Recovering from COVID

Health authorities have highlighted "pandemic fatigue" as a psychological consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and warned that "fatigue" could demotivate compliance with health-related policies and mandates. Yet, fatigue from following the policies of authorities may have consequences far beyond the health domain. Theories from the social sciences have raised that real and perceived costs of policies can also drive sentiments of discontent with the entire political establishment. Integrating theories from the health and social sciences, we ask how pandemic fatigue (i.e., perceived inability to "keep up" with restrictions) developed over the pandemic and whether it fueled political discontent. Utilizing longitudinal and panel surveys collected from September 2020 to July 2021 in eight Western countries (N = 49,116), we analyze: 1)fatigue over time at the country level, 2)associations between pandemic fatigue and discontent, and 3)the effect of pandemic fatigue on political discontent using panel data. Pandemic fatigue significantly increased with time and the severity of interventions but also decreased with COVID-19 deaths. When triggered, fatigue elicited a broad range of discontent, including protest support and conspiratorial thinking. The results demonstrate the significant societal impact of the pandemic beyond the domain of health and raise concerns about the stability of democratic societies, which were already strained by strife prior to the pandemic.

This article highlights the main aspects of Jordan's public health response in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, it briefly describes the main characteristics of the pandemic waves. Although Jordan has successfully implemented various stringent control measures at the early stage of the pandemic which resulted in a slow pace of COVID-19 spread in the country, the dramatic and sudden surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths since September 2020 raises many concerns and questionable debates regarding the effectiveness of Jordan's COVID-19 mitigation strategies, the earlier epidemiological surveillance process, decision-making and decisions' execution at various sectors, as well as the degree of commitment to precautionary measures among the general population. Jordan has passed through three distinct pandemic stages so far, and each stage provides lessons that can be used to improve the national preparedness and response plan in the future. This pandemic has afflicted most life domains; thus, sharing the responsibility and efforts between the government and people in combating it, is expected to be more efficient and effective than a one-sided response. Pandemic fatigue can act as a major risk factor for losing such a battle. The people of Jordan have been already through an unforgettable 2020 year that impacted them physically, emotionally, and even financially. Therefore, reliable actions should be considered by the decision-makers to provide sufficient support for the society. Also, strengthening the government-public partnership is a cornerstone for a successful, solid, and effective public health response, especially in times of an exhaustive pandemic crisis like the COVID-19.

Fifteen months since the pandemic started, the Philippines continues its struggle to control COVID-19 cases and deaths. This cross-sectional study, with 1,467 respondents, examined the predictive role of occurrences of COVID-19 related deaths within social circles to pandemic fatigue and selected well-being outcomes. Findings suggest that personally knowing someone who died from COVID-19 significantly increases pandemic fatigue, subjective well-being, and life satisfaction.

The interaction of a shock train with a normal suction slot is presented. It was found that when the pressure in the suction slot is smaller or equal to the static pressure of the incoming supersonic flow, the pressure gradient across the primary shock is sufficient to push some part of the near wall boundary layer through the suction slot. Due to the suction stabilized primary shock foot, the back pressure of the shock train can be increased until the shock train gradually changes into a single normal shock. During the experiments, the total pressure and therewith the Reynolds number of the flow were varied. The structure and pressure recovery within the shock train is analysed by means of Schlieren images and wall pressure measurements. Because the boundary layer is most important for the formation of a shock train, it has been measured by a Pitot probe. Additionally, computational fluid dynamics is used to investigate the shock boundary-layer interaction. Based on the experimental and numerical results, a simplified flow model is derived which explains the phenomenology of the transition of a shock train into a single shock and derives distinct criteria to maintain a suction enhanced normal shock. This flow model also yields the required suction mass flow in order to obtain a single normal shock in a viscous nozzle flow. Furthermore, it allows computation of the total pressure losses across a normal shock under the influence of boundary-layer suction.

