Voluntary absence – on the fuzzy transition to remote teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic

Looking back, it might seem as if all higher education in Sweden switched to remote teaching on March 18, following a government decision the day before. Instead, higher education had started to change from within already a couple of weeks earlier, as teachers and students reacted to the pandemic. To document and to try and understand what was going on, I sent out questionnaires to the students in the second half of March 2020, followed by interviews with the teachers, at the Bachelor Programme in Digital Cultures at Lund University. The subject was if students and teachers had stayed home from or changed their teaching, already before March 18. The timeline proved fuzzier, and filled with individual actions and deliberations, than the simple historical assertion that from one day to the next a government decision was made to switch to remote teaching. In March 2020, the students acted first to adapt to the pandemic, followed by the teachers, and then the university management. The understanding of the events differed between teachers and students, and there seemed to be barriers to the communication between the two groups, when major external events affect the university. It appears that microcultures of different approaches to the pandemic formed early, presumably in the tension between the massively media-reported handling of the pandemic in the rest of the world, and the lack of clear guidance from the government and the University, in March 2020. © 2022 Daniel Persson. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/), allowing third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, that the work is not used for commercial purposes, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.

Autonomy, identity, and design in the COVID-19 era

This chapter examines the state of response and likely long-term implications across the continuum of place types for older adults, from independent housing to skilled nursing, with a focus on how physical settings and technological systems can empower autonomy and identity. It does so by adopting a person-environment (P-E) exchange framework as articulated by Chaudhury and Oswald (J Aging Stud 51:100821, 2019) This framework is structured in three sections: components of P-E interaction, P-E processes, and environment-related outcomes. Components of P-E interaction include individual characteristics, social factors, physical/built environments, and technological systems with this chapter focusing on the last two. These components form a milieu within which the dialectic interaction between agency and belonging occurs and ultimately informs assessments regarding autonomy and identity. Emergent themes discussed in this chapter include a heightened emphasis on inclusive housing models, age-friendly integration of technology, environmental flexibility in design and programming, and enhanced support for the needs of caregivers. Examining place change through an integrative P-E framework offers a lens to understanding what implications to agency and belonging might be tied to modifications in the physical and technological environment in response to COVID-19 and how that might inform outcomes related to autonomy and identity among older adults. The environmental responses to COVID-19 will accelerate the ability of independent housing to serve individuals longer in their homes and should promote a radical embrace of small house approaches to skilled care, thereby challenging assisted living as a place type altogether. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Disease discourses, African knowledge systems, and COVID-19 in Senegal

Too often African knowledge systems are excluded from formal discussions surrounding public health, as they are often perceived traditional mechanisms that operate outside the sphere of mainstream science and medicine. Yet with the diffusion of COVID-19 across the globe, new conversations have emerged in relation to Africa's community-based successes in responding to the virus and its impacts. This chapter employs a geographical analysis of Senegal in order to highlight the ways in which Senegalese have approached the diffusion of COVID-19 and successfully controlled its spread. Using maps and qualitative data, this chapter underscores the ways in which global public health experts can draw from the expertise of African nations given the complex ways they have responded to both this pandemic and previous health emergencies. Findings indicate that science and community-based response systems are the key to Senegal's management of coronavirus. This chapter aims to subvert dominant discourses, which suggest that African states somehow stumbled upon their pandemic-related successes. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.

An Alternative Food Pantry Responds to the Pandemic: A Case Study on Service Redesign

This article provides a teaching case study detailing the reaction of an alternative food pantry to the Coronavirus. The alternative food pantry provided produce, dairy, meat, and cereals to around 150 families each week before the virus. Due to social distancing and concerns about spreading infection, the food distribution process needed to be quickly modified. This paper examines the enterprise's procurement, transportation, and distribution operations before and during the virus crisis. This juxtaposition highlights the changes that the unfolding pandemic necessitated and the various ways food pantries can organize their distribution. This presents an excellent opportunity to illustrate service process redesign and service blueprinting to students in addition to highlighting the operational issues that the redesign presented. The case can be used in core undergraduate classes on operations and supply chains, specialized undergraduate courses on service management, and graduate-level classes on supply chain and service management. © 2022 NeilsonJournals Publishing.

