COVID-19 prevention campaigns in a digital context: the case of the "Let's practice citizenship" government campaign in Argentina

This exploratory-analytical work focuses on official government campaigns promoting COVID-19 prevention in Argentina. More specifically, it looks at the "Let's practice citizenship" campaign, which called on Argentine citizens to prevent a second surge in COVID cases. We observed the publication of these announcements on digital platforms, analyzing their content and their repercussions on Twitter. In doing so, we hoped to determine the role played by "care" and "citizenship," as theoretical and political categories, in the context of these communications. For our case study, we evaluated the public health narrative told by the national government as well as user reactions in the selected digital platform. As a theoretical framework, this article reviews the main terms used in the government campaign, so as to settle on the intended meanings of "care" and "citizenship." We then continue with our methodological strategy, which we carried out entirely within digital media. This strategy followed two steps: first, we identified the campaign videos on YouTube, so as to closely describe them;and then, through a web scraping technique, we recovered the tweets responding to the government campaign. Our analysis identified the most common terms used in both government videos and user tweets, via word clouds generated from the results of our previous review. We conclude that users largely responded negatively to the government strategy and its narrative contradictions, as the official discourse promoted "care" and "safety" while mass mobilizations on the streets were still permitted. These user responses were typically aggressive and complained about the behavior of the country's president and vice president, demanding that they "set an example" for citizens.

Nursing Students' Experiences in the Use of Digital Portfolio in Academic Thesis

Introduction: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital tools have been implemented in the education of nursing students, including the digital or electronic portfolio in different subjects, but there are few studies on its use in the thesis process. Objective: To describe the use of the digital portfolio in the academic thesis according to the experiences of nursing students in a private university. Methods: Descriptive qualitative research conducted in a private university in Chiclayo, Peru, between July and August 2021. The population consisted of 32 nursing students taking the Thesis II course, the sample, composed of 16 students, was by convenience and achieved by the criteria of saturation and redundancy of the data. For data collection, a semi-structured interview with virtual modality was applied through the Zoom platform and WhatsApp, with the precedent of informed consent. The data were processed by content analysis. Results: four categories were obtained: a) Implementation of a tool for the thesis, b) Ordered information, evidence in progress and access to evaluation, c) Complication due to lack of Internet, time and distribution of information in folders, d) Possibility of the effective use of the digital portfolio for the future. Conclusions: The use of the digital portfolio with the use of google drive constitutes a useful tool for data collection and thesis report, because it is easy to access, secure and has a high storage capacity. But in times of pandemic, where lessons are virtual, students experienced difficulties with Internet connectivity. © 2022, Editorial Ciencias Medicas. All rights reserved.

Infodemic, the other pandemic during 2019 coronavirus disease

Infodemia is the information epidemy associated to fear, speculation and rumors, amplified and transmitted rapidly by modern information technologies and that negatively affects society. Its association with the 2019 Coronavirus Disease pandemic is not exclusive, as it had already been described with the Coronavirus-1 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome pandemic in 2003. This false or misleading information may cause public reluctance widespread adoption of infection control measures promoted by health authorities, and thus delaying essential recomendations. The World Health Organization (WHO), in its eagerness to counteract, has established the WHO Information Network to Epidemics.

Bioethical principles in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

The worldwide spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an international sanitary crisis that many countries could not tackle. In our country the relationship among the health care professionals their patients and relatives has been affected, in part due to a disorganized governmental response to the pandemic that dictated incorrect treatment recommendations based on foreign experiences resulting in severe attempts against the individual dignity. On the other hand, the lack of resources, the rampant corruption and the poor resolution capacity for diagnosing cases leaded not only of knowing the magnitude of the pandemic in the country but also to discouragement among health care professionals who are at the frontline experiencing fear and vulnerability. We do believe that we need to rethink on the impact of the pandemic in the country as well as on the critical reforms needed in our health care system promoting integrated human care, following current bioethical models and personalized ethical principles in order to improve current medical practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.