Early infection risk in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus treated with rituximab or belimumab from the British Isles Lupus Assessment Group Biologics Register (BILAG-BR): a prospective longitudinal study

Background: Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are at an increased risk of infection relative to the general population. We aimed to describe the frequency and risk factors for serious infections in patients with moderate-to-severe SLE treated with rituximab, belimumab, and standard of care therapies in a large national observational cohort. Method(s): The British Isles Lupus Assessment Group Biologics Register (BILAG-BR) is a UK-based prospective register of patients with SLE. Patients were recruited by their treating physician as part of their scheduled care from 64 centres across the UK by use of a standardised case report form. Inclusion criteria for the BILAG-BR included age older than 5 years, ability to provide informed consent, a diagnosis of SLE, and starting a new biological therapy within the last 12 months or a new standard of care drug within the last month. The primary outcome for this study was the rate of serious infections within the first 12 months of therapy. Serious infections were defined as those requiring intravenous antibiotic treatment, hospital admission, or resulting in morbidity or death. Infection and mortality data were collected from study centres and further mortality data were collected from the UK Office for National Statistics. The relationship between serious infection and drug type was analysed using a multiple-failure Cox proportional hazards model. Finding(s): Between July 1, 2010, and Feb 23, 2021, 1383 individuals were recruited to the BILAG-BR. 335 patients were excluded from this analysis. The remaining 1048 participants contributed 1002.7 person-years of follow-up and included 746 (71%) participants on rituximab, 119 (11%) participants on belimumab, and 183 (17%) participants on standard of care. The median age of the cohort was 39 years (IQR 30-50), 942 (90%) of 1048 patients were women and 106 (10%) were men. Of the patients with available ethnicity data, 514 (56%) of 911 were White, 169 (19%) were Asian, 161 (18%) were Black, and 67 (7%) were of multiple-mixed or other ethnic backgrounds. 118 serious infections occurred in 76 individuals during the 12-month study period, which included 92 serious infections in 58 individuals on rituximab, eight serious infections in five individuals receiving belimumab, and 18 serious infections in 13 individuals on standard of care. The overall crude incidence rate of serious infection was 117.7 (95% CI 98.3-141.0) per 1000 person-years. Compared with standard of care, the serious infection risk was similar in the rituximab (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 1.68 [0.60-4.68]) and belimumab groups (1.01 [0.21-4.80]). Across the whole cohort in multivariate analysis, serious infection risk was associated with prednisolone dose (>10 mg;2.38 [95%CI 1.47-3.84]), hypogammaglobulinaemia (<6 g/L;2.16 [1.38-3.37]), and multimorbidity (1.45 [1.17-1.80]). Additional concomitant immunosuppressive use appeared to be associated with a reduced risk (0.60 [0.41-0.90]). We found no significant safety signals regarding atypical infections. Six infection-related deaths occurred at a median of 121 days (IQR 60-151) days from cohort entry. Interpretation(s): In patients with moderate-to-severe SLE, rituximab, belimumab, and standard immunosuppressive therapy have similar serious infection risks. Key risk factors for serious infections included multimorbidity, hypogammaglobulinaemia, and increased glucocorticoid doses. When considering the risk of serious infection, we propose that immunosupppressives, rituximab, and belimumab should be prioritised as mainstay therapies to optimise SLE management and support proactive minimisation of glucocorticoid use. Funding(s): None.Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license

Role of Coronavirus Outbreak on Adoption of Electronic Education in New Bussa, Niger State, Nigeria

This study was carried out in New Bussa, Niger state, Nigeria to test the infallibility of the contention that coronavirus outbreak and suspension of physical educational services that accompanies its outbreak will positively or negatively affect demand for and adoption of electronic education (e-education) by students of various educational institutions in Nigeria. The study adopted an online survey made available via Google form to residents of the study area. Furthermore the online survey was accompanied by personal interview of school administrators and tertiary institution students. The survey questionnaire was made accessible to participants that were encouraged to fill the questionnaire online between 18th of October and 10th of November, 2020. The data retrieved were analysed using descriptive statistics and t-test. It was found that demand for and adoption of e-education through software resources was not significantly affected by coronavirus outbreak (μduring=3.90, μbefore=3.72, p>0.05), while e-education through radio and television broadcast was found to be significantly affected by coronavirus outbreak (μduring=4.83, μbefore=4.53, p<0.05). Level of income (as such, high cost of data) was found to have effect on demand for and adoption of e-education software resources. Furthermore, social media channels and generalised software applications (with reduced or no cost of data) were found to be the most adopted software resources at the expense of proprietary e-education software resources. It is therefore recommended that Nigerian government should find a way to reduce internet access cost to enable effective adoption of electronic education through mobile and website applications.

