ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic is the most disastrous health event of the twenty-first century with significant impacts on the economy, institutions, organizations and people's well-being and lifestyle. Risk perception is a knowledge process that manifests itself in risk behavior and reflects people's experiences, beliefs and social influences. The management of risk perception is essential in contributing to people's protective behaviors in the presence of health risks. In Cuba, one of its significant effects is reflected in the psychology of individuals, despite policies to mitigate its consequences. Minimizing COVID-19 transmission requires the application of effective policies that contribute with adequate perceptions, depending on the risk factors. The goal of this research is to develop a system of actions that can contribute to the transition of a favorable scenario for the management of risk perception regarding COVID-19 in Cuba according to the new normality and through the use of a scenario planning methodology. The findings allow characterizing the current scenario and proposing actions and indicators in order to achieve the most favorable scenario for risk perception management related to COVID-19 from a geographic perspective. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
ABSTRACT
This introduction to the COVID-19 Special Section highlights the importance for targeted reflection on pandemic experiences, mutual understanding of perspectives and best practice sharing by and across stakeholder groups. Higher education, similar to other global sectors, has been profoundly shaken by the realities brought about since March 2020, and different stakeholders have felt the impact and consequences of the pandemic on a daily basis. Reports of challenges go a long way towards enabling understanding;however, unless these are combined with demonstrations of responses in context and analyses of their effectiveness, they remain at the level of awareness and cannot move towards action. Sharing the lessons learned, alerting to specificities and gaining perspectives have never been more timely, as higher education shapes future models for enhanced stakeholder experiences within increased quality parameters. Notwithstanding the disruptive effect on societies, COVID-19 must also be recognised as an accelerator for higher education, impacting digitalisation, accessibility and creating opportunities for new approaches to educational delivery and collaboration. The papers in this Special Section cover a variety of contexts, moving swiftly from Spain to Poland to the United States of America, India and Iran to return to Europe, i.e. Slovenia. Authors tackle specific challenges experienced by stakeholders, be they students, teaching and administrative staff, researchers or policy makers, and discuss lessons learned, highlight perceived benefits and recommend how these may be translated into policy and practice.
ABSTRACT
This introduction to the COVID-19 Special Section highlights the importance for targeted reflection on pandemic experiences, mutual understanding of perspectives and best practice sharing by and across stakeholder groups. Higher education, similar to other global sectors, has been profoundly shaken by the realities brought about since March 2020, and different stakeholders have felt the impact and consequences of the pandemic on a daily basis. Reports of challenges go a long way towards enabling understanding;however, unless these are combined with demonstrations of responses in context and analyses of their effectiveness, they remain at the level of awareness and cannot move towards action. Sharing the lessons learned, alerting to specificities and gaining perspectives have never been more timely, as higher education shapes future models for enhanced stakeholder experiences within increased quality parameters. Notwithstanding the disruptive effect on societies, COVID-19 must also be recognised as an accelerator for higher education, impacting digitalisation, accessibility and creating opportunities for new approaches to educational delivery and collaboration. The papers in this Special Section cover a variety of contexts, moving swiftly from Spain to Poland to the United States of America, India and Iran to return to Europe, i.e. Slovenia. Authors tackle specific challenges experienced by stakeholders, be they students, teaching and administrative staff, researchers or policy makers, and discuss lessons learned, highlight perceived benefits and recommend how these may be translated into policy and practice. © 2022 University of Deusto. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of COVID-19 has proven to be an unprecedented disaster for the whole world. The virus has inflicted billion of lives across the globe in all aspects-physically, psychologically, as well as socially. Compared to the previous strains of ß-CoV genera- MERS and SARS, SARS-CoV-2 has significantly higher transmissibility and worst post-recovery implications. A frequent mutation in the initial SARS-CoV-2 strain has been a major cause of mortalities (approx. 3 million deaths) and uncontrolled virulence (approx. 1 billion positive cases). As far as clinical manifestations are concerned, this particular virus has exhibited deleterious impacts on systems other than the respiratory system (primary target organ), such as the brain, hematological system, liver, kidneys, endocrine system, etc. with no promising curatives to date. Lack of emergency treatments and shortage of life-saving drugs has promoted the repurposing of existing therapeutics along with the emergence of vaccines with the combined efforts of scientists and industrial experts in this short span. This review summarizes every detail on COVID-19 and emphasizes undermining the future approaches to minimize its prevalence to the remaining lives.