How Governor Directives Changed Health Workforce Flexibility in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

OBJECTIVES: In times of heightened population health needs, the health workforce must respond quickly and efficiently, especially at the state level. We examined state governors' executive orders related to 2 key health workforce flexibility issues, scope of practice (SOP) and licensing, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: We conducted an in-depth document review of state governors' executive orders introduced in 2020 in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We conducted a thematic content analysis of the executive order language using an inductive process and then categorized executive orders by profession (advanced practice registered nurses, physician assistants, and pharmacists) and degree of flexibility granted; for licensing, we indicated yes or no for easing or waiving cross-state regulatory barriers. RESULTS: We identified executive orders in 36 states containing explicit directives addressing SOP or out-of-state licensing, with those in 20 states easing regulatory barriers pertaining to both workforce issues. Seventeen states issued executive orders expanding SOP for advanced practice nurses and physician assistants, most commonly by completely waiving physician practice agreements, while those in 9 states expanded pharmacist SOP. Executive orders in 31 states and the District of Columbia eased or waived out-of-state licensing regulatory barriers, usually for all health care professionals. CONCLUSION: Governor directives issued through executive orders played an important role in expanding health workforce flexibility in the first year of the pandemic, especially in states with restrictive practice regulations prior to COVID-19. Future research should examine what effects these temporary flexibilities may have had on patient and practice outcomes or on permanent efforts to relax practice restrictions for health care professionals.

Mental Health Needs Due to Disasters: Implications for Behavioral Health Workforce Planning During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Public health emergencies impact the well-being of people and communities. Long-term emotional distress is a pervasive and serious consequence of high levels of crisis exposure and low levels of access to mental health care. At highest risk for mental health trauma are historically medically underserved and socially marginalized populations and frontline health care workers (HCWs). Current public health emergency response efforts provide insufficient mental health services for these groups. The ongoing mental health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic has implications for the resource-strained health care workforce. Public health has an important role in delivering psychosocial care and physical support in tandem with communities. Assessment of US and international public health strategies deployed during past public health emergencies can guide development of population-specific mental health care. The objectives of this topical review were (1) to examine scholarly and other literature on the mental health needs of HCWs and selected US and international policies to address them during the first 2 years of the pandemic and (2) to propose strategies for future responses. We reviewed 316 publications in 10 topic areas. Two-hundred fifty publications were excluded, leaving 66 for this topical review. Findings from our review indicate a need for flexible, tailored mental health outreach for HCWs after disasters. US and global research emphasizes the dearth of institutional mental health support for HCWs and of mental health providers who specialize in helping the health care workforce. Future public health disaster responses must address the mental health needs of HCWs to prevent lasting trauma.

Ready to innovate during a crisis? Innovation governance during the first wave of COVID-19 infections in Iceland

Previous studies on innovation governance have focused on the governance of science, technology, and innovation from a long-term perspective. In this article we focus on the short term by exploring the generation and use of new scientific and technical knowledge to address an urgent societal crisis. We empirically analyse the emergency response during the first wave of COVID-19 infections in Iceland using a conceptual framework based on three theoretical components, namely, emergency management, innovation governance, and the innovation process as a problem-solving process. The empirical analysis is built on a systematic analysis of secondary data. Based on the results, we conclude that improvisation processes using existing knowledge and capabilities and triggered by unanticipated problems during a crisis are in some cases sources of successful innovation. In these cases initial problem-solving processes characterized by improvisation can be interpreted as blind variations that are retained and diffused through a series of complementary problem-solving processes that generate and use new scientific and technical knowledge. Furthermore, we extend the concept of innovation governance readiness to include both the readiness to exploit technological opportunities and the readiness to address unanticipated problems during a crisis and propose that our extension is useful for integrating long-term and short-term aspects of innovation governance. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Caregiver Experiences with Teleservices for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and Mental Health Needs During the Onset of COVID-19

Introduction Methods Results Conclusions Quality services for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities and mental health needs (IDD-MH) requires timely access to services that are responsive to their needs and preferences. This study explores virtual service delivery from the perspectives of family caregivers of persons IDD-MH during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.Recorded clinical interviews from 577 family caregivers, collected as part of START (Systemic, Therapeutic, Assessment, Resources, and Treatment) service implementation between March and July 2020, were retrospectively analyzed using a qualitative content analysis approach.Four factors influenced quality: accessibility of teleservices for persons with IDD-MH;confluence of demands on the caregiver setting;telecommunications infrastructure;and adaptability of services. Perceptions fluctuated with the interaction of these factors.While many may benefit from teleservices during future public health emergencies, providers should consider individual, family, community, and service system factors to ensure teleservice access, appropriateness, and accountability for family caregivers of persons with IDD-MH. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Mental Health Research in Intellectual Disabilities is the property of Routledge 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.)

