The comparison of Immune response to Third booster dose with of Vaxzevria or Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine in healthcare workers after receiving two doses of CoronaVac

Changes in suicide rates in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic: An interrupted time series analysis.

A development of a new measure for renewable energy uncertainty in Vietnam by using natural language processing and textual analysis

This paper examines how the COVID-19 outbreak affected air pollution. People around the world experienced severe changes in daily activities due to COVID-19 being an infectious disease. From the perspective of the COVID-19 outbreak, variables in this study are classified into static (spatial) and dynamic (temporal). Variables that remain constant both before and after a pandemic are called static variables. Variables with daily variations are considered dynamic variables. A three-step methodology is followed. In the first step, a descriptive analysis is performed to compare the air quality between the two periods. In the second step, data envelopment analysis is used to assess each district’s air quality efficiency based on spatial variables. A structural equation model is used in the third phase to determine how temporal factors have impacted air quality before and during the pandemic. Recognized as one of the most polluted cities globally, Tehran, Iran, is used as a case study. The results indicate that city administrations should avoid relying on weather conditions to promote air quality. The analysis suggests that distributing shopping centers and residential units throughout the city is the most effective strategy to improve air quality. Furthermore, planners and policymakers must focus on promoting green space, public and green transport, and at the same time limiting private car travel. COVID-19 demonstrated the possibility of reducing trips, but it damaged sustainable travel behavior because people shifted to private cars.

ABSTRACT The literature on trade uncertainty (TU) primarily relies on low-frequency measures, with limited efforts to construct high-frequency TU or examine its effects. This study estimates daily TU using a mixed-frequency stochastic volatility model and applies cross-quantilogram and time-varying parameter local projection approaches to assess the high-frequency effects of China’s TU on U.S. business conditions (BC). Results show that China’s TU is event-driven and linked to exchange rate movements, predicts U.S. BC mainly at low and medium quantiles, and has time-varying effects on U.S. BC that reach their maximum magnitude during 2016–2020, particularly during the COVID-19 outbreak. These findings underscore the importance of easing trade frictions and maintaining bilateral trade stability for U.S. BC and provide implications for monitoring high-frequency TU and its time-varying spillovers.

Amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic, Nova Scotia faced significant gaps and barriers in access to testing, particularly in underserved communities and areas experiencing outbreaks. In the fall of 2020, the Public Health Mobile Units commenced as part of Nova Scotia's provincial emergency response. Implementation involved the procurement and development of 10 vans, equipment, staffing, and processes to deliver COVID-19 testing services across the province. The Public Health Mobile Unit composes a collaborative practice model functioning as a provincial team with a focus on geographic zones. These roles include Public Health Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses, Emergency Support Aides, Drivers, Secretaries with support from leadership, and health promoters. Embracing an equity-based approach, Public Health Mobile Units offered testing in communities not otherwise easily accessed through existing Nova Scotia Health pathways, areas experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks, and priority groups that may be at risk of severe illness. The Public Health Mobile Unit (PHMU) work expanded to include supporting public health's COVID-19 response with immunization, community rapid testing, negative results, and navigating community to COVID-19 resources. Additionally, the rapid services and flexibility of the Public Health Mobile Units supported Nova Scotia during times of need in hurricanes, wildfires, and floods. The successful evaluation and engagement highlighted the trust and confidence built with the community and partners throughout the pandemic response. Thus, enabling the Public Health Mobile Units to continue delivering preventative health services as the Public Health Mobile Unit has received permanent funding and has continued as a provincial public health program since the fall of 2024.

Background Financial statements’ timeliness is critical to its usefulness as users’ decision-making process is widely influenced by the recency of the report. Following the unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak, auditors’ ability to complete audit on time has been hampered significantly. In response to the delay triggered by the pandemic. Objective The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between investment and outsourcing of internal audit functions and audit report lag across Malaysian public listed companies. Design/Methodology/Approach The sample size for this study focuses on sample companies with financial year-ends in December 2019, and based on the annual report of 315 publicly listed companies on the Bursa Malaysia website. Results According to the findings of this study, greater internal audit investment and outsourcing internal audit functions reduce audit report lag. This can be taken into consideration by firm to ensure audit lag can be minimised through investment and outsourcing of audit functions. Originality/Value These findings can be taken into consideration by firm to ensure audit lag can be minimised through investment and outsourcing of audit functions. Research Limitations/Implications Notably, the Bursa Malaysia listing requirements has made it compulsory for the public listed companies to disclose their internal audit sourcing arrangement (in-house or outsourced) and the cost incurred in the financial statement. Therefore, it is save to conclude that a study on internal audit outsourcing is relevant and may contribute to new developments in the area of study. Practical Implications Taking into consideration the proposition made by Bursa Malaysia in encouraging public listed companies to issue their annual audited financial statements within a shorter time frame as possible, which is in line with the developed countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and Hong Kong, the present study attempts to assess the status of the audit report lag among the public listed companies in Malaysia. It is deemed that the findings of the present study may enhance early corporate reporting and, thus, may provide evidences to authorities in making it mandatory to all public listed companies in Malaysia to reduce the financial reporting time to 90 days.

Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among blood donors in Taiwan during the initial COVID-19 surge, April-July 2021.

Prompt-to-policy: Leveraging large language models to guide deep reinforcement learning in public health emergencies.

This study investigates whether the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) mitigates the impact of exchange rate volatility on China’s exports to BRI partner countries across different technology levels. A GARCH(1,1) model is employed to estimate exchange rate volatility from monthly exchange rates using bilateral export data at the SITC 5-digit level from the UN Comtrade database for the years 2006–2022. Export goods are divided into three categories: high-, medium-, and low-technology manufacturers; resource-based manufacturers; and primary products. The results imply that the BRI weakens the US dollar and mitigates the negative effects of RMB exchange rate volatility on high- and medium-tech exports. Furthermore, the policy increases China's exports in all fields of technology. The findings also reveal that China's exports increased during both the COVID-19 outbreak and the global financial crisis of 2008. The findings demonstrate that the BRI can help mitigate the negative effects of currency rate volatility and increase export stability when the global economy is uncertain.

Impact of two consecutive COVID-19 outbreaks on the physical fitness in college students: a five-year longitudinal study.

Long-term care settings for care-dependent older adults have been disproportionately affected by repeated outbreaks of COVID-19 among residents and care staff. The aim of the present paper was to assess the delivery of daily and the access to professional oral care in long-term care facilities during COVID-19 as experienced by the care staff. Data were collected in December 2020 by an online self-administered questionnaire for care home staff in Flanders and descriptive analysis were performed. The study was approved by the ethics committee of Ghent University Hospital (B.U.N.: B6702020000715). The response rate at care home level was 8% and the study sample consisted of 95 staff members from 66 care homes. Oral healthcare was considered as important or even more important since the COVID-19 pandemic started. Nevertheless, 41.2% of the participants suggested daily oral care was left behind more often compared to other aspects of basic care. Natural teeth of residents and removable dentures were mostly brushed once a day but for care home staff who were not directly involved in the provision of daily oral care, the uncertainty around brushing frequency increased during the pandemic. A considerable part of the respondents (35.7%) were faced with urgent unmet oral care needs of residents. Experiences of care home staff suggest that COVID-19 might have negatively affected the delivery of daily and access to professional oral care. However, the low response rate, the possible response bias due to the overrepresentation of care staff implementing an oral care programme, and the lack of observational data to confirm the survey responses require careful interpretation of the results. Yet, an improved response at the level of oral care is needed during future health crises affecting this setting.

This narrative review documents how Rwanda has transformed in public health extraordinarily post the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, placing it as an exemplary model for health care systems resilience in low-income countries. The review is based on the World Health Organization building blocks to look at the strategic changes that have led to measurable gains in the health of Rwandan people. Good centralized leadership and control have been key to this accomplishment. This made it possible to decentralize service delivery, build excellent health information systems, and invest money in the health workforce. A key part of the transformation is universal health coverage (UHC), especially mutuelle de santé, which increased coverage from 27% in 2004 to more than 85%, hence cutting down out of pocket costs, which improved equity. Integration and use of community health workers (CHWs) have been instrumental in expansion of primary care to the population mostly in rural settings, improving maternal and child life, tuberculosis (TB) treatment through direct observed therapy (DOT), and disease surveillance. These coordinated actions have resulted in substantial reductions in mortality from infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria), maternal and child health indicators, and the gradual integration of services for noncommunicable diseases and mental health. Rwanda's health system was stress tested and proved its effectiveness in the COVID-19 and Marburg outbreaks, proving exceptional planning and rapid response capacities. Despite Rwanda's achievement, obstacles still persist, such as reliance on foreign funds, limited human resources lowering the quality-of-service delivery, and mental health challenges still in existence. Rwanda's experience illustrates that a proactive government, citizen participation, and research-based innovation may produce rapid and significant overall health gains, providing a valuable model for similar situations to other countries.

