Worldwide poliomyelitis outbreaks: should mass gathering organizers be concerned?

The polio is the longest PHEIC and the continued occurrence of outbreaks of cVDPV would put further risks globally. The binary nature of PHEIC declarations would not support the continued polio PHEIC due to the requirement of tiered or graded strategies to combat such diseases.

The Shutdown of Church Services During COVID-19 in South Africa: A Social Work Perspective

From a perspective of social work, this chapter analyses the negative effect of the temporary closure of churches to stop the spread of Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) on classical conservative Pentecostals in South Africa. The chapter argues that physical church meetings provide spiritual resources needed to cope with life's challenges and problems. Therefore, the closure of churches left the Pentecostal extremely vulnerable. Social workers are challenged to learn from Pentecostals the importance of people's reliance on church meetings for spiritual resources needed to overcome life's problems. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

COVID-19 infection risk assessment and management at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games: A scoping review.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games was one of the largest international mass-gathering events held after the beginning of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this scoping review, we extracted papers discussing COVID-19 risk assessment or management at the Tokyo 2020 Games to determine the nature of studies that were conducted. Among the 75 papers obtained from two search engines (PubMed and ScienceDirect) and four papers collected from hand-searches, 30 papers were extracted. Only eight papers performed both COVID-19 prior risk assessment and quantitative evaluation of effectiveness measures, highlighting the importance of rapid, solution-focused risk assessment. Furthermore, this review revealed that the findings regarding the spread of COVID-19 infection to citizens in the host country were inconsistent depending on the assessment methods and that assessments of the spread of infection outside the host country were lacking.

Healthcare policies, precautionary measures and outcomes of mass gathering events in the era of COVID-19 pandemic: Expedited review.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, several countries suspended or restricted mass gathering (MG) events to mitigate the risk of superspreading events. Prohibiting MGs aimed to lessen the likelihood of highly infectious persons coming into close contact with many others. Now that the world has opened its doors wide and removed most of precautionary measures, many questions arise. In this review, we aimed to summarize the current evidence regarding the policies and regulations that were implemented for the safe return of MG events. Besides, we highlighted the impact of the return of MG events during 2021 on the trajectory of COVID-19 spread. Canceling MG events can carry religious, societal, economic, and public negative consequences necessitating the safe return of these events. The experience with the COVID-19 pandemic was the foundation for the recommendations for the safe conduction of MG events during the pandemic by international public health bodies. When policymakers adequately applied precautionary measures and strategic approaches, we witnessed the safe holding of huge MG events without aggravating the COVID-19 situation or increasing the number of new cases beyond the capacity and readiness of the national healthcare system.

COVID-19 Among Omani Pilgrim Returnees From the Ashura Mass Gathering.

Background The annual Ashura pilgrimage is a mass Islamic gathering during which millions of worshippers converge in the city of Karbala in Iraq. We report on the incidence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Omani pilgrims returning from Karbala in the month of Muharram (August) 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology This is a retrospective study using an electronic, self-completed, and Arab-language survey, composed of 17 questions, that was distributed to all pilgrims returning from Karbala. Participation was voluntary, and consent with confidentiality was obtained. Data on the demographics including sex, COVID-19 vaccination record, type of vaccine, duration of stay, compliance with wearing a face mask, using hand sanitization, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) results for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus before the departure from Oman, upon the return to Oman, and on the eighth post-quarantine day were collected. The responses were collected from the period between August 28, 2021, and September 25, 2022. Statistical association and analysis were performed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software (IBM SPSS Statistics, Armonk, NY). Results Out of 250 pilgrims, 139 responded to the survey. Fifty-two participants (37.4%) were males, and 87 (63.6%) were females. None of the pilgrims had positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR results before their departure from Oman. Only four pilgrims (2.9%) were detected positive on PCR by the end of a compulsory quarantine on the eighth day after arrival to Oman. No hospital admissions were recorded. The vast majority of the pilgrims were vaccinated with two doses of COVID-19 vaccination, while some few pilgrims were not vaccinated at all. Most of the pilgrims were also compliant with mask wearing, and just over half the pilgrims were compliant with hand sanitization. No significant statistical association was found between contracting SARS-CoV-2 virus infection and taking SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, the number of vaccination doses, having had COVID-19 before, wearing a mask, or compliance with hand sanitization. Conclusion The incidence of COVID-19 cases among pilgrims returning from Iraq during the COVID-19 pandemic was low. No significant difference was noted between pilgrims vaccinated and compliant with the protective measures and those who were not vaccinated or compliant. Herd immunity could be a possible explanation for the low incidence of COVID-19 infection. Larger studies are needed to investigate the incidence of COVID-19 in Ashura pilgrims.