Evaluation of Affective Domain for Civil Engineering Design Project Before and During COVID-19: A Case Study in UiTM Johor

The affective domain is one of the three Bloom's Taxonomy domains that deal with emotions, attitudes, and feelings. It includes values, fervour, and motivations. In order to ensure that the Programme Outcomes (POs) established in the Engineering Technology Accreditation Council (ETAC) Manual 2020 for engineering education are met, it is crucial that students be evaluated in this affective domain. This study aims to evaluate the affective domain of the Civil Engineering Design Project course at UiTM Johor before and during the COVID-19 outbreak, which swung the country. The evaluation of the Programme Outcome (PO) for the affective domain mapped to this topic is divided into two primary sections. The first PO is PO8, which addresses understanding and commitment to professional ethics, responsibilities, and norms of technician practice. The second PO, PO10, focuses on communicating effectively on well-defined engineering activities with the engineering community and society, by being able to comprehend the work of others, document their own work, and give and receive clear instructions. The results of these two POs from five semesters before and during COVID-19 were analyzed and discussed to achieve the objective of the study. The result has shown significant changes in the aspect of different mediums of teaching which respond to the face-to-face and online distance learning (ODL) study. The results indicate that the performance in the affective domain of PO8 and PO10 is better before the pandemic compared to performance during the pandemic © 2023, Asian Journal of University Education.All Rights Reserved.

Duration of Device-Based Fever Prevention after Cardiac Arrest.

BACKGROUND: Guidelines recommend active fever prevention for 72 hours after cardiac arrest. Data from randomized clinical trials of this intervention have been lacking. METHODS: We randomly assigned comatose patients who had been resuscitated after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest of presumed cardiac cause to device-based temperature control targeting 36°C for 24 hours followed by targeting of 37°C for either 12 or 48 hours (for total intervention times of 36 and 72 hours, respectively) or until the patient regained consciousness. The primary outcome was a composite of death from any cause or hospital discharge with a Cerebral Performance Category of 3 or 4 (range, 1 to 5, with higher scores indicating more severe disability; a category of 3 or 4 indicates severe cerebral disability or coma) within 90 days after randomization. Secondary outcomes included death from any cause and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment score (range, 0 to 30, with higher scores indicating better cognitive ability) at 3 months. RESULTS: A total of 393 patients were randomly assigned to temperature control for 36 hours, and 396 patients were assigned to temperature control for 72 hours. At 90 days after randomization, a primary end-point event had occurred in 127 of 393 patients (32.3%) in the 36-hour group and in 133 of 396 patients (33.6%) in the 72-hour group (hazard ratio, 0.99; 95% confidence interval, 0.77 to 1.26; P = 0.70) and mortality was 29.5% in the 36-hour group and 30.3% in the 72-hour group. At 3 months, the median Montreal Cognitive Assessment score was 26 (interquartile range, 24 to 29) and 27 (interquartile range, 24 to 28), respectively. There was no significant between-group difference in the incidence of adverse events. CONCLUSIONS: Active device-based fever prevention for 36 or 72 hours after cardiac arrest did not result in significantly different percentages of patients dying or having severe disability or coma. (Funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation; BOX ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03141099.).

