COVID-19 public health strategy implementation for the hospitality industry in Taiwan. (Special Issue: Health, sport and tourism: searching for future synergies.)

This study attempts to explore the public health strategies that hotels in Taiwan have applied during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. This empirical study develops a list of public health strategy practices from a pilot study using in-depth interviews, followed by a questionnaire survey. The research samples are 4-star and 5-star hotels in Taiwan, which are the most popular hotel choices for domestic and international travellers. Out of 127 hotels, 76 hotel owners, general managers, or executive managers participated in the survey. The findings illustrate the frequency of public health strategies that hotels have used during the coronavirus crisis. It shows that the most popular strategy is strengthening hygiene and cleanliness in hotel operations to offer reassuring lodging services and accommodation products. The results also show there is no significance difference in implementation of the various public health practices regarding hotel location, nationality of main customers, hotel performance, annual f & b revenue, or annual room sales. This study suggests hotels implement public health strategies to limit the spread of disease, regain customers' trust and promote the hotel during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper concludes with recommendations for crisis management and crisis preparation for the hospitality industry.

COVID-19 Public Health Strategy Implementation for the Hospitality Industry in Taiwan

This study attempts to explore the public health strategies that hotels in Taiwan have applied during the covid-19 pandemic crisis. This empirical study develops a list of public health strategy practices from a pilot study using in-depth interviews, followed by a questionnaire survey. The research samples are 4-star and 5-star hotels in Taiwan, which are the most popular hotel choices for domestic and international travellers. Out of 127 hotels, 76 hotel owners, general managers, or executive managers participated in the survey. The findings illustrate the frequency of public health strategies that hotels have used during the coronavirus crisis. It shows that the most popular strategy is strengthening hygiene and cleanliness in hotel operations to offer reassuring lodging services and accommodation products. The results also show there is no significance difference in implementation of the various public health practices regarding hotel location, nationality of main customers, hotel performance, annual f&b revenue, or annual room sales. This study suggests hotels implement public health strategies to limit the spread of disease, regain customers’ trust and promote the hotel during and after the covid-19 pandemic. The paper concludes with recommendations for crisis management and crisis preparation for the hospitality industry.

Ultra-fast and recyclable DNA biosensor for point-of-care detection of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19).

Rapid diagnosis and case isolation are pivotal to controlling the current pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In this study, a label-free DNA capacitive biosensor for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 that demonstrates real-time, low-cost, and high-throughput screening of nucleic acid samples is presented. Our novel biosensor composed of the interdigitated platinum/titanium electrodes on the glass substrate can detect the hybridization of analyte DNA with probe DNA. The hybridization signals of specific DNA sequences were verified through exhaustive physicochemical analytical techniques such as Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrometry, contact-angle analysis, and capacitance-frequency measurements. For a single-step hybridized reaction, the fabricated kit exhibited significant sensitivity (capacitance change, ΔC = ~2 nF) in detecting the conserved region of the SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) gene with high sensitivity of 0.843 nF/nM. In addition to capacitive measurements, this selective detection was confirmed by the fluorescence image and intensity from a SARS-CoV-2 gene labeled with a fluorescent dye. We also demonstrated that the kits are recyclable by surface ozone treatment using UV irradiation. Thus, these kits could potentially be applied to various types of label-free DNA, thereby acting as rapid, cost-effective biosensors for several diseases.

SCOR: A secure international informatics infrastructure to investigate COVID-19.

Global pandemics call for large and diverse healthcare data to study various risk factors, treatment options, and disease progression patterns. Despite the enormous efforts of many large data consortium initiatives, scientific community still lacks a secure and privacy-preserving infrastructure to support auditable data sharing and facilitate automated and legally compliant federated analysis on an international scale. Existing health informatics systems do not incorporate the latest progress in modern security and federated machine learning algorithms, which are poised to offer solutions. An international group of passionate researchers came together with a joint mission to solve the problem with our finest models and tools. The SCOR Consortium has developed a ready-to-deploy secure infrastructure using world-class privacy and security technologies to reconcile the privacy/utility conflicts. We hope our effort will make a change and accelerate research in future pandemics with broad and diverse samples on an international scale.