An African perspective on the ethics and politics of foreign medical aid in a pandemic

This chapter attempts an interrogation of the political and ethical dimensions of foreign medical aid during a pandemic. One of the moral conundrums that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic presents to governments of developing countries in the Global South with poor health infrastructure is seeking much needed foreign medical aid without compromising sovereignty, safety, and national integrity, especially from the Global North. In the context of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, medical supplies and personnel were offered by China as emergency philanthropy. This chapter provides a novel ethical evaluation of foreign medical aid in a pandemic, using principles of the African ethic of communion. It exposes the values both at play and absent in choosing foreign medics as a complementary strategy, as opposed to full reliance on the competence and initiatives of local medical personnel in tackling the challenges of COVID-19 in Nigeria. The chapter argues that while the values of transparency, consultation, dialogue, and trust building are lacking in the decision-making process that brought the Chinese foreign medics' aid to Nigeria, the act is morally justified by virtue of its potentials to save lives that would otherwise be lost without it. This chapter posits further, however, that China's politicization of its philanthropy undercuts the moral justification of the gesture. It concludes by explicating how the principles of relationality, equity, and harmony embedded within an African moral worldview can provide moral validation for medical philanthropy at a time of pandemic without compromising China's responsibility and Nigeria's national integrity. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.

Q'eqaläj Jiq' Ojöb ‘Darkest Suffocating Cough' (COVID-19) in Guatemala: Kaqchikel Maya Personal Accounts of Overcoming the Pandemic and Its Despair

Six Kaqchikel scholars (teachers, day keepers, weavers, and farmers) share stories of their own and their communities' responses to this crisis. Despite lack of government support, the Kaqchikel have found means of helping one another, sometimes as private or family-based initiatives, sometimes following the traditional communal practice of k'uchuj, sharing labor and resources. Nimab'äl K'u'x, Mayan spirituality, provides the moral and emotional support needed to confront the threat of COVID-19. Strict protocols, including curfews and travel bans, have cut off most access to commerce and a wage-economy. Children cannot attend school, virtually or in person;individual teachers reach out;but education has devolved to the parents, who follow traditional patterns of teaching and acculturating their offspring. Government-imposed restrictions curtail or prohibit many basic cultural practices, the loss of which, though sharply felt, can be somewhat assuaged through constant ritual, now more private than publicly shared. These voices outline the losses and despair confronted by the authors, their families and communities, while affirming the resilience and hope that their spirituality has endowed throughout the millennia. The narratives are richly illustrated by photos taken by the authors and by Chajin Morales Forte, and by a painting composed by Oxlajuj B'atz' illustrating COVID-19 within the Mayan worldview. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Disrupting, adapting and discovering family leisure during COVID-19

COVID-19 and the associated restrictions influenced family life including the practice of family leisure of those living in the same household and those who did not. The purpose of this study was to explore how individuals' family leisure was affected by the COVID-19 restrictions in New Brunswick, Canada, and the ways individuals and their families adapted to those restrictions. Phenomenology guided the study. Interviews that utilized a photo elicitation technique were conducted virtually with 12 women, 3 men, and 1 gender fluid individual. The findings revealed the lockdown in March 2020 contributed to a ‘disruption to valued family leisure'. A period of ‘adaptation, exploration, and discovery' followed characterized by determining what family leisure would include through participation in home-based, outdoor, and virtual family activities. Loosened restrictions and the opportunity to bubble with another household introduced the experience of ‘expanding family leisure' as participants considered how family members would bubble. © 2023 Canadian Association for Leisure Studies / Association canadienne d'études en loisir.