Analysis of capacity community level in various potential disasters at dinoyo and sukun sub-district, Malang city

The natural disaster in pandemic covid-19 will still ongoing in East Java, Indonesia. Apart from the virus pandemic, there are still several potential disasters in that sub-district, namely floods and landslides. Many disasters have occurred resulting in the need for people living in the area to anticipate, especially if the three disasters occur simultaneously. In Malang, this case of sub-district apparatus and the BPBD Malang City has not been able to optimally help restore the condition of the community due to the complexity of conditions that occur in the field. Therefore, the community needs to know their capacity to be able to anticipate if it is two or three will happen. Capacity is a combination of all the forces that exist in a community, social or organizational group that can reduce the impact of disaster risk or impact (UN-ISDR, 2004). The capacity assessment in this study identifies the capitals owned by the community. These capitals include natural, human, physical, financial, and social capital. The five capitals will later be described in the pentagon assets so that it will be known which capacities in the capital are the strengths and weaknesses of the people of Dinoyo and Sukun sub-district. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

A Mathematical Model of the Ongoing Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic: a Case Study in Turkey

Turkey reported the first case of COVID-19 on 11 March 2020 since the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 spread rapidly in Turkey, where about a total of 3,208,173 cases of infected persons were registered by 29 March 2021 with 2,957,093 cases of recovered persons and 31,076 reported deaths. A new mathematical COVID-19 model containing six classes is presented. Also, the positive invariant region of the solutions, basic reproductive number, disease-free equilibrium, and its stability are highlighted. Afterward, the disease-free equilibrium is locally asymptotically stable when R0 < 1. Moreover, the proposed model was further generalized to the fractional-order derivative in the AtanganaBaleanu (ABC) context for a more successful realization. Besides, the existence and uniqueness of solutions via techniques of Schaefer's and Banach fixed point theorems were established. Based on the publicly recorded number of infected people from 1-31 July 2020 in Turkey and least-squares curve fitting techniques with fminsearch function the fractionalorders model has been validated and can better fit the data compared with the integer-order model. Also, using the Atangana-Toufik scheme, numerical solutions, as well as simulations, are presented for different values of fractional order. © 2022, Thammasat University. All rights reserved.

The challenges in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study

Background: COVID-19 pandemic has dominated the global space for more than a year, and the world faces a lot of challenges in the battle against the deadly virus. This study highlights fundamental issues that undermine the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and informs on how government and health authorities might further the cause of pandemic control. This study aimed is to analyze challenges that hinder the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic from the viewpoint of the Nigerian Twitter community. Subjects and Method: This was a qualitative study with phenomenological approach, conducted using an online survey through Google Forms with Nigerian Twitter community. A total of 128 informants were selected using a list-based sampling technique. The data was managed, cleaned, organized and analyzed in SPSS, Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet, Microsoft Word and Microsoft Notepad.

An NLP tool for data extraction from electronic health records: COVID-19 mortalities and comorbidities.

Background: The high infection rate, severe symptoms, and evolving aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic provide challenges for a variety of medical systems around the world. Automatic information retrieval from unstructured text is greatly aided by Natural Language Processing (NLP), the primary approach taken in this field. This study addresses COVID-19 mortality data from the intensive care unit (ICU) in Kuwait during the first 18 months of the pandemic. A key goal is to extract and classify the primary and intermediate causes of death from electronic health records (EHRs) in a timely way. In addition, comorbid conditions or concurrent diseases were retrieved and analyzed in relation to a variety of causes of mortality. Method: An NLP system using the Python programming language is constructed to automate the process of extracting primary and secondary causes of death, as well as comorbidities. The system is capable of handling inaccurate and messy data, this includes inadequate formats, spelling mistakes and mispositioned information. A machine learning decision trees method is used to classify the causes of death. Results: For 54.8% of the 1691 ICU patients we studied, septic shock or sepsis-related multiorgan failure was the leading cause of mortality. About three-quarters of patients die from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a common intermediate cause of death. An arrhythmia (AF) disorder was determined to be the strongest predictor of intermediate cause of death, whether caused by ARDS or other causes. Conclusion: We created an NLP system to automate the extraction of causes of death and comorbidities from EHRs. Our method processes messy and erroneous data and classifies the primary and intermediate causes of death of COVID-19 patients. We advocate arranging the EHR with well-defined sections and menu-driven options to reduce incorrect forms.

