Pandemic news information uncertainty-News dynamics mirror differential response strategies to COVID-19.

National differences in uncertainty, inequality, and trust have been accentuated by COVID-19. There are indications that the pandemic has impacted societies characterized by high uncertainty, inequality, and low trust harder than societies characterized by low uncertainty, equality, and high trust. This study investigates differential response strategies to COVID-19 as reflected in news media of two otherwise similar low uncertainty societies: Denmark and Sweden. The comparison is made using a recent approach to information dynamics in unstructured data. The main findings are that the news dynamics generally mirror public-health policies, capture fundamental socio-cultural variables related to uncertainty and trust, and may provide a measure of societal uncertainty. The findings can provide insights into evolutionary trajectories of decision-making under high uncertainty and, from a methodological level, be used to develop a media-based index of uncertainty and trust.

Intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety among college students during the re-emergence of COVID-19: Mediation effects of cognitive emotion regulation and moderation effects of family function.

OBJECTIVE: In June 2021, the COVID-19 spread again in the community, and residents had to face the impact of the outbreak again after 276 days, none of the local cases in Guangdong Province, China. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanisms underlying the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and anxiety in college students in non-epidemic area during the periods of re-emergence of COVID-19. METHODS: A survey was conducted among 86,767 college students in Guangdong Province, China from 10 to 18 June 2021, information on the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS), General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) and Family APGAR Index were collected. Five moderation and mediation models were analyzed using latent moderated structural equations. RESULTS: The results showed that IU was positively related to anxiety (r = 0.42, p < 0.000). After controlling for age and gender, latent moderated structural equations indicated that catastrophizing mediated the relationship between IU and anxiety, and family function acted as a moderator in this relationship. Further analyses indicated that IU directly affected anxiety and had indirect effects on anxiety by catastrophizing. This relationship was weaker among college students who reported lower family function. CONCLUSION: This study provides practical implications for designing intervention strategies to reduce anxiety in college students when the epidemic re-emerges.

Certainty in Uncertain Times: Dental Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic-A Qualitative Study.

BACKGROUND: The restrictions concerning social contact due to the COVID-19 pandemic implied a rethinking of teaching methods at universities in general, and for practice-oriented teaching such as dental education in particular. This qualitative study aimed to assess aspects of feelings of certainty and uncertainty during this specific education process, incorporating the perspectives of teaching staff and dental students. METHODS: Qualitative methods based on interviews were used for data collection. Dental students from different academic years (second, third, fourth, and fifth) and teaching staff responsible for the content and implementation of courses within the dental curriculum were recruited. The data analysis was performed by qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: A total of 39 dental students and 19 teaching staff participated. When students and staff dealt positively with this specific situation, certainty was achieved. The availability of presentations and clear communication enhanced feelings of certainty. The participants often felt unsure about how to handle such a challenging situation and felt insecure when planning for the semester. The students missed contact with other students and argued that the information policy on their dental studies was not transparent enough. In addition, dental students and teaching staff were nervous about the risk of infection from COVID-19, especially in practical courses with patient contact. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic situation leads to a rethinking of dental education. Feelings of certainty can be strengthened by clear and transparent communication as well as training in online teaching methods. To reduce uncertainty, it is crucial to establish channels for information exchange and feedback.

From standard systematic reviews to living systematic reviews.

Systematic reviews (SRs) have become a central tool for evidence-based health care over the last 30 years. The number of SRs being published has increased steadily. However, concerns have been raised regarding the duplication of work, methodological flaws and the currency of many systematic reviews, also in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Living systematic reviews (LSRs) offer a new approach to updating systematic reviews, particularly in high-priority research fields that face the challenge of dynamically evolving and sometimes uncertain evidence. Continual updates serve to ensure that LSRs remain current and methodologically rigorous. As a new element of the evidence ecosystem, LSRs can inform living guidelines and recommendations, user-adapted formats, decisions at the patient and system level as well as gaps in primary research.

Epidemic responses under uncertainty.