Resilience as a predictor for why some marital relationships flourished and others struggled during the initial months of COVID-19

Using the theory of resilience and relational load, this study examined how married individuals' baseline communal orientation (CO) and relational load (RL) at the beginning of the pandemic predicted their stress, conflict, mental health, and flourishing during quarantine. Using a Qualtrics Panel, married individuals (N = 3,601) completed four online surveys from April to June 2020. Results revealed the initial levels of CO brought to quarantine predicted less stress and conflict, and better mental health and flourishing at baseline, and these outcomes remained relatively stable across the next 3 months. RL at baseline did the exact opposite for these outcomes, making coping more difficult. We also hypothesized CO and RL moderate the impact of stress (T1) on mental health 3 months later by reducing conflict. Rather than serving as buffers, CO and RL at baseline directly affected conflict (T2/T3) and mental health (T4) throughout quarantine.

Promoting communal care for wellbeing in graduate education: Community building, belonging, and navigating the COVID-19 pandemic

Academia is a stressful occupation. Globally, faculty report stressors related to mounting expectations for research and scholarly productivity in the context of simultaneously increasing instructional workloads, administrative duties, and student expectations. As a result of these increased demands and expectations, faculty report experiences of intense stress, worry, depressed mood, emotional exhaustion, diminished self-care, and overall sense of compromised wellbeing. This chapter explores self-care within graduate education and argue for the inclusion of communal care practices to support wellbeing. It positions community building as a communal care practice that extends traditional notions of self-care. It also adopts reflexive ethnography to unpack the subjective experiences of wellbeing, including those incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter utilizes Bronfenbrenner's (1994) ecological theory of human development to deconstruct the sense of belonging and efforts to build community within academia, reflecting on resulting impacts on wellbeing. It identifies microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem factors that facilitated or impeded the efforts to build community in context of the social-cultural locations as faculty. The chapter highlights the importance of modeling self-care through community building in graduate-level practice, scholarship, and policy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Childhood Bereavement Amidst Multiple Pandemics

Childhood bereavements are not new and normal, culturally defined mourning processes have always required social support. Unfortunately, COVID-19 – like other pandemics, wars, natural disasters, and famines – has complicated and disrupted normal mourning in both children and adults. I review some of these complications and disruptions and then go on to describe some of the interventions that may be helpful and supportive to bereaved children and their families. While it is important to avoid viewing mourning processes as evidence of psychopathology, it remains true that a sensitive, psychoanalytically attuned approach to mourning may help identify those people who, because of past or present circumstances, may find their bereavements to be particularly disorganizing. That attunement puts us in a position to help individual children, families, and whole communities find alternative ways to do the work of mourning despite the obstacles imposed by pandemics, wars, and natural disasters.

Sui generis system: GI protection for the herbal product in Indonesia as communal property right

Geographical Indications in Indonesia are also one of the communal property rights regulated in the TRIPs Agreement in addition to communal rights regulated in the Indonesian legal system such as genetic resources, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions. This is by the provisions that can be categorized as geographical indication applicants, namely institutions that represent communities in certain geographical areas that cultivate goods and/or products from natural resources, handicrafts, and industrial products. Provincial or district/city governments can also be applicants for Geographical Indications. Herbal products are one of the commodities that have the potential to be protected through the Geographical Indication system in Indonesia, not only because of the geographical conditions and tropical climate that enrich the natural resources of herbal products but also because traditional knowledge about herbal products has been used for generations since their ancestors. The Indonesian people already have knowledge of ethnomedicine which is used by various ethnic groups that are spread across tribes in various regions in Indonesia. This extraordinary potential is essentially an asset of the nation or state that must be protected and preserved for its existence and development so that it can be of positive benefit to the community. Especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, which cannot be determined with certainty, the diagnosis and treatment of it, and some recent findings on children suffering from acute kidney failure due to prolonged consumption of chemical drug products. © 2023 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

Structural and Managerial Risk Factors for COVID-19 Occurrence in French Nursing Homes.