Exploring the authentication of COVID-19 vaccines using Surface-enhanced handheld Raman spectroscopy (SERS) equipped with orbital Raster scattering and machine learning

COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus first emerging in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and has since spread rapidly across the globe escalating into a worldwide pandemic causing millions of fatalities. Emergency response to the pandemic included social distancing and isolation measures as well as the escalation of vaccination programmes. The most popular COVID-19 vaccines are nucleic acid-based. The vast spread and struggles in containment of the virus has allowed a gap in the market to emerge for counterfeit vaccines. This study investigates the use of handheld Raman spectroscopy as a method for nucleic acid-based vaccine authentication and utilises machine learning analytics to assess the efficacy of the method. Conventional Raman spectroscopy requires a large workspace, is cumbersome and energy consuming, and handheld Raman systems show limitations with regards to sensitivity and sample detection. Surface Enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) however, shows potential as an authentication technique for vaccines, allowing identification of characteristic nucleic acid bands in spectra. SERS showed strong identification potential through Correlation in Wavelength Space (CWS) with all vaccine samples obtaining an r value of approximately 1 when plotted against themselves. Variance was observed between some excipients and a selected number of DNA-based vaccines, possibly attributed to the stability of the SERS colloid where the colloid-vaccine complex had been measured over different time intervals. Further development of the technique would include optimisation of the SERS method, stability studies and more comprehensive analysis and interpretation of a greater sample size. © 2023 IEEE.

Efficient and effective large-scale vaccine distribution

The goal of pandemic response is to provide the greatest protection, for the most people, in the least amount of time. Short response times minimize both current and future health impacts for evolving pathogens that pose global threats. To achieve this goal, efficient and effective systems are needed for distributing and administering vaccines, a cornerstone of pandemic response. COVID-19 vaccines were developed in record time in the U.S. and abroad, but U.S. data shows that they were not distributed efficiently and effectively once available. In an effort to "put vaccines on every corner”, pharmacies and other small venues were a primary means for vaccinating individuals, but daily throughput rates at these locations were very low. This contributed to extended times from manufacture to administration. An important contributing factor to slow administration rates for COVID-19 was vaccine transport and storage box size. In this paper, we establish a general system objective and provide a computationally tractable approach for allocating vaccines in a rolling horizon manner optimally. We illustrate the consequences of both box size and the number and capacity of dispensing locations on achieving system objectives. Using U.S. CDC data, we demonstrate that if vaccines are allocated and distributed according to our proposed strategy, more people would have been vaccinated sooner in the U.S. Many additional days of protection would have occurred, meaning there would have been fewer infections, less demand for healthcare resources, lower overall mortality, and fewer opportunities for the evolution of vaccine-evading strains of the disease.

Understanding social media users' engagement intention toward emergency information: the role of experience and information usefulness in a reciprocity framework

PurposeThe aim of this study is to investigate how social media users' experience of seeking emergency information affects their engagement intention toward emergency information with a reciprocity framework integrated with information adoption model.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on reciprocity theory, indebtedness theory, and information adoption model, an integrative research model is developed. This study employs a questionnaire survey to collect data of 325 social media users in China. Structural equation modeling analyses are conducted to test the proposed theoretical model.FindingsSocial media users' experience of seeking emergency information has a strong effect on their perceived information usefulness and indebtedness, while perceived information usefulness further influences community norm, indebtedness, and engagement intention. The authors also found that perceived information usefulness mediates the relationships between experience of seeking emergency information and community norm/indebtedness.Originality/valueThis study offers a new perspective to explain social media users' engagement intention in the diffusion of emergency information. This study contributes to the literature by extending the theoretical framework of reciprocity and applying it to the context of emergency information diffusion. The findings of this study could benefit the practitioners who wish to leverage social media tools for emergency response purposes.