WHO's Community-Centered Epidemic and Pandemic Information Platform: Hive.

Each epidemic and pandemic is accompanied by an infodemic. The infodemic during the COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented. Accessing accurate information was difficult and misinformation harmed the pandemic response, the health of individuals and trust in science, governments and societies. WHO is building a community-centered information platform, the Hive, to deliver on the vision of ensuring that all people everywhere have access to the right information, at the right time, in the right format in order to make decisions to protect their health and the health of others. The platform provides access to credible information, a safe space for knowledge-sharing, discussion, and collaborating with others, and a forum to crowdsource solutions to problems. The platform is equipped with many collaboration features, including instant chats, event management, and data analytics tools to generate insights. The Hive platform is an innovative minimum viable product (MVP) that seeks to leverage the complex information ecosystem and the invaluable role communities play to share and access trustworthy health information during epidemics and pandemics.

How do Healthcare Workers 'Do' Guidelines? Exploring How Policy Decisions Impacted UK Healthcare Workers During the First Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

We describe how COVID-19-related policy decisions and guidelines impacted healthcare workers (HCWs) during the UK's first COVID-19 pandemic phase. Guidelines in healthcare aim to streamline processes, improve quality and manage risk. However, we argue that during this time the guidelines we studied often fell short of these goals in practice. We analysed 74 remote interviews with 14 UK HCWs over 6 months (February-August 2020). Reframing guidelines through Mol's lens of 'enactment', we reveal embodied, relational and material impacts that some guidelines had for HCWs. Beyond guideline 'adherence', we show that enacting guidelines is an ongoing, complex process of negotiating and balancing multilevel tensions. Overall, guidelines: (1) were inconsistently communicated; (2) did not sufficiently accommodate contextual considerations; and (3) were at times in tension with HCWs' values. Healthcare policymakers should produce more agile, acceptable guidelines that frontline HCWs can enact in ways which make sense and are effective in their contexts.

Narrative Trends over the COVID-19 Pandemic: Digital Social Listening to Inform WHO Infodemic Management.

The COVID-19 infodemic is an overwhelming amount of information that has challenged pandemic communication and epidemic response. WHO has produced weekly infodemic insights reports to identify questions, concerns, information voids expressed and experienced by people online. Publicly available data was collected and categorized to a public health taxonomy to enable thematic analysis. Analysis showed three key periods of narrative volume peaks. Understanding how conversations change over time can help inform future infodemic preparedness and prevention planning.

An Adaptive Digital Intelligence System to Support Infodemic Management: The WHO EARS Platform.

The WHO Early AI-Supported Response with Social Listening (EARS) platform was developed to help inform infodemic response during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was continual monitoring and evaluation of the platform and feedback from end-users was sought on a continual basis. Iterations were made to the platform in response to user needs, including the introduction of new languages and countries, and additional features to better enable more fine-grained and rapid analysis and reporting. The platform demonstrates how a scalable, adaptable system can be iterated upon to continue to support those working in emergency preparedness and response.

COVID-19 mobility restrictions and stay-at-home behaviour in 2020 were associated with higher retail food prices worldwide.

COVID-19 policy responses have included mobility restrictions, and many people have chosen to stay at home to avoid exposure. These actions have ambiguous impacts on food prices, lowering demand for food away from home and perishables, while increasing supply costs for items where workers are most affected by the pandemic. We use evidence from 160 countries to identify the net direction and magnitude of association between countries' real cost of all food and mobility restriction stringency. We investigate the deviation of each month's price level in 2020 from that month's average price level during the previous three years and find that an increase in mobility restriction stringency from no restrictions to most restrictive is associated with an increase in the real cost of all food of more than one percentage point across all models. We then examine the relationship between retail food price levels by food group and stay-at-home behaviour around markets in 36 countries and find positive associations for non-perishables, dairy and eggs.