BACKGROUND: Nursing home (NH) residents accounted for half of the deaths during the 2020 spring wave of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic in France. Our objective was to identify structural and managerial factors associated with COVID-19 outbreaks in NHs. METHODS: We conducted in July 2020 a retrospective study by questionnaire addressed to NH directors in the Brittany region of France. The questions related to structural characteristics of the establishment, human resources, and crisis management decisions. The primary endpoint was the occurrence of at least one confirmed case of COVID-19 among residents between March 1, 2020 and May 31, 2020. The secondary endpoint was total mortality during this period. We used multivariate regressions to identify factors associated with these outcomes. RESULTS: Responses were collected from 231 NHs hosting 20,881 residents, representing a participation rate of 47%. In 24 (10%) NHs, at least one resident presented confirmed COVID-19. NHs often implemented stringent protective measures, with 65% of them choosing to confine residents to their rooms. In multivariate analysis, factors associated with a reduced risk of case occurrence were in-room meal service, early ban of family visits, and daily access to an outdoor space. No association was found between mortality and the factors studied. Our results show an early and strict implementation of lockdown measures, with good epidemiological results in a context of shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and non-vaccination. Nevertheless, it raises ethical questions concerning respect of residents' wellbeing and rights. CONCLUSION: Cessation of communal dining seems to be the main measure likely to be effective in preventive terms. It does not seem that room lockdown and cessation of group activities should be recommended, particularly if mask wearing is possible.

Personality and context-related factors of helping and helping-related affect during early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 pandemic led to introduction of lockdown measures in many countries, while in Serbia the Government also introduced the curfew by which vulnerable groups of citizens were prohibited from leaving their homes at any time. In such a situation many citizens organized to voluntarily offer their help to those in isolation, which offered a unique opportunity to examine prosocial behavior in the natural setting of global crisis. This study examined the differences between non-helpers and helpers, as well as groups of helpers who provided their help to close or unknown others, in personality (prosocial tendencies, selfishness and communal narcissism) and context-related factors (situation specific empathy and fear) of prosocial behaviors. Additionally, the study also analyzed the helping-related affect among helpers, depending on the recipient of help and personality characteristics. Results revealed that groups of helpers with different recipients of help (close persons, unknown persons or both) were not different among each other, but they were different from non-helpers. Non-helpers were more selfish and had self-focused prosocial tendencies, and they showed less empathy towards people in isolation, compared to helper groups. However, the helping-related affect depended on the recipient of help and helper's personality traits. This study confirmed some previous findings and offered novel insights into factors related to helping in crises.

Stress, relational turbulence, and communal coping during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study examined how increased stress during the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to relational turbulence and undermined dyadic coping. Using longitudinal data, this study also explored how enacting communal coping mitigates stress and conditions of relational turbulence over time. A sample of 151 U.S. dyads (302 individuals) completed online surveys about their relationship once per week for four weeks during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were analyzed using multilevel modeling. Consistent with hypotheses, stress was positively associated with the relationship conditions that give rise to relational turbulence and heightened relational turbulence was negatively associated with communal coping. Longitudinal analyses revealed that communal coping enacted in one week was associated with decreased stress and improved relationship quality in subsequent weeks. The findings are discussed in terms of their practical implications and contributions to theory.

Social identity enactment in a pandemic: Scottish Muslims' experiences of restricted access to communal spaces.

The comprehensive analysis of social identity cannot simply focus on individuals' cognitive self-definition. Rather it should also theorize the social conditions that affect individuals' opportunities to act in terms of those self-definitions. We argue that the social distancing interventions associated with Covid-19 provide an opportunity to explore the significance of otherwise taken-for-granted social factors which routinely support and sustain individuals' identity enactments. Using qualitative data gathered with 20 members of the Scottish Muslim community (19 diary entries and 20 post-diary interviews), we explore their experiences of restricted access to community-relevant social spaces (e.g., mosques and prayer rooms). Our analysis shows that while these regulations could result in new opportunities for Muslims' religious identity enactments, they also impeded their abilities to act in terms of their religious identification. Addressing such impediments, we develop our understanding of the contextual factors that shape individuals' abilities to enact identity-defining norms and values.