Guidelines for prevention and control of coronavirus disease 2019（tenth edition）

In order to guide all localities to do a good job in the prevention and control of the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) after the implementation of "Class B and B Control", this plan is formulated in accordance with the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases". 1. Guiding principles Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, adhere to the principle of "prevention first, combination of prevention and treatment, scientific law, classification and classification", adhere to the combination of normalized prevention and control and emergency response during epidemics, and compact "Quartet Responsibility" improves the sensitivity of monitoring and early warning, strengthens the protection of key populations, realizes the work goal of "protecting health and preventing severe illness", protects people's life safety and health to the greatest extent, and minimizes the impact of the epidemic on economic and social development.

Searching for evidence in public health emergencies: a white paper of best practices.

Objectives: Information professionals have supported medical providers, administrators and decision-makers, and guideline creators in the COVID-19 response. Searching COVID-19 literature presented new challenges, including the volume and heterogeneity of literature and the proliferation of new information sources, and exposed existing issues in metadata and publishing. An expert panel developed best practices, including recommendations, elaborations, and examples, for searching during public health emergencies. Methods: Project directors and advisors developed core elements from experience and literature. Experts, identified by affiliation with evidence synthesis groups, COVID-19 search experience, and nomination, responded to an online survey to reach consensus on core elements. Expert participants provided written responses to guiding questions. A synthesis of responses provided the foundation for focus group discussions. A writing group then drafted the best practices into a statement. Experts reviewed the statement prior to dissemination. Results: Twelve information professionals contributed to best practice recommendations on six elements: core resources, search strategies, publication types, transparency and reproducibility, collaboration, and conducting research. Underlying principles across recommendations include timeliness, openness, balance, preparedness, and responsiveness. Conclusions: The authors and experts anticipate the recommendations for searching for evidence during public health emergencies will help information specialists, librarians, evidence synthesis groups, researchers, and decision-makers respond to future public health emergencies, including but not limited to disease outbreaks. The recommendations complement existing guidance by addressing concerns specific to emergency response. The statement is intended as a living document. Future revisions should solicit input from a broader community and reflect conclusions of meta-research on COVID-19 and health emergencies.

Preparing for the Next Disaster: Lessons Learned from the Early Experiences of Autistic Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose: Disasters, such as the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, create significant disruptions for individuals and their communities. Understanding these disruptions is a first step towards planning for future events and disaster recovery. This research aims to explore how the initial COVID-19 restrictions, including lockdowns, impacted adults with Autism (ASD). Method: Using semi-structured interviews to understand how individuals with ASD experienced the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, twelve participants were interviewed: six individuals with ASD (ages 20-38), three parents of individuals with ASD, and three support staff for individuals with ASD. Analysis: Grounded theory methods were used to analyze the impacts of COVID-19 based on the knowledge, challenges, activities, resources, and support needs of individuals with ASD. Results: Interviews were coded. The questions generated three themes with eleven subthemes 1) COVID Knowledge: Understanding COVID, Preventative behaviors, Information resources;2) Pre-COVID activities: social, work/day-program/school, environment, physical activities, and 3) During COVID activities: social, work/day-program/school, environment, and physical activities. Conclusion: Individuals with ASD's understanding of COVID-19 is similar to the general public and display adequate, timely knowledge. They adopted new behaviors, including transitioning from structured physical schedules to less structured virtual schedules. Caregivers and support staff expressed concerns about preventative behaviors in the community.

The impact of governmental COVID‐19 measures on manufacturers' stock market valuations: The role of labor intensity and operational slack

This study investigates the impact of the Chinese government's Level I emergency response policy on manufacturers' stock market values. We empirically examine the roles of human resource dependence (labor intensity) and operational slack within the context of supply chain resilience. Through an event study of 1357 Chinese manufacturing companies, we find that the government's emergency response policy triggered statistically significant positive abnormal returns for manufacturers. However, we also find that there exists a negative impact on abnormal returns for manufacturers that are labor‐intensive, giving rise to arguments based in resource dependence theory. In addition, the results indicate the positive role played by operational slack (e.g., financial and inventory slack) in helping manufacturers maintain operations and business continuity, effectively mitigating risks and adding to the manufacturers' resilience. With these findings, we contribute to operations and supply chain management by calling attention to the importance of human resource redundancy while at the same time identifying financial slack and inventory as supply chain resilience strategies that were able to mitigate pandemic‐related risks.