The mechanisms governing the relationship of money, and interest rates to the business cycle are the most studied and most disputed topics in macroeconomics. In this paper, we first document key empirical aspects of this relationship. We then ask how well three benchmark rational expectations macroeconomic models-a real business cycle model, a price model and a effect model-account for these central facts. While the models have diverse successses and failures, none can account for the fact that real and nom- inal interest rates are inverted leading indicators of real economic activity. That is, none of the models captures the post-war U.S. business cycle fact that a high real or nominal interest rate in the current quarter predicts a low level of real economic activity two to four quarters in the future. I. Introduction THE positive correlation of monetary aggregates and real economic activity over the course of many business cycles is a key empirical fact about the U.S. economy. Indeed, the dynamic dimension of this covariation is so strong and stable that a monetary variable has long been included in the Commerce Department's Index of Leading Economic Indica- tors. While this pattern of cyclical comovement is widely agreed upon, its interpretation is not. Some macroeconomists view money as purely passive, with a positive response to varying levels of economic activity producing the positive correlation. Others view changes in the quantity of money as an important, perhaps dominant, source of economic fluctua- tions. Frequently, the real of monetary changes are suggested to arise from frictions in commodity, labor or financial markets. In economic theories that describe the influence of these frictions, the transmission mechanism from monetary changes to real activity is typically viewed as involving interest rates and the price level. The primary goal of this paper is to evaluate three models that explain the link between money, prices, interest rates and the business cycle. We do this in three steps. First, we docu- ment the cyclical behavior of these variables in the United States over the postwar period. Second, we construct three quantitative rational expectations models of macroeconomic activity: (i) a real business cycle model with endogenous money; (ii) a model of commodity market frictions with mon- etary non-neutralities arising from gradual adjustment of goods prices; and (iii) a model of financial market frictions with monetary non-neutralities arising from gradual adjust- ments of portfolios. Finally, we compare the models' predic- tion for the business cycle behavior of money, and interest rates with the data. In exploring the predictions of these models, we take the stock of money to be one of several exogenous variables in the system. All of our models are capable of generating a forecasting role for money relative to real economic activity, similar to that found in the U.S. data. In the real business model, monetary changes can forecast real activity because productivity is related to many underlying sources of shocks and because these real shocks also affect the money stock. In the models with sticky prices and liquidity effects (short-hand names for the models with frictions in the com- modity and financial markets), monetary changes have an additional direct positive effect on aggregate output. The outline of the paper is as follows. Section II describes the data and documents its business cycle characteristics. Section III outlines the three macroeconomic models and develops the particular quantitative versions of the models used in our analysis. Our main empirical results are pre- sented in section IV, and section V summarizes our results and concludes.

I present a behavioral epidemiological model of the evolution of the COVID epidemic in the United States and the United Kingdom over the past 12 months. The model includes the introduction of a new, more contagious variant in the UK in early fall and the US in mid December. The model is behavioral in that activity, and thus transmission, responds endogenously to the daily death rate. I show that with only seasonal variation in the transmission rate and pandemic fatigue modeled as a one-time reduction in the semi-elasticity of the transmission rate to the daily death rate late in the year, the model can reproduce the evolution of daily and cumulative COVID deaths in the both countries from Feb 15, 2020 to the present remarkably well. I find that most of the end-of-year surge in deaths in both the US and the UK was generated by pandemic fatigue and not the new variant of the virus. I then generate forecasts for the evolution of the epidemic over the next two years with continuing seasonality, pandemic fatigue, and spread of the new variant.

A negative relationship between stock market returns and inflationary trends has been widely documented for developed economies in Europe and North America. This study provides similar evidence for India. This relationship is investigated in light of Fama's explanation that centres around linkages between inflation and real activity, and between stock returns and real activity. Specifically, the study tests whether the negative stock return-inflation relationship is explained by a negative relationship between inflation and real economic activity, and a positive relationship between real activity and stock returns. The results from the heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation corrected models provide only partial support for Fama's hypothesis. The relationship between real activity and inflation does not account for the negative relationship between real stock returns and the unexpected component of inflation.