Dialogic pedagogical gatherings in teaching the history of education: an online training experience

Dialogic Pedagogical Gatherings is a technique that has been previously used in different educational contexts. However, its implementation in virtual environ-ments is not so common. The present paper reflects an experience of this technique applied to the telematic training of Social Education students in a subject linked to the history of education. The results obtained were compared with other similar experiences in face-to-face format, evidencing that the Dialogic Pedagogical Gatherings have had good results in the online format, although there are elements of improvement for future implementations. © GKA Ediciones, authors.

Role of IoT to Avoid Spreading of Covid19

To determine the capabilities of this technology, we refer to different research papers related to this topic. This literature-based research could assist practitioners in devising responses to relevant issues and combating the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines the position of IoT-based technology in COVID-19. It looks at state-of-the-art architectures, networks, implementations, and industrial IoT-based solutions for combating COVID-19 in three stages: early detection, quarantine, and recovery. Since 2020 was a challenging year for all of us, and during this pandemic, we all realized that social gatherings had to be avoided, and the serious issue was to handle it. So to tackle this and ease the handling of the Corona Virus, we developed an automatic door that monitors an individual's temperature and whether the person is wearing a mask. In the absence of a mask, it clicks a picture of the person and stores it in the database for future reference. © 2023 The authors and IOS Press.

COVID-19 mitigation behaviors among English-Speaking Hmong Americans.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 mitigation strategies such as masking, social distancing, avoiding group gatherings, and vaccination uptake are crucial interventions to preventing the spread of COVID-19. At present, COVID-19 data are aggregated and fail to identify subgroup variation in Asian American communities such as Hmong Americans. To understand the acceptance, adoption, and adherence to COVID-19 mitigation behaviors, an investigation of Hmong Americans' contextual and personal characteristics was conducted. METHODS: This study aims to describe COVID-19 mitigation behaviors among Hmong Americans and the contextual and personal characteristics that influence these behaviors. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted from April 8 till June 1, 2021, with Hmong Americans aged 18 and over. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the overall characteristics and COVID-19 related behaviors of Hmong Americans. Chi-square and Fisher's Exact Test were computed to describe COVID-19 mitigation behaviors by gender and generational status (a marker of acculturation). RESULTS: The sample included 507 participants who completed the survey. A majority of the Hmong American participants in our study reported masking (449/505, 88.9%), social distancing (270/496, 55.3%), avoiding group gatherings (345/505, 68.3%), avoiding public spaces (366/506, 72.3%), and obtaining the COVID-19 vaccination (350/506, 69.2%) to stay safe from COVID-19. Women were more likely to socially distance (P = .005), and avoid family (P = .005), and social gatherings (P = .009) compared to men. Social influence patterns related to mitigation behaviors varied by sex. Men were more likely compared to women to be influenced by Hmong community leaders to participate in family and group gatherings (P = .026), masking (P = .029), social distancing (P = .022), and vaccination uptake (P = .037), whereas healthcare providers and government officials were social influencers for social distancing and masking for women. Patterns of social distancing and group gatherings were also influenced by generational status. CONCLUSION: Contextual and personal characteristics influence COVID-19 mitigation behaviors among English speaking Hmong Americans. These findings have implications for identifying and implementing culturally appropriate health messages, future public health interventions, policy development, and ongoing research with this population.