We examine how policymakers react to a pandemic with uncertainty around key epidemiological and economic policy parameters by embedding a macroeconomic SIR model in a robust control framework. Uncertainty about disease virulence and severity leads to stricter and more persistent quarantines, while uncertainty about the economic costs of mitigation leads to less stringent quarantines. On net, an uncertainty-averse planner adopts stronger mitigation measures. Intuitively, the cost of underestimating the pandemic is out-of-control growth and permanent loss of life, while the cost of underestimating the economic consequences of quarantine is more transitory.

Statistical methods used to combine the effective reproduction number, [Formula: see text], and other related measures of COVID-19 in the UK.

In the recent COVID-19 pandemic, a wide range of epidemiological modelling approaches were used to predict the effective reproduction number, R(t), and other COVID-19-related measures such as the daily rate of exponential growth, r(t). These candidate models use different modelling approaches or differing assumptions about spatial or age-mixing, and some capture genuine uncertainty in scientific understanding of disease dynamics. Combining estimates using appropriate statistical methodology from multiple candidate models is important to better understand the variation of these outcome measures to help inform decision-making. In this paper, we combine estimates for specific UK nations/regions using random-effects meta-analyses techniques, utilising the restricted maximum-likelihood (REML) method to estimate the heterogeneity variance parameter, and two approaches to calculate the confidence interval for the combined estimate: the standard Wald-type and the Knapp and Hartung (KNHA) method. As estimates in this setting are derived using model predictions, each with varying degrees of uncertainty, equal-weighting is favoured over the standard inverse-variance weighting to avoid potential up-weighting of models providing estimates with lower levels of uncertainty that are not fully accounting for inherent uncertainties. Both equally-weighted models using REML alone and REML+KNHA approaches were found to provide similar variation for R(t) and r(t), with both approaches providing wider, and therefore more conservative, confidence intervals around the combined estimate compared to the standard inverse-variance weighting approach. Utilising these meta-analysis techniques has allowed for statistically robust combined estimates to be calculated for key COVID-19 outcome measures. This in turn allows timely and informed decision-making based on all available information.

Asymmetric spillover between economic policy uncertainty and exchange rate volatility: A global network connectedness perspective.

This study employs the network connectedness approach to examine the risk spillover between the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and exchange rate volatility (ERV) of 21 countries. Using monthly data from January 1997 to August 2022, we find that the spillover effect of ERV on EPU is greater than that of the inverse. In addition, the spillover effect of EPU on ERV is mainly concentrated in the foreign exchange markets of developing countries. This finding indicates that the foreign exchange markets of developing countries are more susceptible to shocks of global economic risk, and the spreading of risk contagion between EPU and ERV mainly follows the pathway "increase in global ERV → rising global EPU → further intensified volatility in the foreign exchange markets of developing countries." A rolling-window analysis shows that the spillover between global EPU and ERV is time-varying. The cross-market spillovers between EPU and ERV in the post-crisis period continued to rise and further increased sharply after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dealing with uncertainty. A qualitative study on the illness' experience in patients with Long-COVID in Italy.

BACKGROUND AND GOALS: An unknown proportion of people who had COVID-19 infection continue to experience symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness, joint or muscle pain, difficulty sleeping, and brain fog. These symptoms have a significant impact on the quality of life. Long-COVID is a new multisystem disease still under investigation. This research aims to explore the illness experienced by patients suffering from Long-COVID in Italy. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Qualitative methodology with semi-structured interviews. Participants were recruited on the Facebook patient group between October 2021 and January 2022. Participants had been experiencing symptoms for at least three months following confirmed COVID-19 infection. Interviews were conducted by video call, recorded and transcribed with consent. The thematic analysis method has been chosen to infer data from textual material. RESULTS: 17 interviews with women with Long-COVID have been analysed. The main themes include: a total change of life due to the symptomatology, loss of autonomy that affects social, family and professional life; social isolation, a sense of abandonment often increased by stigma, the difficulty of being believed and achieving diagnosis; difficulty in managing symptoms and accessing to care services; living with uncertainty caused by the lack of institutional, social, professional, familial and medical support.  Conclusions: Intervention programs, both institutional and social-health policies should be developed for patients with Long-COVID. The impact of symptoms could be reduced by developing standards and protocols, and by ensuring access to care and to multi-disciplinary rehabilitation. Further development of knowledge on Long-COVID is essential.

Epidemic responses under uncertainty.