Both cavitation and purely mechanical processes are involved in reduction of stones by lithotripter fields. However, cavitation appears to play a dominant role in most of our experimental studies of this subject. Current research indicates that cavitation also plays a major role in many biological effects in soft tissues. Examples: (1) A single positive shock of 5 MFa kills approximately 50% of population of Drosophila larvae. (2) Shock fields (3 MPa with 10 shocks) cause extravasation in mouse kidneys. (3) Abnormal development in chick embryos occurs after exposure to shock fields above a threshold of approximately 5 MPa (with three shocks). (4) Single shocks at 10 MPa have been shown to interrupt the activity of frog hearts. (5) The threshold for lung damage in mice appears to be -1 MPa. These studies have opened our eyes to a new class of in vivo biological effects of pulsed ultrasound. Recent experiments have yielded a rich inventory of thresholds for effects in mammalian kidney, lung and heart, in the development of chick embryos and fruit fly larvae. In comparison with the pressures used to fragment stones, the thresholds for most of these effects are remarkably low. Successful treatment of kidney stones and gallstones require peak pressures between 20 and 100 MPa and, with those pressure levels, treatments consist of many hundreds or thousands of individual shocks. We are finding thresholds for tissue damage in the range from 3 to 10 MPa with pulse numbers between 3 and 20. The guiding postulate for these studies is that intense pressure waves cause violent collapse and expansion of minute bubbles within the tissues. It has been assumed that one site for this bubble activity is in the blood and that, as a result, small holes are created in the vessel walls which would permit leakage of the blood cells into the surrounding tissues (extravasation). This is a extremely sensitive test because extravasation is almost never observed in normal (sham exposed) tissues. In the mouse, the kidney is more sensitive than the overlying tissues and the interior of the kidney (medulla) is consistently more sensitive than the outer layer (cortex). Some extravasation has been observed in kidneys exposed to 10 shocks at pressures as low as 3 MPa. One can speculate that lung with its rich collection of gas bodies should be particularly susceptible to injury by lithotripter fields. The low frequencies included in the spectrum of the lithotripter are ideally suited to penetrate and to excite cavitation-like activity. Tests with mice show negligible attenuation of the shock wave through the rib cage. Specifically, the experimental tests showed thresholds decreasing monotonically with pulse number leading to 1.5 MPa peak positive pressure with 20 pulses. The experimental protocol did not permit an extension of the studies below that level. Severe damage occurs at levels between 5 and 6 ma. Fetal lung, in contrast, did not show signs of damage at 20 ma. The lower sensitivity of fetal lung is consistent with a cavitation-related mechanism for lung damage by shock waves. Similar thresholds have been found for killing larvae of the fruit fly, Drosophila. Greater mechanistic detail has been obtained through studies of this comparatively simple biological model. Larvae contain small gas bodies stabilized within their respiratory system. Because these bubbles are inhibited in their capacity to expand by the surrounding tissues, it is probable that they do not respond to acoustic fields in the manner described by classical cavitation theory that assumes a spherical bubble in an infinite fluid. However, just because of this inhibited expansion, they may serve as reasonable models for the gas bodies in mammalian tissues. Approximately one half of a population of Drosophila larvae is killed by exposure to 3 to 10 double lithotripter shocks with a positive pressure of 2-3 MPa. In contrast with the predictions of classical cavitation theory, adding a negative pressure to the exposure has little influence on the killing rate or its threshold pressure. The available evidence suggests that interaction of gas bodies in tissues with pressure fields and the resultant biological effects may be qualitatively different than predicted by classical cavitation theory, and that positive rather than negative pressure may be a predictor of these effects. Vertebrate development was studied directly using chick embryos. At 72 hr incubation, embryos in ovo were subjected to three double shockwaves from a Wolf Model 2137.50 Electrohydraulic Lithotripter. Then, after a total of 120 hr of incubation, they were assessed for developmental abnormalities. Early deaths, delayed deaths and malformations were all significantly increased at pressures of 10 MPa with suggestions for possible effects at lower pressure levels. Piezoelectrically or electrohyudraulically-generated shock waves have been shown to interfere with the normal rhythm of frog hearts. The most common and reproducible effect has been the generation of a premature ventricular contraction (PVC). The most sensitive part of the heart cycle is at the time that the muscle cells are repolarized and ready to contract. At that moment, the threshold for PVC generation is of the order of 10 MPa peak positive pressure. The important spin-off of these studies is the guidance which they provide in the search for nonthermal effects of pulsed ultrasound as used in medical diagnosis. The most important result thus far has been the finding that thresholds for lung damage hemorrhage in mice with pulsed ultrasound is of the order of 1-2 MPa. The threshold depends upon temporal peak properties of the wave and is almost independent pulse repetition frequency and temporal average intensitY. Address: Given above.