Mass gatherings contributed to early COVID-19 mortality: Evidence from US sports

Social distancing is important to slow the community spread of infectious disease, but it creates enormous economic and social cost. Thus, it is important to quantify the benefits of different measures. We study the ban of mass gatherings, an intervention with comparably low cost. We exploit exogenous variation in the number of National Basketball Association and National Hockey League games, which arises due to the leagues' predetermined schedules, and the sudden suspension of the 2019–2020 seasons. We find that, among clusters of counties that are adjacent to sports venues, each additional mass gathering increased the cumulative number of COVID-19 deaths by 10.3%. © 2023 The Authors. Contemporary Economic Policy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Western Economic Association International.

A scoping review of the risk factors and strategies followed for the prevention of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases during sports mass gatherings: Recommendations for future FIFA World Cups.

Objective: Sports mass gatherings of people pose particular concerns and place an additional burden on the host countries and the countries of origin of the travelers. It is imperative to identify how countries dealt with various communicable diseases in the context of previous world cups and identify possible advice for protection from outbreaks. Methods: A scoping review was employed in this study and a PRISMA extension for scoping reviews was employed to guide the reporting of this study. A systematic search was performed using PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, SCOPUS, SportDiscus, and Google scholar. The search strategy included two main strings viz "communicable disease" AND "sport" AND "setting" as keywords for each string. A total of 34 studies were included in this review. Results: Information on risk factors for infectious diseases during FIFA, and recommendations for disease prevention in various stages of the event: pre-event, during, and post-event were charted. These strategies can be achieved with the empowerment of the public by enhancing their social responsibility and the coordination between the healthcare system, the ministry of public health, and other stakeholders. Conclusion: The findings will support planning for protection strategies to prevent any outbreak while having the FIFA World Cup or any other sports gatherings. A model was constructed to present the findings and recommendations from this review.

Pivoting to a Virtual Conference: Strategies and Lessons Learned

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in pivotal changes in higher education as universities across the country closed campuses to slow the spread of disease. The global shift to online forums resulted in the need to rapidly rethink and reimagine the delivery of traditional in-person events. At Old Dominion University, the authors transitioned their Student Success Conference to a virtual format to prioritize the safety of attendees. In this article, they explore the strategies for adjusting to a virtual conference including benefits and lessons learned.

Guides as Mediators of Memory: On the Holocaust and Antisemitism -- 75 Years Later

This article deals with the relationship between the Holocaust and antisemitism, focusing on the events of 2020-2021. The point of departure is the fifth World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, held under the slogan: "Remembering the Holocaust, fighting antisemitism". The event took place at the invitation of Israel's president, Reuven Rivlin, in advance of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 23, 2020). Content analysis of the speeches given by presidents and prime ministers from around the world reinforce the insights of the Holocaust and the association with current-day antisemitism. In March 2020 the COVID-19 virus appeared, and a wave of antisemitism surfaced with it. Analysis of contents that appeared on websites and social networks reveals vitriolic antisemitism against Jews as generators of the virus, being the virus themselves. This study utilized the method of anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926-2006), who established the interpretive approach to anthropology for analyzing culture contents. This, with regard to content analysis in general and to the contents of social networks and their contribution to antisemitism, in particular. Operation "Guardian of the Walls" in Gaza in 2021 further fanned antisemitism. Content analysis of websites and social networks portrays the Jewish soldier as a Nazi soldier and all Jews as murderers -- with all the Holocaust symbols and Holocaust language. The study seeks to examine whether and to what degree the educational system in general and guides of youth trips to Poland as mediators of memory in particular, are prepared for the educational challenge of eradicating antisemitism in the post-Holocaust era. The research findings show that the challenge still awaits us. Education is an essential instrument in the battle against antisemitism but the educational system, both formal and informal, is not prepared.

AI-Based COVID Alert System on Embedded Platform

Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) has hit the world hard and almost every country has faced its consequences may be the population and number of people affected or economically. Crowd management is incredibly tough for big surroundings and continuous watching manually is troublesome to execute. Vaccinated people are also getting affected by the virus so it is advisable to take Public Health & Social Measures (PHSM) such as wearing a proper mask, sanitization and keeping social distancing in crowded places. The proposed paper presents a machine learning based real-time Covid alert and prevention system to ensure Covid appropriate behavior in public places and social gatherings. There are three modules under this system: (i) Real-time Face mask detection, where persons with masks, improper masks or no mask are detected and classified;(ii) Real-time people counting for ensuring a limit on public meetings and social gatherings and (iii) Real-time social distance monitoring. All these modules are integrated and deployed on embedded hardware, NVidia's Jetson Nano. The implementation results are presented and analysis of the detection is done in real-time on the edge-AI platform. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

COVID-19: how can travel medicine benefit from tourism's focus on people during a pandemic?