Innovation in the Covid-19 Pandemic Using the Inquiry-Based Learning Approach to Improve Active Learning, Confidence, and Critical Thinking of Nursing Students

Background: Educators and learners at all levels including nursing students have been impacted by Covid-19 pandemic with rapid adaptations to online learnings. While struggling to face the challenges, a learning innovation is needed to improve students confidence and critical thinking. This study explored the impact of an inquiry-based learning approach using podcast in a first-year undergraduate nursing students on acquisition of knowledge, self-confidence, critical thinking.Methods: The researchers in this study used a hybrid approach. We will evaluate the effectiveness of this course by a combination of a pre -and post-test in a quasi-experimental design and an in-depth interview to gauge students' knowledge gains, self-assurance, and critical thinking progress.Results: The quantitative results revealed an enhancement in students' self confidence and knowledge acquisition. After the intervention, students who were highly self-confident increased from 52% in pre-simulation to 91%, while the the average of online midterm and final exam test score was 8.6/10 +/- 1 (n 27) and 95% +/- 5% (n 27) for students in the intervention group compared to only 6.0/10 +/- 1 (n 27) and 65% +/- 5% (n 27) for students in the control group. The students from the intervention group found the combination of podcast media in learning methods very helpful, beneficial and reported their satisfaction.Conclusions: The inquiry learning method experience in combination with podcasts was an accepted form of learning innovation and provided new teaching strategies for students in times of pandemic to acquire knowledge more actively and develop their critical thinking.

Relationship between self-regulation with self- acceptance of hypertension patients during the covid- 19 pandemic period in Indonesia

Introduction: Hypertension is a chronic disease that is the main concern especially in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, where hypertension is a dangerous comorbid disease for people infected with the Covid-19 virus. Self-regulation is an important thing that hypertension sufferers must have to help control their blood pressure. Patients with hypertension who can regulate themselves will affect their acceptance of chronic diseases suffered. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship of self- regulation to self-acceptance of hypertension sufferers during the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia.Method: The type of research is correlational with a cross-sectional research design. The sampling technique is probability sampling with a random sample size of 100 patients with hypertension in Indonesia. The research instrument was in the form of Self-Regulation and Self Acceptance Scale-Early Blindness (SAS-EB) questionnaires. Data analysis was performed with the Spearman Rank statistical test with a significant p <0.05.Results: The results showed that almost half of respondents had high self- regulation (40%) and half of the respondents had a high level of self-acceptance (47%). Spearman Rank statistical test shows the result of p = 0,000 and the level of strength is very strong 0.795 and its value is positive.Conclusion: There is a very strong relationship between self-regulation and self-acceptance of hypertension sufferers during the co-19 pandemic in Indonesia. It is expected that health workers play a role in providing health education about the treatment of hypertension especially during the co-19 pandemic, as well as increasing social support that can help hypertension sufferers in treating their diseases.

Design of Automated Exam Proctoring for User Authentication Through Face Augmentation and Verification

The uses of online exam continue to increase during covid-19 pandemic. The challenge of online examination is proctoring method to detect cheating possibility to maintain integrity in its implementation. Various design of proctoring methods had been proposed from remote proctoring using video surveillance until automatic proctoring using machine learning approaches. One of important things in proctoring is user authentication during exam session. Recently, face recognition algorithm using image are widely used in automatic proctoring method instead of video which use high load data for storage, transmission and processing. Despite the progress made to detect identity of examinee, these models very dependent on data and required iterative training process to get a robust model whereas there are many and various examinee facial image like pose, lighting, etc. This problem makes the training process require large resources and take a long time. In this paper, we proposed automatic proctoring design for examinee verification that more flexible and efficient through face verification with key-face augmentation instead of face recognition. This proctoring design verifies the examinee's image with variations of key-face augmentation so that it does not require repeated training processes. As a result, the design of the proposed method is presented in this paper. © 2022 IEEE.

Depression, anxiety, coping strategies, quality of life of the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic

The occurrence of COVID-19 has a psychological impact on the elderly which will affect mental health and quality of life. This study aimed to identify the relationship between depression, anxiety, coping strategies with the quality of life of the elderly. This cross sectional study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cluster sampling technique was used to select 232 sample. This study employed geriatric depression scale (GDS 15) to measure depression, the geriatric anxiety inventory (GAI) to measure anxiety, brief resilient coping skala (BRCS) to measure coping stratecgies, and the WHOQOOL-BRIEF questionnaire to measure quality of life among the elderly. Data analysis used Multiple Linear Regression statistical test. This study showed that there is a correlation between depression and quality of life (p=0.000), anxiety and quality of life (p=0.000) with coping strategies and quality of life (p=0.027). This study recommended the provision of appropriate psychological interventions to improve and maintain the quality of life among the elderly. © 2022, Intelektual Pustaka Media Utama. All rights reserved.

