ABSTRACT
The entire medical world gathers information related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its spread analysis, disease characteristics, morbidity and mortality statistics, as well as factors limiting and promoting infection and severe course, and above all potential treatment options. Scientific research is being carried out on a large scale on methods of early detection of COVID-19 infection, including imaging methods such as computed tomography or ultrasound imaging. The importance of imaging methods is increasingly emphasized in the literature as sensitive and specific, often with greater clinical utility than mass-applied serological tests. Especially in large urban agglomerations such as Silesia, the wide availability of these imaging methods as screening methods in the clinical assessment of potentially infectious patients seems to be important. The literature on the COVID-19 epidemic emphasizes the significant role of integrated diagnostic methods including basic science as well as radiological and endoscopic imaging methods in the diagnosis of COVID-19 infection and its possible complications. The study presents potential possibilities of using the phenomena of autofuorescence and fluorescence in supporting the diagnosis of patients with suspected COVID-19 infection. The study presents preliminary results of case studies of patients suspected of being infected with COVID-19, and shows the multidimensional application of fluorescent phenomena in supporting diagnostics. One of the main tools used in the study is autofluorescent bronchoscopy as a method that, in synchronization with high resolution tomography analysis, significantly facilitates obtaining representative material for RT-PCR. The study also showed the potential for assessing fluorescent material under fluorescence microscopy, which can significantly facilitate diagnostics in the future and speed up existing screening tests to complement genetic diagnostics.Copyright © 2023
ABSTRACT
In response to the global coronavirus crisis, central banks all over the world have cut interest rates and introduced other measures to ease monetary policy. The aim of this chapter is to analyze this response, how it changed compared with their response to the global financial crisis of 2007–2009, and how monetary policy might evolve further. In particular, I examine the adequacy of aggregate demand management and interest rate cuts in reference to the global coronavirus crisis and the potential economic impact of the interest rates staying lower for longer. I argue that setting interest rates too low for too long can impair their signaling and allocation functions and cause significant harm in the long run, such as misallocation of resources, excessive risk-taking, zombification of the economy, and accumulation of too much debt. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
In response to the global coronavirus crisis, central banks all over the world have cut interest rates and introduced other measures to ease monetary policy. The aim of this chapter is to analyze this response, how it changed compared with their response to the global financial crisis of 2007–2009, and how monetary policy might evolve further. In particular, I examine the adequacy of aggregate demand management and interest rate cuts in reference to the global coronavirus crisis and the potential economic impact of the interest rates staying lower for longer. I argue that setting interest rates too low for too long can impair their signaling and allocation functions and cause significant harm in the long run, such as misallocation of resources, excessive risk-taking, zombification of the economy, and accumulation of too much debt. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Cass Sunstein coined the term 'probability neglect' to characterize the cognitive bias of disregarding probability when assessing low-probability but high-impact threats. He also related this cognitive bias to terrorism risk, andapplied the concept to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, I show that such claims are not justified. I argue that an alternative hypothesis could be that people who downplay the epidemiological threat and do not take precautionary measures suffer from exponential-growth bias. I also show that probability theory, and thus the concept of probability neglect, cannot be easily applied to real-world problems, such as terrorist attacks or pandemics, occurring in a non-ergodic, uncertain environment.