We examine how policymakers react to a pandemic with uncertainty around key epidemiological and economic policy parameters by embedding a macroeconomic SIR model in a robust control framework. Uncertainty about disease virulence and severity leads to stricter and more persistent quarantines, while uncertainty about the economic costs of mitigation leads to less stringent quarantines. On net, an uncertainty-averse planner adopts stronger mitigation measures. Intuitively, the cost of underestimating the pandemic is out-of-control growth and permanent loss of life, while the cost of underestimating the economic consequences of quarantine is more transitory.

The WHO estimates of excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Health Organization has a mandate to compile and disseminate statistics on mortality, and we have been tracking the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic since the beginning of 20201. Reported statistics on COVID-19 mortality are problematic for many countries owing to variations in testing access, differential diagnostic capacity and inconsistent certification of COVID-19 as cause of death. Beyond what is directly attributable to it, the pandemic has caused extensive collateral damage that has led to losses of lives and livelihoods. Here we report a comprehensive and consistent measurement of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by estimating excess deaths, by month, for 2020 and 2021. We predict the pandemic period all-cause deaths in locations lacking complete reported data using an overdispersed Poisson count framework that applies Bayesian inference techniques to quantify uncertainty. We estimate 14.83 million excess deaths globally, 2.74 times more deaths than the 5.42 million reported as due to COVID-19 for the period. There are wide variations in the excess death estimates across the six World Health Organization regions. We describe the data and methods used to generate these estimates and highlight the need for better reporting where gaps persist. We discuss various summary measures, and the hazards of ranking countries' epidemic responses.

Living in Liquid Times: The Relationships among Job Insecurity, Life Uncertainty, and Psychosocial Well-Being.

Stress research has widely documented how uncertainty represents a strong stressor that, in general, is negatively associated with well-being. While the literature on job insecurity about this topic is extensive and exhaustive, empirical research on the outcomes of life uncertainty, namely the perception and feeling of precariousness regarding the present and future of one's own life, is yet to be fully explored. In the present paper, we aimed to investigate the relationships among job insecurity, life uncertainty, and psychosocial well-being outcomes, specifically, with a focus on job satisfaction and burnout. The participants were 357 workers (M = 146 and F = 211), with an average age of 41.78 y.o. (SD = 13.49), who completed an online questionnaire containing, in addition to sociodemographics information, measures of the study variables, namely job insecurity, life uncertainty, job satisfaction, and burnout. The results pointed out negative relationships of both job insecurity and life uncertainty with individual well-being, as they were negatively associated with job satisfaction and positively related to burnout. In a path analysis with latent variables, life uncertainty proved to fully mediate the relationship between job insecurity and psychosocial well-being.

Science in motion: A qualitative analysis of journalists' use and perception of preprints.

This qualitative study explores how and why journalists use preprints-unreviewed research papers-in their reporting. Through thematic analysis of interviews conducted with 19 health and science journalists in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it applies a theoretical framework that conceptualizes COVID-19 preprint research as a form of post-normal science, characterized by high scientific uncertainty and societal relevance, urgent need for political decision-making, and value-related policy considerations. Findings suggest that journalists approach the decision to cover preprints as a careful calculation, in which the potential public benefits and the ease of access preprints provided were weighed against risks of spreading misinformation. Journalists described viewing unreviewed studies with extra skepticism and relied on diverse strategies to find, vet, and report on them. Some of these strategies represent standard science journalism, while others, such as labeling unreviewed studies as preprints, mark a departure from the norm. However, journalists also reported barriers to covering preprints, as many felt they lacked the expertise or the time required to fully understand or vet the research. The findings suggest that coverage of preprints is likely to continue post-pandemic, with important implications for scientists, journalists, and the publics who read their work.

Magnitude of COVID-19 deaths relative to other leading causes of death: a global analysis.