Project Tooth Fairy - Addressing Paediatric Dental General Anaesthesia Waiting Lists in London

Aims Oral disease poses significant health, social and economic burden globally, often causing pain, infection, hospital admission and mortality. Dental caries (tooth decay) is amongst the most common health conditions despite being non-communicable and entirely preventable. The Global Burden of Disease Study estimated that greater than 530 million children suffer from caries in their primary dentition (WHO, 2020). Within the NHS, is it estimated that 25-30% of the overall paediatric waiting list consists of cases that require removal of grossly decayed teeth under general anaesthesia (GA) (figure 1). Between 2015 and 2016, the financial cost to the NHS of extractions amounted to 50.5M. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an existing burden within London NHS trusts of children on waiting lists for exodontia under GA. This issue has been further compounded by the cessation of elective dental activity in primary and secondary care settings due to the pandemic. Project Tooth Fairy was thus conceived to manage the growing paediatric GA waiting list. Methods Project Tooth Fairy is a collaborative, pan-London initiative designed to address London's growing paediatric GA waiting list. The new facility will employ clinical and non-clinical staff in a passport-type scheme allowing clinicians from different units to deliver care centrally in a purpose-built unit. The initiative started in November 2021. The project will deliver paediatric extractions, comprehensive care and complex oral surgery under GA. It will also serve as a source of training for dental trainees and anaesthetic trainees. Results Early results demonstrate that Project Tooth Fairy has treated over 250 children over two months, working with staff from over six NHS trusts, most cases comprising paediatric dental extractions. In March 2021, the total number of children waiting for paediatric GA across 19 London hospitals was around 14,400. To tackle the existing (and future) paediatric GA waiting lists in London, Project Tooth Fairy aims to increase capacity to treat 290 children over six days each week across three procedure rooms. Demand and capacity analysis suggests that approximately 212 procedures would be required each week (not including the backlog resulting from the pandemic). The backlog has seen a 61% increase from approximately 2,500 children waiting in March 2020 to an estimated 4,000 today, with projections of 7,000 by the time capacity is restored for P4 category work across London. It is estimated that 72% of these children have waited longer than 30 weeks, with greater than 1000 children waiting more than 52 weeks - a 96% increase in 52 week-waits compared to pre-COVID figures. The initiative also provides a more cost-effective solution due to the collaborative approach between trusts and staffing with an estimated saving of approximately 850,000 over 17 months compared to a more traditional system using two modular theatres. Conclusion Project Tooth Fairy is a more cost-effective and collaborative approach to tackling spiralling waiting lists within individual trusts. Nonetheless, a conceptual shift is needed away from 'downstream' strategies and those addressing the 'upstream' underlying inequalities in oral health across the population to achieve a more sustainable healthcare system.

Hand Hygiene Compliance during COVID-19 Pandemic among Neonatal Nurses in a Federal University Teaching Hospital in Nigeria

Introduction: Compliance with Hand hygiene (HH) has been considered as a simple and the most efficient strategy to reduce hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). Compliance with this practice is not often assessed in Nigeria and thus posed a significant risk to the quality of care and patient safety and especially in this era of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aimed to assess neonatal nurses’ compliance to “my five moments for HH”. Method: A cross-sectional observational study was carried out in a Nigerian federal hospital, using an adapted version of a standardized observational WHO tool of ‘’my five moments of HH’’. A Chi-square test was employed to examine the relationship of HH compliance across units, shifts, and “my five moments for HH” opportunities. Results: The observer recorded 425 HH opportunities and the total HH compliance rate was (62.8%). There was no association between the units, working shifts, and nurses’ HH compliance. Compliance to HH was dependent on the five moments of HH (p < 0.000), better compliance was seen after body fluid exposure (100%), followed by after newborn contact (86.3%), and after contact with newborn surroundings (63.4%), while compliance before newborn contact (28.5%), and before an aseptic procedure (9.1%) were poor. Conclusion: The findings of this study showed a significant gap with the HH compliance among neonatal nurses, suggesting multiple opportunities for neonatal infections despite the current awareness of HH in the Covid-19 pandemic. Hence, there is a need to intensify infection control practices in Nigeria, especially on HH practice. © 2022 UPM Press. All rights reserved.