In 2020, COVID-19 affected every aspect of life around the globe. The spread of SARS-CoV-2 through travel led to lockdowns, travel bans and border closures, crippling the tourism industry. Without tourists, there would be no tourism industry-and no travel medicine. Therefore, scholars started to research the human aspect of tourism immediately to develop strategies for economic recovery. The resulting insights are useful for travel medicine not only to see how tourism dealt with a medical crisis but also to understand travellers better who may be seeking health advice during and after a pandemic.This article presents tourism research of 2020 covering risk perception and travel intentions including mass-gatherings, the use of technology to protect from infection, impacts on tourism workers, residents' reactions to potentially infected travellers, discrimination, and racism. A potential fork in the road to tourism's future may have implications for travel health practitioners. Research recommendations conclude the paper. Understanding the industry response during the early days of panic and uncertainty may help prepare not only appropriate guidelines for travellers but also clearer instructions for tourism, transportation, and hospitality in anticipation of the next pandemic.

Modified susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered model for assessing the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Seoul.

Susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered (SEIR) models were applied to assess the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and to study the dynamic behavior of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, SEIR models have evolved to address the change of human mobility by some NPIs for predicting the new confirmed cases. However, the models have serious limitations when applied to Seoul. Seoul has two representative quarantine policies, i.e. social distancing and the ban on gatherings. Effects of the two policies need to be reflected in different functional forms in the model because changes in human mobility do not fully reflect the ban on gatherings. Thus we propose a modified SEIR model to assess the effectiveness of social distancing, ban on gatherings and vaccination strategies. The application of the modified SEIR model was illustrated by comparing the model output with real data.

Modeling the Impact of Social Determinants of Health on COVID Behaviors in Older Adults using the All of Us Dataset

Non-pharmaceutical interventions such as hand-washing hygiene, avoiding large gatherings, and avoiding visiting nursing homes remain important in mitigating risks of COVID infection among at-risk populations such as older adults. The NIH's All of Us Research Program offers a unique dataset which contains detailed survey data that medical records often lack. Leveraging this dataset and impact scores, we were able to compare deep neural network (DNN) models to more conventional logistic regression and XGBoost models in the task of examining the relationships between social determinants of health and COVID-related behaviors in older adults. LR and DNN models found that African American participants were more likely than White participants to report adherence to guidelines regarding attending large social gatherings, abiding by stay-at-home recommendations and practicing pandemic-related hygiene. Both models also showed that respondents who were employed were less likely than their unemployed/retired counterparts to avoid large social gatherings or participate in activities outside their homes but were more likely to report practice pandemic-related hygiene. DNN models combined with impact scores to explain their output present an alternate approach to modeling outcomes in large, multi-variate cohorts which can outperform conventional statistical modeling. © 2022 IEEE.

Fruit Golf: An Asymmetrical Shared Space VR/Mobile Experience

While the global COVID-19 pandemic did not catalyze widespread adoption of virtual reality (VR) technologies across all industries as some had anticipated, studies like Hall et al. from 2022 have demonstrated that public valuation of VR remains strongly in gaming, entertainment, and socializing [Hall et al., 2022]. As we look towards a future in which indoor gatherings with friends and family are safe and encouraged once again, there is an opportunity to position VR gaming as a go-to add-on to social gatherings by emphasizing ease of access for players of all levels of experience, and designing gameplay that encourages engagement rather than isolation in shared space. Fruit Golf aims to use an asymmetric multiplayer format to offer an experience that spans collaborative and competitive experiences, and allows players to seamlessly interact with VR, mobile, and physical spaces in ways that most will have never seen before. © 2022 Owner/Author.