict the mortality rates of COVID-19 with minimal data requirements, simple calibration and accessible decision calculus. For all these reasons, this paper recommends further and continued examination of the Bass Model as an instrument for forecasting COVID-19 (and other epidemic/pandemic) mortality and health resource requirements. As this paper has demonstrated, there is much promise in this model. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.