Lessons from the pandemic

This article presents observations made by prominent members of WAML during the first year of the COVID pandemic. They are the views of experts in Medicine, Law and Ethics as to the early attempts to combat this overwhelming disaster facing their various nations and the outcomes of these efforts. There will inevitably be future Pandemics and, therefore, a review of these initial efforts, their successes and failures, their agreements and disagreements will aid in planning for and meeting the challenges of future global epidemics." © 2022, William S. Hein & Co., Inc.. All rights reserved.

The Kaiser Permanente Northern California COVID-19 physician redeployment experience: Redeploying physicians to meet the demands of the pandemic

This paper describes a redeployment programme developed by Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KP NCAL) to meet physician staffing needs during five COVID-19 surges in Northern California. By leveraging two existing programmes, creating a flexible system of redeployment levels, and supporting the system with a robust training programme, the physician redeployment programme effectively addressed physician staffing needs, maximised excellent patient care, and supported KP NCAL physicians during the pandemic. The programme delivered care to over 131,000 outpatients with COVID-19 infection and redeployed physicians into more than 800 inpatient shifts. © Henry Stewart Publications, 1749–9216.

'Condoms are hard to get by': access to HIV prevention methods during lockdown of the COVID-19 epidemic in eastern Zimbabwe.

BACKGROUND: In the early phase of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, health services were disrupted worldwide, including HIV prevention services. While some studies have begun to document the effects of COVID-19 on HIV prevention, little has been done to qualitatively examine how lockdown measures were experienced and perceived to affect access to HIV prevention methods in sub-Saharan Africa. OBJECTIVES: To explore how the COVID-19 pandemic was perceived to affect access to HIV prevention methods in eastern Zimbabwe. METHOD: This article draws on qualitative data from the first three data collection points (involving telephone interviews, group discussions, and photography) of a telephone and WhatsApp-enabled digital ethnography. Data were collected from 11 adolescent girls and young women and five men over a 5-month period (March-July 2021). The data were analysed thematically. RESULTS: Participants reported widespread interruption to their condom supply when beerhalls were shut down as part of a nationwide lockdown. Restrictions in movement meant that participants who could afford to buy condoms from larger supermarkets or pharmacies were unable to. Additionally, the police reportedly refused to issue letters granting permission to travel for the purpose of accessing HIV prevention services. The COVID-19 pandemic was also described to obstruct the demand (fear of COVID-19, movement restrictions) and supply (de-prioritised, stock-outs) for HIV prevention services. Nonetheless, under certain formal and informal circumstances, such as accessing other and more prioritised health services, or 'knowing the right people', some participants were able to access HIV prevention methods. CONCLUSION: People at risk of HIV experienced the COVID-19 epidemic in Zimbabwe as disruptive to access to HIV prevention methods. While the disruptions were temporary, they were long enough to catalyse local responses, and to highlight the need for future pandemic response capacities to circumvent a reversal of hard-won gains in HIV prevention.

The Memphis Pandemic Health Informatics System (MEMPHI-SYS)-Creating a Metropolitan COVID-19 Data Registry Linked Directly to Community Testing to Enhance Population Health Surveillance.

The current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has placed unprecedented strain on underfunded public health resources in the Southeastern United States. The Memphis, TN, metropolitan region has lacked infrastructure for health data exchange.This manuscript describes a multidisciplinary initiative to create a community-focused COVID-19 data registry, the Memphis Pandemic Health Informatics System (MEMPHI-SYS). MEMPHI-SYS leverages test result data updated directly from community-based testing sites, as well as a full complement of public health data sets and knowledge-based informatics. It has been guided by relationships with community stakeholders and is managed alongside the largest publicly funded community-based COVID-19 testing response in the Mid-South. MEMPHI-SYS has supported interactive Web-based analytic resources and informs federally funded COVID-19 outreach directed toward neighborhoods most in need of pandemic support.MEMPHI-SYS provides an instructive case study of how to collaboratively establish the technical scaffolding and human relationships necessary for data-driven, health equity-focused pandemic surveillance, and policy interventions.