The Associations of Communal Space with Sense of Place and Mental Health in Public Housing: Evidence from Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

Communal space is regarded as essential for human well-being in high-rise developments in Asia and increasing attention has been given to the underlying mechanism of its effects in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. From the perspective of person-place processes, this paper explores 'sense of place' and its possible mediating effects on the relationship between communal space and the mental health of residents in high-rise public housing. An analysis of data from a questionnaire survey conducted in Hong Kong and Guangzhou revealed differentiated mechanisms according to local context and age group. Sense of place and its subcomponents mediated the connection between communal space and mental health in Hong Kong but not in Guangzhou. More specifically, place identity, place attachment and place dependence had stronger effects among older residents in HK than younger ones. The findings from this study can inform evidence-based planning and decision-making for public housing policy for health-oriented environments in high-density cities.

"How do you shelter in place on the road?": Building Information Resilience through Communal Support for Van Dwellers in the Onset of Covid-19.

During the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, new health information was being disseminated at unprecedented rates which included ever-changing mandates and regulations, resulting in information overload for many. Shelter in place orders are the pandemic-related information that will be discussed. As these dynamic orders were announced and enforced, mobile populations-people who live in their vans or "van dwellers"-abandoned life on the road and rushed to loved ones to abide by social distancing directives. Others had nowhere to turn. This pilot study of van dweller's information practices focuses on the early weeks of the pandemic and how this population adapted to an overwhelming information environment. Using the information resilience conceptual framework, I describe how van dwellers adapted when a myriad of information and misinformation was circulating. The van dweller community, and their supporters, banded together to provide resources and safe spaces in a time of crisis.

Childhood Bereavement Amidst Multiple Pandemics

Childhood bereavements are not new and normal, culturally defined mourning processes have always required social support. Unfortunately, COVID-19 - like other pandemics, wars, natural disasters, and famines - has complicated and disrupted normal mourning in both children and adults. I review some of these complications and disruptions and then go on to describe some of the interventions that may be helpful and supportive to bereaved children and their families. While it is important to avoid viewing mourning processes as evidence of psychopathology, it remains true that a sensitive, psychoanalytically attuned approach to mourning may help identify those people who, because of past or present circumstances, may find their bereavements to be particularly disorganizing. That attunement puts us in a position to help individual children, families, and whole communities find alternative ways to do the work of mourning despite the obstacles imposed by pandemics, wars, and natural disasters.

Social disconnectedness moderates nostalgia preference

We examine the role of social disconnectedness in the preference for historical nostalgia. This relates to the recent surge in nostalgic consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic when people are socially disconnected. In three studies, social disconnectedness is manipulated and measured. Consistently, we find that social disconnectedness contributes to consumers’ preferences for nostalgia. The social-disconnectedness effect is moderated by two factors. First, consumers with higher propensity to savor the past are more likely to exhibit the social-disconnectedness effect. Second, the effect depends on the extent to which consumers culturally identify with the nostalgia. The nostalgic appeal is more effective when consumers connect with the culture represented by the nostalgia. Further, state nostalgia mediates the effect of nostalgic appeal on preference for hospitality consumption among consumers high in trait savor the past. These findings identify a social perspective in understanding nostalgia preference and suggest ways to practitioners when nostalgic appeal works best.

