‘If I Don't Sell Food, How Would I Eat?' Negotiating Street Vendor Livelihoods in the Context of COVID-19 Lockdowns in Urban Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos

Street vendor livelihoods have long been a point of negotiation in Southeast Asia, with government policies frequently attempting to erase this informal trade from city streets. Government officials and civil society alike tend to disdain street vending, labelling it a disruption to the economic development and daily operations of Southeast Asian cities. Despite such marginalisation, street vendors have persisted, employing creative tactics and resistance measures to ensure their livelihoods. Since the onset of COVID-19, which hit Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos in early 2020, the pandemic has redefined the challenges that urban street vendors face. Focusing on Chiang Mai in Thailand, Hanoi in Vietnam, and Luang Prabang in Laos, we find that governments have approached the pandemic very differently-from more immediate and stricter lockdowns to slower and less aggressive approaches. Drawing on interviews with 61 street vendors, this chapter analyses how the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic differently affected street vendors in each of these cities. It also focuses on how vendors responded to government lockdowns and staggering declines in their vending incomes, ranging from expected coping mechanisms to more innovative responses. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Becoming Host: Zooming in on the pandemic horror film

This chapter addresses the uncanny effects of computer screen horror films during the pandemic by focusing on the British horror movie Host (2020), an independent 56-minute film directed by Rob Savage during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The horror genre typically enables a kind of identificatory catharsis while also providing its viewership with the comfort of knowingly indulging in fiction. And yet, Host unsettles this very comfort and conceit. This essay argues that Host’s originality—and its uncanny horror—owes less to its content than to its visual form. The film’s unrelenting and unbroken point of view via the Zoom interface frames the entire film through a medium become all too familiar during the pandemic. This familiarity almost guilelessly interpellates the viewer as a hapless participant in the murderous mayhem that unfolds both onscreen and, by extension, in a pandemic present marked by existential threat and mass death. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Irene Gammel and Jason Wang;individual chapters, the contributors.

Rationale for evaluation of PLN-74809 treatment in participants with primary sclerosing cholangitis in Phase 2a study INTEGRIS-PSC

Background and aims: Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) signalling is a key driver of liver fibrosis. In primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), integrins over-expressed on injured cholangiocytes (alpha-v/beta-6) and myofibroblasts (alpha-v/beta-1) regulate TGFbeta activity. PLN-74809 is an oral, once-daily, dual-selective inhibitor of integrins alpha-v/beta-6 and alpha-v/beta-1 in development for the treatment of PSC and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. It has shown favourable tolerability in over 280 healthy participants, reduced TGF-beta signalling and achieved high target engagement in human lungs. Pre-clinical evaluation of antifibrotic activity resulting from dual integrin inhibition was performed to support clinical evaluation. Method: PLN-74809 was administered orally for 6 weeks in BALBc. Mdr2-/- mice with established fibrosis. A tool alpha-v/beta-6 and alpha-v/beta-1 inhibitor compound, PLN-75068, was tested therapeutically in a diet-induced mouse model of biliary fibrosis using 3, 5-diethoxycarbonyl-1, 4-dihydrocollidine (DDC). Hepatic collagen was quantified by hydroxyproline (OHP) and collagen proportionate area (CPA) and TGF-beta signalling by phosphorylated SMAD3 (pSMAD3) levels. An ex vivo study evaluated the effects of 2-day treatment with PLN-74809 on the expression of profibrotic genes, COL1A1 and COL1A2, in precision-cut liver slices (PCLivS) from tissue explants of participants with biliary fibrosis (n = 2 PSC;n = 2 primary biliary cholangitis [PBC]). A review of available blinded safety data from the enrolling Phase 2a study in participants with PSC was performed (NCT04480840). Results: PLN-74809 dose-dependently reduced OHP (up to ∼30%, p < 0.05), CPA (up to ∼50%, p < 0.05) and pSMAD3 (up to ∼40%, p < 0.001) in the BALBc.Mdr2-/- mouse model, as well as COL1A1 and COL1A2 gene expression (up to ∼30%, p = 0.0789) in PCLivS from tissue explants of participants with PSC and PBC. PLN-75068 reduced OHP (up to ∼20%, p < 0.05) in DDC-injured mice in a dose-dependent manner. PLN-74809waswell tolerated in participants with PSC. Most adverse events (AEs)were mild;nonewere severe. The most common AE was mild headache. One participant experienced serious AEs at least 20 days after the last dose of study drug, deemed not related by the investigator. One participant prematurely discontinued due to COVID-19. PLN-74809 pharmacokinetics in participants with PSC were consistent with those of healthy participants. Conclusion: Pharmacological inhibition of integrins alpha-v/beta-6 and alpha-v/beta-1 demonstrated antifibrotic activity in two models of biliary fibrosis and in PCLivS from participants with PSC or PBC. Available safety findings from participants with PSC enrolled in the ongoing Phase 2a INTEGRIS-PSC study, continue to support the favourable tolerability profile of PLN-74809.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated control measures on uptake of preschool immunisations in Scotland