Stock Returns, Inflation and Macroeconomy: The Long- and Short-Run Dynamics

Significance Last year, employee resistance, reinforced by tight labour markets, frustrated employer hopes for a return to the office. This year, employers are reluctantly accepting that remote working for some or all of the working week is permanent for most white-collar workers. Impacts Labour shortages will remain most acute in in-person services, which are least amenable to remote or hybrid working. Experience of remote and hybrid working will lessen the resistance of executives who have never had to manage it before. Initial concerns of chief executives that remote working will decrease productivity and data security will continue to diminish. Businesses will need to adapt to accommodate remote and hybrid working.

Introduction: Extracorporeal shock wave therapy is a non-invasive and effective option for treating various musculoskeletal disorders. Recent literature indicates that the parameters for extracorporeal shock wave therapy, such as the optimal intensity, treatment frequency, and localization, are yet to be determined. Studies reporting on the effects of shock wave application on primary mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) as well as osteoblastic cell lines in vitro are barely available and not standardized. Methods: In this study, we designed a special setup to precisely expose primary MSCs and the osteoblastic cell line MG63 to shock waves and subsequently analyzed the resulting cellular responses using standardized protocols to investigate their viability, proliferation behavior, cytokine secretion, and osteogenic differentiation potential in vitro. The shock wave transducer was coupled to a specifically designed water bath containing a 5mL tube holder. Primary human MSCs and MG63 cells were trypsinated and centrifuged in a 5mL tube and exposed to single and repeated shock wave application using different intensities and numbers of pulses. Results: Single treatment of MSCs using intensities 5, 10, 15, and 20 and pulse numbers 100, 250, 500, 750, and 1,000 at a constant pulse repetition frequency of 1Hz resulted in a decreased viability and proliferation of both cell types with an increase in the intensity and number of pulses compared to controls. No significant difference in the osteogenic differentiation was observed at different time intervals in both cell types when a single shock wave application was performed. However, repeated shock wave sessions over three consecutive days of primary MSCs using low intensity levels 0.1 and 1 showed significant osteogenic differentiation 4-fold higher than that of the extracted Alizarin Red S at day 14, whereas MG63 cells showed no significant osteogenic differentiation compared to their corresponding controls. More specifically, repeated shock wave application triggered a significant downregulation of COL1A1, upregulation of RUNX2, and sustained increase of OCN in primary MSCs but not in the cell line MG63 when induced toward the osteogenic differentiation. Discussion: The effects of shock wave application on MSCs make it an effective therapy in regenerative medicine. We established a protocol to analyze a standardized shock wave application on MSCs and were able to determine conditions that enhance the osteogenic differentiation of MSCs in vitro.

Enhanced Kidney Stone Fragmentation by Short Delay Tandem Conventional and Modified Lithotriptor Shock Waves: A Numerical Analysis

The phenomenon of shock boundary layer interaction of a shock train under the influence of a normal suction slot is studied. In previous work, it was found that a normal, circumferential suction slot is sufficient to stabilize the primary shock of a shock train in as much as that the back pressure of the shock train can be increased until the shock train gradually changes into a single normal shock. Based on the experimental and numerical results, a flow model was derived which explains the transition of a shock train into a single shock under the influence of boundary layer suction. In this work, the normal shock boundary layer interaction model is validated against flow cases with different upstream Mach and Reynolds numbers. For that purpose three different nozzle flows are investigated at various total pressure levels. In a second step, the flow model is extended to the oblique shock case, correlating the suction mass flow with the total pressure distribution of the incoming boundary layer and the static pressure downstream of the oblique shock. Finally, the influence of the suction cavity pressure onto the shock boundary layer interaction is considered.

The aim of this study is to empirically estimate the sensitivity of inflation and interest rate together with some key macroeconomic variables on real economic activity index. Secondly, to investigate the direction of causality between inflation and interest rate, interest rate and real economic activity index, as well as between inflation and real economic activity index. Thirdly, to investigate how the real economic activity reacts to shocks from inflation and interest rate and other key macroeconomic variables. A deterministic time series regression model, vector autoregressive model, cointegration method and Granger Causality Analysis were implored in the analysis. The results show that there exists a unique long-run relationship between real economic activity and the other variables. Accordingly, inflation is identified as important determinant of real economic activity growth in Ghana. Conversely, real economic activity was found not to significantly determine inflation and interest rate within the period under investigation. The relationship between inflation and interest rate is, however, significant determined positive in either direction. This means that the link between inflation, interest rate and economic activity is not immediately automatic.

Does regulatory bank oversight impact economic activity? A local projections approach