OBJECTIVES: To quantify the burden of death that COVID-19 contributes relative to the top three causes of death for all countries. DESIGN: We performed uncertainty analyses and created contour plots for COVID-19 mortality to place the number of COVID-19 deaths in context relative to the top three causes of death in each country, across a plausible range of values for two key parameters: case fatality rate and magnitude of under-reporting. SETTING: All countries that have reported COVID-19 cases to the WHO and are included in the Global Burden of Disease Study by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Monthly number of deaths caused by COVID-19 and monthly number of deaths caused by the top three causes of death for every country. RESULTS: For countries that were particularly hard hit during the outbreak in 2020, most combinations of model parameters resulted in COVID-19 ranking within the top three causes of death. For countries not as hard hit on a per-capita basis, such as China and India, COVID-19 did not rank higher than the third leading cause of death at any combination of the model parameters within the given ranges. Up-to-date ranking of COVID-19 deaths relative to the top three causes of death for all countries globally is provided in an interactive online application. CONCLUSIONS: Estimating the country-level burden of death that COVID-19 contributes relative to the top three causes of death is feasible through contour graphs, even when the actual number of deaths or cases is unknown. This method can help convey importance by placing the magnitude of COVID-related deaths in context relative to more familiar causes of death by communicating when COVID-related deaths rank among the top three causes of death.

It's just that uncertainty that eats away at people: Antarctic expeditioners' lived experiences of COVID-19.

With Antarctic expeditioners popularly portrayed in the media during the pandemic as both heroic stalwarts better equipped than any other people to deal with the rigours of isolation and, paradoxically, the only people untouched by the virus, it was all too easy to ignore the actual experiences of those working in the continent. Drawing on the experiences of expeditioners in the Australian Antarctic Program from 2019-21, this article provides a counter to popular media perspective by exploring how COVID-19 protocols-including quarantine and social distancing-affected expeditioners' individual well-being and their experiences of the social environment. We argue that Antarctic life during COVID-19 has not been as detached from the rest of the world nor as heroic as the popular media has suggested, but nonetheless provides important insights for survival in isolated, confined, and extreme environments (ICE) and non-ICE environments at a time of pandemic.

Soft ordered double quantitative approximations based three-way decisions and their applications.

The classical theory of rough set was established by Pawlak, which mainly focusses on the approximation of sets characterized by a single equivalence relation over the universe. However, most of the current single granulation structure models cannot meet the user demand or the target of solving problems. Multigranulation rough sets approach can better deal with the problems, where data might be spread over various locations. In this article, we present the idea of soft preference and soft dominance relation for the development of soft dominance rough set in an incomplete information system. Subsequently, several important structural properties and results of the proposed model are carefully analyzed. After employing soft dominance based rough set approach to it for any times, we can only get six different sets at most in an incomplete information system. That is to say, every rough set in a universe can be approximated by only six sets, where the lower and upper approximations of each set in the six sets are still lying among these six sets. The relationships among these six sets are established. Based on soft dominance relation, we introduce logical disjunction/conjunction soft dominance optimistic/pessimistic multigranulation decision theoretic rough approximations in an incomplete information. Meanwhile, to measure the uncertainty of soft dominance optimistic/pessimistic multigranulation decision theoretic rough approximation and some of their interesting properties are examined. Thereafter, a novel multi attribute with multi decision making problem approach based on logical disjunction/conjunction soft dominance optimistic/pessimistic multigranulation decision theoretic rough sets approach are developed to solve the selection of medicine to treat the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The basic principle and the detailed steps of the decision making model (algorithms) are presented in detail. To demonstrate the applicability and potentiality of the proposed model, we present a practical example of a medical diagnosis is given to validate the practicality of the technique.

Anxiety among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A growing body of research examines the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on well-being. Only few studies focus on older adults or explore the predictors of COVID-19-related anxiety. Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and some behaviors (e.g., avoidance, procrastination) are linked to anxiety among older adults and could both be relevant to consider in a pandemic context. This study measured the occurrence and anxiety levels among older adults and verified the possible role of IU and behaviors in predicting anxiety symptoms, impairment and distress related to COVID-19 health standards. It also examined the indirect effect of IU on symptoms, impairment and distress through behaviors. Participants aged 60 and over (N = 356) were recruited and administered questionnaires. Anxiety levels and symptom impairment were high and appeared to have increased since the beginning of the pandemic. IU and behavioral manifestations of anxiety were associated with higher anxiety symptoms, impairment and distress related to COVID-19 health standards. The indirect effects of IU on the tendency to worry and COVID-19-related anxiety through behavioral manifestations of anxiety were confirmed. This study provides knowledge on the relationship between COVID-19 and anxiety in older adults and identifies predictors relevant to this population.