Background Maintaining high levels of immunisation uptake is vital to protect children from vaccine-preventable disease. The COVID-19 pandemic and measures taken to control it, including national lockdowns, threatened to disrupt routine immunisation programmes. Initial reports from the early weeks of lockdowns in the UK and worldwide suggested that preschool immunisation uptake was falling. In Scotland enhanced surveillance databases were set up to monitor and rapidly assess the impact on childhood immunisation uptake rates. Objectives This aim of this study was to evaluate the impact on timely childhood immunisation uptake (defined as within 4 weeks of becoming eligible for the immunisation according to the national immunisation schedule) before, during and after a national lockdown using data from the entire Scottish population. Methods This was an observational study using routinely collected data in the year prior to the pandemic (2019), immediately before (January -22 March 2020), during (22 March-31 July 2020) and after (August-September 2020) the first period of the UK 'lockdown'. Data were obtained for Scotland from the Public Health Scotland 'COVID19 wider impacts on the health care system' dashboard (https://scotland.shinyapps.io/ phs-covid-wider-impact/). Uptake of the three doses of DTaP/ IPV/Hib/HepB vaccine in early infancy and two doses of MMR at age 12 months and 3 years 4 months was evaluated at the four time points. Timely uptake rates were compared using binary logistical regression analysis. Data were also analysed separately by geographical region and indices of deprivation. Results Vaccination rates in Scotland for all the childhood immunisations rose during lockdown compared to the previous year (table 1). Significant increases in uptake were seen across all deprivation level, though there was evidence of greater improvement for the least deprived for the MMR immunisations. Conclusions This study demonstrates that the national lockdown in Scotland has had a positive effect on timely preschool immunisation uptake. This provides an excellent opportunity to explore the reasons behind this increase, whether this has been achieved through the removal of barriers, increased motivation or awareness campaigns including those co-ordinated by the Scottish Immunisation programme and sharing of best practice. Promoting immunisation uptake and addressing potential vaccine hesitancy is particularly important in the context of ongoing and repeated lockdownstyle control measures and with future of a paediatric COVID-19 vaccination campaigns.

COVID-19: a shock to the system-reflections from practice by safeguarding adults board managers

Purpose: This paper aims to set out to share the reflections of safeguarding adult board managers as they worked through what is likely to be just the first wave of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on the experience of small number of safeguarding adult board managers who have provided reflections from practice. Findings: This paper illustrates just some of the responses developed by safeguarding adult board managers and their boards to continue to deliver the work of safeguarding those at risk of abuse and harm in the face of unprecedented impact of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic on a key aspect of the safeguarding adult system in England. Originality/value: The reflections reported here are not intended to offer a representative commentary on the experiences of those who oversee and manage safeguarding adults’ boards. It is intention to provide a flavour of some of the challenges and dilemmas faced and some of the creative solutions to address them used by one group of adult safeguarding practitioners. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.