COVID-19 pandemic response in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion: methods, participation and recommendations of a longitudinal cross-border study.

BACKGROUND: Comparative data collection in transborder areas can contribute to informed decision making processes when dealing with borderless health threats such as pandemics, and thus help minimize the negative health effects for its citizens. To examine the pandemic response over time and the impact of infectious disease control in a cross-border setting, a prospective longitudinal study was conducted in the border area between Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. In the spring of 2021, a random sample of 26,925 adult citizens selected from governmental registries was invited to collect a blood sample at home for SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing and to fill in an online questionnaire on attitudes and behaviour towards infection prevention measures, cross-border mobility, social network and support, COVID-19 self-reported infection(s) and symptoms, vaccination, general self-reported health and socio-demographics. In autumn 2021, participants were invited for a follow-up round. An online tool was developed to coordinate fieldwork procedures, real-time monitoring of participation and consultation of antibody test results. Furthermore, a helpdesk in all three languages for participants' support was set up. RESULTS: In the first round, 6,006 citizens in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion participated. 15.3% of the invited citizens on the Belgian side of the border participated. In the Netherlands and Germany this was respectively 27% and 23.7%. In the follow-up round 4,286 (71.4%) citizens participated for the second time. The participation rate was highest in the age group 50-69 years and lowest in > 80 in all sub regions of the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion. More women participated than men. Overall, more blood samples were returned than completed questionnaires. In total, 3,344 citizens in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion completed all components of participation in both rounds. CONCLUSIONS: The collection of comparative data can help better assess the pandemic response and the impact of infectious disease control in a cross-border area. Recommendations for a longitudinal cross-border study include a centralized online environment, mapping out potential challenges related to national regulations in the preparation phase and organizing regional coordination centres to create more familiarity and trust towards the involved organisations.

Implementation of Multi-level Interventions to Mitigate Risk of SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant at a PUBLIC UNIVERSITY in Southern United States.

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, navigating the implementation of public health measures in a politically charged environment for a large state entity was challenging. However, Louisiana State University (LSU) leadership developed and deployed an effective, multi-layered mitigation plan and successfully opened in-person learning while managing cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) during the fourth surge. We describe the plan to provide a framework for other institutions during this and future responses. The goals were 3-fold: maintain a quality learning environment, mitigate risk to the campus community, and ensure that LSU operations did not contribute to health-care stress. As of September 2022, LSU has achieved high compliance with interventions and relatively low virus activity on campus compared with peer institutions. This university model can serve as a template for similar implementation plans in the context of complex socio-political and economic considerations.

Economic implications of COVID-19 for the HIV epidemic and the response in Zimbabwe

AJOL : Understanding the economic implications of COVID-19 for the HIV epidemic and response is critical for designing policies and strategies to effectively sustain past gains and accelerate progress to end these colliding pandemics. While considerable cross-national empirical evidence exists at the global level, there is a paucity of such deep-dive evidence at national level. This article addresses this gap. While Zimbabwe experienced fewer COVID-19 cases and deaths than most countries, the pandemic has had profound economic effects, reducing gross domestic product by nearly 7% in 2020. This exacerbates the long-term economic crisis that began in 1998. This has left many households vulnerable to the economic fallout from COVID-19, with the number of the extreme poor having increased to 49% of the population in 2020 (up from 38% in 2019). The national HIV response, largely financed externally, has been one of the few bright spots. Overall, macro-economic and social conditions heavily affected the capacity of Zimbabwe to respond to COVID-19. Few options were available for borrowing the needed sums of money. National outlays for COVID-19 mitigation and vaccination amounted to 2% of GDP, with one-third funded by external donors. Service delivery innovations helped sustain access to HIV treatment during national lockdowns. As a result of reduced access to HIV testing, the number of people initiating HIV treatment declined. In the short term, there are likely to be few immediate health care consequences of the slowdown in treatment initiation due to the country's already high level of HIV treatment coverage. However, a longer-lasting slowdown could impede national progress towards ending HIV and AIDS. The findings suggest a need to finance the global commons, specifically recognising that investing in health care is investing in economic recovery

