Changes in government procurement: COVID-19 as an opportunity for corruption

Purpose: Explore the factors making emergency procurement more prone to corruption by advancing explanations for when rules and transparency are relaxed allowing corrupt practices to emerge. Describe institutional factors, such as corruption syndrome (Johnston, 2005, 2015) and legal system, and their impact on procurement rules changes. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative event study using publicly available data offer a timeline and explanation of government procurement control mechanisms and transparency roles in emergencies by comparing two countries. Argentina and Canada had very similar and advanced food procurement systems prior to COVID-19, but they took different stances when the pandemic broke out. Findings: Legal systems and corruption syndrome are linked, where Civil Law is related to Elite Cartels (Argentina) and Common Law with Influence Markets (Canada). The study contributes to understand the role of transparency to minimize the opportunity for direct purchases (electronic trails of decisions, justifications and approvals). Judicial system's actions favor corrupt practices and are aligned with elites despite the civil society outcry. Research limitations/implications: Research on corrupt practices has limited access to primary data due to fear of reprisals. Informal conversations revealing glimpses of corruption were used to identify publicly available documents. Numbers play a role in emergencies and performativity theory literature is enriched by providing an example of different interpretation of information when frameworks differ between civil society and courts. Originality/value: A comparative analysis that evidences the role of pre-existing institutional and social conditions shows when emergency situations will be used as an excuse to relax procurement control and transparency mechanisms which in turn facilitate corrupt practices. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Opinions, attitudes, and barriers to pediatric vaccination in Argentina.

In Argentina, vaccines included in the national calendar are mandatory, free of charge, and access to vaccination services with social equity for all stages of life are guaranteed by law. However, vaccination coverages are still suboptimal and have shown a constant decrease in the last five years. This study aimed to perform a survey to describe the parent's confidence, risk perception, sources of information and access barriers to vaccines and vaccination in Argentina. A survey was designed for parents in charge of children under 12 years of age to answer. The questionnaire was constructed based on validated questions of the international peer-reviewed literature adapted to our country's characteristics. The survey was performed on 1,202 respondents, covering all regions of Argentina, between 19th May and 18th June 2020. To highlight, 76.6 % were female and the mean age was 40.72 (±9.36 years). 9 % participants reported to assist to the private vaccination center, while 64 % and 23 % referred to take their children to the public vaccination point (primary care center and hospital, respectively). Additionally, respondents agreed that vaccines are safe (92 %), effective (94 %), and important for children to receive them (98 %). 48 % could identify-one or more barriers to vaccination, access and affordability were the most reported ones (74 %) being the lack of vaccine the main reason. In conclusion, this study showed that the great majority of parents trust in vaccines and health care teams but access and affordability reasons emerged as the main barriers to vaccination in our country.

Designing a drinking water treatment experiment as a virtual lab to support engineering education during the COVID-19 outbreak

The design and deployment of a conventional water treatment experiment, the Jar Test, are presented in a virtual format. It used a low-cost online platform to reproduce the experimental steps and the actual lab setting to empower students with experiential skills. Skills like experimentation, instrumentation, learning from failure, and communication for their professional success. These skills are evaluated in the accreditation criteria for engineering programs of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. This virtual experience provided one-hundred and sixty-three civil engineering students with the knowledge to perform experimentation at an engineering level, from water sampling campaigns to performing the Jar Test experiment and measuring physicochemical quantities to draw technical conclusions. According to students' perceptions, the simulation strengthened their capacity for conducting experiments and data collection-processing using virtualized lab instruments. It also consolidated theoretical knowledge to report conclusions according to research findings and enhanced their confidence to perform in-person experiments based on the revised virtual procedure. The results from this study demonstrate that virtual tools could be deployed as a powerful supplement to deliver the practical syllabus when limitations of face-to-face interaction occur. It can also be a blended educational approach since the computer-assisted simulation provides the necessary pre-knowledge that maximizes learning during in-person experimentation.