Predictors of Evacuation Rates during Hurricane Laura: Weather Forecasts, Twitter, and COVID-19

Machine learning was applied to predict evacuation rates for all census tracts affected by Hurricane Laura. The evacuation ground truth was derived from cellular telephone–based mobility data. Twitter data, census data, geographical data, COVID-19 case rates, the social vulnerability index from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and relevant weather and physical data were used to do the prediction. Random forests were found to perform well, with a mean absolute percent error of 4.9% on testing data. Feature importance for prediction was analyzed using Shapley additive explanations and it was found that previous evacuation, rainfall forecasts, COVID-19 case rates, and Twitter data rank highly in terms of importance. Social vulnerability indices were also found to show a very consistent relationship with evacuation rates, such that higher vulnerability consistently implies lower evacuation rates. These findings can help with hurricane evacuation preparedness and planning as well as real-time assessment. © 2023 American Meteorological Society.

The impact of COVID-19 on museums in the digital era: Practices and challenges in Hong Kong

PurposeDuring the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, museums, as public gathering places for citizens, have encountered unprecedented difficulties due to limitations to operate as usual for their traditional exhibitions and curations. Thus, museums made corresponding emergency attempts to accelerate digital resource and service platform constructions. Such difficulties aroused many potential problems with the applicability of electronic resources and the mismatch between user expectations and museum services. This study investigates the challenges faced by Hong Kong museums under COVID-19, emergency responses and deliberate practices of Hong Kong museums from the perspective of both museum staff and visitors, and COVID-19's influence on the roles and functions of Hong Kong museums.Design/methodology/approachQualitative interviews with museum staff and visitors were conducted to collect opinions and experiences in the construction and maintenance of museums during the pandemic. Further thematic analyses of museum websites, evaluations, and suggestions were formulated guided by the PEST (Political, Economic, Social, Technological) and AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) models.FindingsFindings revealed many online interactions and offline renovations, but the perceptions of visitors and staff differed considerably. While online resources and virtual museums were expanded and well received, long-term prohibitions and repressions drove physical visit desire. Participants emphasized finding a balance between user expectations and realistic practices.Originality/valueScant studies focus on the impact of COVID-19 on the cultural industry, especially in East Asia. This study also highlights new practices of digitalization and the challenges of functional transformation. The authors' findings and suggestions provide hints to optimize the curation of information resources and improve museum service quality in the new digital era. This study also serves as a reliable and meaningful record of COVID-19 impacts on Hong Kong museums.

Emergency response scheme selection with T-spherical hesitant probabilistic fuzzy TODIM-TPZSG approach

This paper aims to investigate an innovative framework to handle emergency response scheme selection (ERSS) issues by integrating TODIM and TPZSG (two-person zero-sum game) methods under novel T-spherical hesitant probabilistic fuzzy set (T-SHPFS) environments. First, T-SHPFS is defined as an extension of the existing tools, which can depict the complex assessment information including several possible values of the various membership functions' degrees and the associated statistical uncertainty information. Concomitantly, T-SHPFS's normalization method, comparison laws, operation rules, cross-entropy measure and Hausdorff distance are explored. Then, an objective attribute weight determining model is constructed, considering the credibility of T-SHPF evaluations and the divergence degrees between attribute assessments simultaneously. Next, an integrated TODIM-TPZSG decision-making approach is developed to select the most desirable emergency response scheme. Finally, an illustrative example concerning the selection of the best medical waste disposal method during the COVID-19 epidemic is conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed TODIM-TPZSG method. Sensitivity analysis and comparisons between the TODIM-TPZSG and other representative methods are also provided to demonstrate the superiorities of the proposed method. The results reveal that the developed T-SHPFSs give DMs more assessment freedom;the proposed TODIM-TPZSG approach considers the decision makers' psychological behaviors;the ranking results of the proposed method can reflect the specific divergence degrees among the alternatives;and the needed computation burden and computational complexity are low and less affected by the number of alternatives and criteria than most current ERSS methods. © 2023