Analysis of twitter conversation on COVID-19 pandemic in Africa 2019-2020

Background: Communication about COVID-19 pandemic has a huge impact on coordination, control and mitigation efforts against the disease. Patterns and trends of COVID-19 pandemic conversations amongst African tweeps between the year 2019 and 2020 was studied. This study aimed to determine the impact of Twitter COVID-19 information dissemination on attitudes, behaviour and decision making during the pandemic. Subjects and Method: This was a cohort study with combined quantitative and qualitative approach. This study was conducted in Africa, from December 2019 to December 2020. The quantitative approach was founded on data mining and data analytics research approach, applying measurements in terms of counts, numbers and frequencies while qualitative approach was founded on Natural Language Processing (NPL) algorithm to extract themes/topics and further applying sentiment analysis to a body of large textual data.

Assessment of Hand Hygiene Compliance in the Context of COVID-19 Among Paediatric Nurses in a Nigerian Federal University Teaching Hospital

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess hand hygiene (HH) facilities and to measure HH compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic among pediatric nurses in a single Nigerian federal university teaching hospital. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study utilizing the WHO HH observational design. Compliance data were collected by a trained observer using the WHO "my five moments for HH" checklist, while HH facilities were assessed using the infection and control assessment form. The data were analysed using SPSS software version 26.0. A Chi-square test was employed to determine the compliance across units, shifts, and "my five moments for HH". Results: Most HH facilities in the study were non-functional and inadequate. The overall compliance rate was 38.1%, based on the 561 HH opportunities recorded. The compliance rate was similar across the unit and shift, but varied according to "my five moments for HH" (p<0.001). HH compliance was found to be decreased in the moments before the contact with childt (5.6%) and before an aseptic procedure (1.1%). Better compliance was observed after body fluid exposure (100%), after the contact with child (61.2%), and after the contact with the child's environment (61.4%). Conclusion: The study found inadequate HH facilities, possibly contributing to poor HH compliance. Local facilities need to be restructured to ensure adequate access to resources which would indirectly increase HH practice and compliance, especially in the pediatric settings where HH is very crucial.

Estimating the Distributional Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Remedial Tax and Benefit Policies in Indonesia

The Government of Indonesia acted quickly to protect people from the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown measures in 2020. Using a static tax and microsimulation model for Indonesia with adjusted datasets to reflect the economic shock throughout 2020, we explore how the pandemic affected people’s earnings in Indonesia, the extent to which the automatic stabilisers that were already built into the tax and benefit system cushioned the economic shock, and how the augmented or new benefit policies served to further cushion the shock. We estimate that in 2020 the additional policies meant that poverty rose from 6.8 percent to a maximum of 8.3 percent rather than to 10.7 percent if they had not been introduced. We discuss reasons why the official poverty estimates for 2020 are higher than those generated in this study. © 2021, Wright et al.

Understanding Household Water-Use Behavior and Consumption Patterns during COVID-19 Lockdown in Saudi Arabia

With the COVID-19 lockdown impacting the livelihood of people globally, changes in household behaviors, water consumption patterns, etc., have implications on sanitation, hygiene, and disease control. An online questionnaire survey was conducted, and officials were interviewed to assess the impact of the lockdown on water consumption patterns in the Dammam Metropolitan Area, Saudi Arabia. The multiple regression analysis on responses from the survey indicates that water consumption increased by 50% in 86% of the respondents, leading to higher utility bills. Socioeconomic factors also influenced water consumption. The officials interviewed emphasized the need for integrating water policies with disaster management actions. This study contributes to the prospering empirical literature on the pandemic COVID-19 and water consumption/usage behavioral practices by exploring the behavior of household water during COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia. This study can help decision-makers in Saudi Arabia and other developing countries in boosting awareness related to water management in crisis time.