Tracking Changes in Mobility Before and After the First SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination Using Global Positioning System Data in England and Wales (Virus Watch): Prospective Observational Community Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that individuals may change adherence to public health policies aimed at reducing the contact, transmission, and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus after they receive their first SARS-CoV-2 vaccination when they are not fully vaccinated. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to estimate changes in median daily travel distance of our cohort from their registered addresses before and after receiving a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. METHODS: Participants were recruited into Virus Watch starting in June 2020. Weekly surveys were sent out to participants, and vaccination status was collected from January 2021 onward. Between September 2020 and February 2021, we invited 13,120 adult Virus Watch participants to contribute toward our tracker subcohort, which uses the GPS via a smartphone app to collect data on movement. We used segmented linear regression to estimate the median daily travel distance before and after the first self-reported SARS-CoV-2 vaccine dose. RESULTS: We analyzed the daily travel distance of 249 vaccinated adults. From 157 days prior to vaccination until the day before vaccination, the median daily travel distance was 9.05 (IQR 8.06-10.09) km. From the day of vaccination to 105 days after vaccination, the median daily travel distance was 10.08 (IQR 8.60-12.42) km. From 157 days prior to vaccination until the vaccination date, there was a daily median decrease in mobility of 40.09 m (95% CI -50.08 to -31.10; P<.001). After vaccination, there was a median daily increase in movement of 60.60 m (95% CI 20.90-100; P<.001). Restricting the analysis to the third national lockdown (January 4, 2021, to April 5, 2021), we found a median daily movement increase of 18.30 m (95% CI -19.20 to 55.80; P=.57) in the 30 days prior to vaccination and a median daily movement increase of 9.36 m (95% CI 38.6-149.00; P=.69) in the 30 days after vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates the feasibility of collecting high-volume geolocation data as part of research projects and the utility of these data for understanding public health issues. Our various analyses produced results that ranged from no change in movement after vaccination (during the third national lock down) to an increase in movement after vaccination (considering all periods, up to 105 days after vaccination), suggesting that, among Virus Watch participants, any changes in movement distances after vaccination are small. Our findings may be attributable to public health measures in place at the time such as movement restrictions and home working that applied to the Virus Watch cohort participants during the study period.

Proposed Iris Movement Tracking System to Improve the Security of Online Examinations in Nigeria

The covid-19 global pandemic brought about a drastic change to how the world approaches education. The world bank noted that at the peak of the pandemic, 45 countries in Europe and Asia closed schools. A separate source also noted that over 250 million primary and secondary school children were out of school due to the lockdown of schools worldwide. Albeit temporarily, the severity of the pandemic transitioned the method of teaching for most schools from physical to virtual. This paper aims to address one of the limitations that arose due to this transition: online examination security. Examination malpractice was noticed to spike for examinations taken online, even with trained proctors watching test-takers via video conference platforms such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Within this research analysis is a planned iris movement tracking system to add another layer of security to online examination systems. This system uses a three-tier style structure. Tier 1 is verification that it is indeed a registered student taking the examination. This will be achieved using facial recognition. Tier 2 involves the storage and protection of facial data of students. The last tier involves the continuous use of webcams to detect the iris movement of students and alert proctors if a student looks away from the screen for a significant amount of time. This paper mainly focuses on tier 3. © 2021 IEEE.

Testing on the move: South Korea's rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The emergence of COVID-19 in South Korea, and the public and private sector response to it, serves as a valuable case study for countries facing similar outbreaks. This article focuses on how Korean health officials implemented drive-through and walk-through diagnostic testing, and extensive movement and contact tracing, to identify and inform exposed members of the public. Mobile applications from both government agencies and private developers played an important role in guiding people to testing centers, communicating movement trajectories of confirmed cases on digital maps, and tracking the health and movements of travelers and others at risk of exposure. This case study illustrates the importance of rapid adaptation of transportation infrastructure and location-based information technology to respond to public health crises, and how governments can learn from experimentation and past experience to accelerate these responses.