Evolutionary Game Analysis of SME Social Responsibility Performance under Public Health Emergencies

Performing corporate social responsibility is the only way to adapt to sustainable economic and social development and is also the inevitable choice to enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises. At the beginning of 2020, the rapid spread of the COVID-19 epidemic made SMEs face a survival crisis. Therefore, SMEs need to continue to shoulder their social responsibilities in this special period. In view of this, this paper, with the COVID-19 outbreak as the background, constructed the evolution of the government regulatory agency, SME, and consumer evolutionary game model. This paper studies the strategy choice of three subjects in the process of fulfilling social responsibility before and after public health emergencies and analyzes the influence of dynamic incentive and punishment measures, cash, and inventory on the performance of SMEs' social responsibility using MATLAB. The results show that the government regulatory agencies play a guiding role in the enterprise responsibility process and need to provide appropriate liquidity for SMEs;SMEs should actively participate in social responsibility activities, optimize internal governance, and prepare enough cash for a crisis;consumers need to develop responsible consumer market, expand the responsible consumption scale, and help SMEs share the difficulties.

Leverage points to address climate change risk in destinations

Transformational system change is required to respond to the current climate emergency and the COVID-19 induced structural break presents an opportunity to progress such change. While the tourism industry accepts the need for change, how this may look like remains unclear. This article contributes to identifying pathways by presenting critical reflections on the research process and findings from a three-year research project on reducing climate change risk in Vanuatu. The approach is anchored in systems thinking and draws on the concept of leverage points. Seven points are identified for intervening in the tourism system to reduce climate change risk and achieve varying levels of systemic change. Each is explored in the context of Vanuatu before its broader relevance is discussed. The findings highlight the importance of engaging with deeper influences of risk and unsustainable system outcomes. This has implications for how decision-makers approach crisis management and what ‘tourism recovery' means, especially when considering that system resilience might stand in the way of more profound transformational change required to address long-term risks.Alternate :中文摘要为了应对当前的气候突发事件, 需要进行转变性的制度变革。新型冠状肺炎引发的结构性突破为推动这种变化提供了机会。虽然旅游业接受了有必要进行改变, 但这可能会变成什么样子仍然是未知数。该文通过对一项为期三年的关于减少瓦努阿图气候变化风险研究项目过程和结果的批判性反思, 提出对气候变化进行转变性制度变革的路径。本文方法以系统思维为基础, 并借鉴杠杆点的概念, 提出对旅游系统进行干预的七个要点, 以减少气候变化风险, 实现不同程度的系统性变化。每个要点都是先在瓦努阿图的范围内进行探讨, 然后再讨论其更广泛的启发意义。研究结果强调应对风险和不可持续系统的更深层次影响因素的重要性。该研究结果对决策者如何处理危机管理和理解"旅游业复苏”的意义有启发, 尤其当决策者考虑到系统的弹性可能会阻碍解决长远风险所需要的更深远的转变性变革。

Impact of the Novel CoronaviruS (COVID-19) on Frontline PharmacIsts Roles and ServicEs: INSPIRE Worldwide Survey.

BACKGROUND: Pharmacy has been recognized as a vital healthcare profession during the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary objective of the INSPIRE Worldwide survey was to determine the impact of COVID-19 on pharmacy practice and pharmacists' roles around the world. METHODS: A cross-sectional online questionnaire with pharmacists who provided direct patient care during the pandemic. Participants were recruited through social media, with assistance from national and international pharmacy organizations between March 2021-May 2022. The questionnaire was divided into (1) demographics, (2) pharmacists' roles, (3) communication strategies, and (4) practice challenges. The data were analyzed using SPSS 28, and descriptive statistics were used to report frequencies and percentages. RESULTS: A total of 505 pharmacists practicing in 25 countries participated. The most common role that pharmacists undertook was responding to drug information requests (90%), followed by allaying patients' fears and anxieties about COVID-19 (82.6%), and addressing misinformation about COVID-19 treatments and vaccinations (80.4%). The most common challenges were increased stress levels (84.7%), followed by medication shortages (73.8%), general supply shortages (71.8%), and inadequate staffing (69.2%). CONCLUSIONS: Pharmacists within this study were significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and took on new or adapted roles (e.g., providing COVID-specific information, managing patients' emotions, and educating on public health measures) to meet the needs of their communities. Despite, the significant challenges (e.g., increased stress, supply chain challenges, addressing misinformation, and staffing shortages) faced by pharmacists, they continued to put their patients' needs first and to provide pharmacy services.