Daily Stress, Closeness, and Coping in Romantic Relationships During COVID-19-Related Lockdown: An Experience-Sampling Study

Stress challenges romantic relationships and can negatively impact relationship functioning. We investigated the association between daily stress and feelings of closeness toward the partner within individuals during a particularly stressful time (i.e., first societal lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany) and examined whether a preference for coping together with one's partner attenuates the negative effect of stress on closeness. We conducted a two-wave experience-sampling study for 7 days at the beginning of the lockdown (April 2020, Wave 1) and for 7 days 3 weeks later (May 2020, Wave 2). Participants rated the extent to which they cope with stress together with their partner once at the beginning of the study. During both waves, participants received a questionnaire on stress, partner contact, and closeness three times a day (N of participants = 272, N of observations = 6,377). Multilevel analyses confirmed the negative within-person association between stress and closeness: In situations when participants experienced greater stress than usual, they felt less close to their partner. In addition, we found a significant three-way interaction: When participants had partner contact, the negative effect of stress was buffered by their preference to cope dyadically rather than individually. Taken together, the present study found that stress was negatively associated with closeness, notably both within and between individuals. Furthermore, this association was exacerbated among participants who typically do not prefer to cope with stress with their partner, suggesting that these individuals in particular may benefit from interventions targeting coping skills at the couple level.

Factors affecting Chinese people's intention to adopt the individual dining style

Purpose In light of the threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese authorities have called for the adoption of the individual dining style (IDS) as a preventive measure for the pandemic and a new norm for civilized code of conduct. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the factors influencing the Chinese people's intention to adopt the IDS. Design/methodology/approach The authors applied the capability, opportunity and motivation model of behavior (COM-B) and identified potential predictors influencing the intention to adopt the IDS through a review of the literature. Data were collected through an online survey, and structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses. Findings The results indicated that the most influential predictors were subjective norm, social norm, perceived benefit and past behavior, while the other predictors (including breaking habits, communal dining culture, perceived behavioral control, perceived health risk and social risk) had insignificant effects on the intention to adopt IDS. Practical implications First, educational public health messages should communicate the benefits of IDS. Second, persuasive public communication should focus on how people are implementing the target behavior rather than drawing attention to a minority who are disregarding it. Moreover, given the highly significant effects of subjective norm, public health campaigns should emphasize that adoption of the desired behavior expresses care for significant others. Originality/value The findings advance understanding of an underexplored topic, namely, how deeply ingrained ways of dining may be transformed in the current context. Applying the COM-B, the authors tested multiple variables to explain the intention to adopt IDS. The results suggest that some social influences (subjective norm and social norm) and reflective cognitive processes (perceived benefit) had the greatest impacts on behavior intentions. Moreover, the results indicate that threat of COVID-19 may not prompt people to change their dining styles. However, the benefits of IDS to prevent the spread of infectious diseases could lead to its wider adoption.

Spirits Offering Protection The Cult of General Doan Thuong in Vietnam in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic

This article discusses the changes that have occurred in the ceremonies of the spirit cult in the rural communes of Vietnam during the Covid-19 pandemic. A case study of General Doan Thuong's (1181-1228) cult is presented. I propose a comparison of ceremonies, namely 1) a commemoration in a temple that took place on 1 May 2018 based on my field materials, and 2) a closed ceremony in the same temple on 8 April 2020 and on 27 April 2021 (being broadcast on Facebook). On the one hand, quarantine measures reduce the degree of integration of the rural commune and eliminates such an important religious practice as pilgrimage. On the other hand, restrictive measures brought the ceremony closer to its traditional appearance: ordinary commune members, tourists were excluded from participation in the rituals, while the Doan clan's members fulfilled the role of the clan representatives in communicating with spirits, which is prescribed by tradition.

A Community Ten Miles Away

A connection and a yearning towards a communal and primarily agrarian existence connects the Rastafari the world over. Many Rastafari yearn for a life in direct communication with the earth through agricultural labor in a space created for and by the community, a space “up in the hills” away from the pollutants of a contaminated, corrupting Babylonian society. This was no less the case amongst those in Saint Lucia with whom I conducted recent fieldwork. Different from previous conversations on this topic however, was a new context defined by a global pandemic and a subsequent widely mandated social withdrawal. This engendered a dual response of envisioning rural flight as now more urgent and, in some cases, as a necessary response to COVID-19.