COVID-19 Vaccination Trends and Public Views and Responses in Japan

This chapter describes the COVID-19 pandemic trends, vaccination status and peoples' views in Japan. The increasing disinformation around the COVID-19 vaccine has led to some Japanese people attempting to get vaccinated with the call to ‘make the best efforts', which implicitly encourages vaccination. Despite the increase in the first dose vaccination rate, the number of positive COVID-19 cases reached a record high soon after the Tokyo Olympics began. It is not clear whether preventive COVID-19 measures, such as wearing masks, declaring states of emergency and vaccine promotion, are effective measures for ending the COVID-19 crisis. The number of COVID-19 cases and the corresponding mortality rate are lower in Japan than in Europe and the USA, which may be due in large part to Japanese genetics and their unique lifestyle behaviours. This study provides an overview of trends and measures concerning COVID-19 and vaccination in Japan. © TheEditor(s) (ifapplicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021, 2022.

Pandemic response in the energy sector and impacts for infrastructure resilience management

Covid-19 highlighted shortcomings in the ability of critical infrastructure organisations to manage and operate their systems and assets. While the possibility of a pandemic was not unknown, management protocols fell short of preparing for this 'tail-risk' scenario. This paper assesses organisational response to the global pandemic and what this reveals in terms of (a) attitudes towards risks that do not typically manifest as operational priorities to address and (b) the implications for organisational resilience. Covid-19 impact management strategies developed by critical infrastructure organisations and their potential implications on wider risks and management capabilities are reviewed. The complex and evolving nature of critical infrastructure system management is demonstrated through examples of risk interconnectivity and resource scarcity. For example, the pandemic did not directly impact physical infrastructure, yet cascading issues are revealed that relate to the forced delay of planned asset maintenance and the impacts of supply chain disruptions. This paper demonstrates the need for holistic, multi-hazard management approaches in critical infrastructure organisations to ensure a level of operational resilience that is required for the twenty-first century. This paper also views critical infrastructure organisations as sociotechnical entities and highlights how building a resilience-oriented working culture can support effective risk planning and investment decisions. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Engineering Sustainability is the property of Thomas Telford Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

ICT for Sustainable Development and Women Empowerment: A Post-pandemic Strategy

The Covid-19 pandemic has not only radically affected lives and ways of living but has wreaked havoc on education systems globally. United Nations estimates that over 1.6 billion students worldwide have been affected by school closures that were necessitated by the pandemic. Although learning and teaching continued virtually in various countries, the challenges of this new mode of education were more burdensome in some countries than in others. While studies on the impact of the pandemic on education and gender inequalities have been conducted, few have focused specifically on the impact of the pandemic on girl child education. This chapter discusses the impact of the pandemic on girl child education in Africa. Although the authors present the cases of two of Africa's biggest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, the recommendations for research and policy presented will undoubtedly prove useful to other countries on the continent and improve education generally. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

Ethical Failures of the COVID-19 Pandemic Response

This book draws attention to the non-biological—political, economic, societal and cultural—variables shaping both the emergence and persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global response to it, with a particular focus on political decisionmakers' role in the domestic and international politics surrounding the process of the pandemic. The book identifies the strategic and underlying ethical failures of decision making, using a process-tracing approach to reconstruct considerations, decisions and actions by key leaders—interested in thus weaving a global narrative of the response. The author highlights key speech acts, and interprets the causal implications embedded in a chronological and contextualised appraisal of events, statements and public health measures. The book further discusses the normative ethics of pandemic response, and presents lessons drawn from the present experience. It also offers a normative analysis taking into consideration pre-pandemic guidelines for response, including in the literature of public health ethics and pandemic preparedness plans. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.