Flood 2022 in Pakistan: Managing medical flood relief camps in a developing country.

Floods are the most common natural disasters in the world. Currently Pakistan is in an acute emergency situation due to the recent flood that occurred as a result of the monsoon rains in July-August 2022. Unfortunately, the country was already under an economic crisis and was just recovering from the COVID pandemic when this devastating calamity struck. Almost one-third of the country's land was affected, with millions of houses damaged and property lost. As the victims are displaced and local health units are flooded, their medical needs are being met through medical flood relief camps arranged by public and private sector welfare organizations. Due to a lack of disaster preparedness and policies, most of the healthcare workers are untrained to manage medical flood relief camps and are hence learning from experience rather than following any standardized policy guidelines. We did not find any guidelines for organization and management of a flood relief camp in previous literature. As natural disasters continue to cause mass destruction every few years, there is a need to devise policies and procedures for disaster preparedness and hazard reduction. This paper is thus an effort to provide the best possible delivery of acute health services in a developing country during and after a flood in the transit phase, while the government and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) help communities rebuild their health system.

Potential Strengths and Weaknesses in Hospital Resilience in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil: A Case Study.

The analysis of hospital resilience is essential in understanding how health services prepared for and responded to sudden shocks and unexpected challenges in the COVID-19 health crisis. This study aimed to analyze the resilience of a referral hospital in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The main theoretical approach based on resilience is the system's capacity to maintain essential functions and to absorb, adapt, and transform in the face of unprecedented or unexpected changes. A single case study approach was used to identify the strengths and weaknesses of this response capacity. Data triangulation was employed. Data were collected from April (beginning of case discharges) to October 2020 (decrease in the moving average of cases in 2020). A content analysis was then conducted. Data were analyzed in relation to context, effects, strategies, and impacts in facing the disruptions caused by the pandemic. The results indicated the occurrence of four configurations mostly favorable to hospital resilience during the study period. Among the main strengths were: injection of financial resources; implementation of new hospital protocols; formation of a support network; equipping and continuing education of professionals; and proactive leadership. Weaknesses found in the analysis included: initial insufficiency of personal protective equipment and confirmatory tests; difficulties in restructuring work schedules; increasing illness among professionals; stress generated by constant changes and work overload; sense of discrimination for being a health professional; lack of knowledge about the clinical management of the disease; and the reduction of non-COVID assistance services.

Impact of the emergency response to COVID-19 on air quality and its policy implications: Evidence from 290 cities in China.

The emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic had an extreme exogenous impact on society and the economy. This paper aims to explore the impacts of the national emergency response and the subsequent emergency response termination on air quality and its policy implications through regression discontinuity design (RDD) estimation by employing panel data on daily air quality from January 1, 2019, to July 31, 2020, for 290 cities in China. The empirical results showed that the emergency response resulted in a significant decrease in most of the major pollutant concentrations within a short time frame, and the average air quality index (AQI) decreased by approximately 11.0%. The concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, and CO decreased by approximately 18.8%, 13.1%, 13.5%, 11.1% and 6.7%, respectively, while the O3 concentration did not change significantly. Further causal analysis found that mandatory traffic restrictions and the shutdown of industries were two important factors that contributed greatly to air quality improvement. Moreover, since the process of returning to normal daily activities and promoting the economy were gradual, the results showed that air pollution did not rebound immediately after the government called for the "resumption of production and work" and announced the "termination of the emergency response". Our findings suggest that to achieve a substantial and sustainable improvement in air quality, it is necessary to continuously implement strict emission control routines and take co-control measures for various VOCs precursors of ozone.