Credible and costed plans for managing future outbreaks of Covid-19 and other respiratory infections depend on the availability of good quality evidence. Methods: Three rapid reviews (RRs) examined evidence on: Bibliographic database searches for each RR and supplementary grey literature searches of Google for RR1 and RR3. RR1 included 1 study, RR2 none, and RR3, 1 report. RR1: a study of testing undertaken during an outbreak of Covid-19 in one care home. RR3: a report briefly described recommended inputs of one local authority's public health service into managing outbreaks of respiratory infections in settings including care homes. The reviews found little-to-no recent evidence on care home providers' policy and practice on asymptomatic Covid-19 testing, care home sick pay and/or shift backfill, and the incidence of Covid-19 and other respiratory infections, nor on costs of public health teams' outbreak management.

The development of mobile payments has accelerated significantly since the COVID-19 outbreak. Many people have shifted from traditional payment methods such as cash to cashless payments. This study focused on a systematic literature review of existing articles on continuance intention in mobile payments. The review adheres to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to ensure transparency and reproducibility. Employing a comprehensive search strategy with predefined keywords, a preliminary search yielded 993 papers from Google Scholar. After applying the inclusion criteria, 30 papers published between 2021 and 2025 were selected for final analysis. The findings explain that factors such as perceived usefulness, ease of use, satisfaction, hedonic motivation, trust, and perceived security are the most frequently used and have a significant influence on continuance intention using mobile payments. This review contributes to a deeper understanding of the theoretical and empirical dimensions of user continuance intention in mobile payments. It provides directions for future research and practical implications for service providers.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescents and young adults is a serious public health concern. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted mental health worldwide. This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the differential impacts of COVID-19 on psychological health, social support, and academic performance among young adults with and without previous history of NSSI. From an initial sample of 603 college students, 241 (40%) completed this 2.5-year follow-up study. The first assessment was in January-February/2020 (pre-pandemic) and the second in June-July/2022 (post-pandemic). Participants were grouped based on the pres-ence or absence of NSSI at baseline. Variables assessed included sociodemographic data, academic performance, COVID-19-related experiences, clinical characteristics, and perceived social support. A significant reduction in the prevalence of NSSI behaviors was observed over the follow-up period, decreasing from 35% to 8.7%. The NSSI group endorsed worse academic performance post-pandemic. While they maintained stable clinical severity with no observed worsening, during pandemic period they experienced an improvement in perceived social support. In contrast, the Non-NSSI group experienced a decline in perceived social support during the same period. Contrary to previous studies, our findings indicate that young adults with NSSI significantly reduced self-harm behaviors after the COVID-19 pandemic. Although their academic performance was negatively affected, their clinical severity and social support did not worsen compared to those without NSSI. Findings indicate that the COVID-19 outbreak did not increase NSSI behaviors or exacerbate psychopathology in individuals with NSSI.

The COVID-19 outbreak placed unprecedented pressure on health systems, particularly in the Brazilian Amazon. This study describes the pharmaceutical care provided to critically ill patients with COVID-19 in a large referral hospital in Manaus, Brazil. A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted between April 2020 and March 2021 using electronic health records of adult intensive care unit (ICU) patients with confirmed COVID-19. Among 129 patients assessed, polypharmacy was nearly universal and high-alert medications were frequently prescribed. Clinical pharmacists documented 226 interventions, mainly related to prophylaxis and discontinuation of unnecessary medicines. Embedding clinical pharmacists in ICU teams enhanced medication safety during the pandemic.

Performance and Firm Recovery Post Covid-19 Outbreak of Construction Sector: The Impact of Cash Flows Activities, Leverage and Liquidity

This study quantifies risk spillover effects from multi-dimensional energy markets to China's Guangdong carbon market by constructing an EGARCH-CQR-based CoVaR model, which integrates the Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (EGARCH) framework to capture volatility leverage effects and clustering, combined with quantile regression for precise characterization of cross-market tail dependencies. Empirical analysis reveals significant structural heterogeneity in energy-to-carbon risk spillovers: traditional energy markets, such as oil and coke, exhibit ‘high-intensity, high-volatility’ shock patterns that transmit abrupt short-term risks during global crises like the COVID-19 outbreak, whereas new energy markets, including new energy vehicles and wind power, demonstrate ‘low-intensity, persistent’ spillover dynamics reflecting stronger market resilience. Additionally, China's ‘Dual Carbon’ policy reinforcement is identified as a critical policy transmission channel that significantly intensifies risk linkages between high-carbon energy sectors and the carbon market, with model validation confirming the robustness and coverage capability of the proposed GARCH-CQR-CoVaR framework.

This paper analyzes China-Italy trade relations pre- and post-Italy’s withdrawal from the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). By incorporating a long-term historical perspective from 1990 to 2024, the quantitative data reveals that bilateral trade has demonstrated remarkable resilience, remaining stable despite the withdrawal. The analysis indicates that the prosperity of China-Italy trade is built upon deep structural complementarity rather than a single policy framework. Furthermore, external shocks such as the COVID-19 outbreak impacted trade volume significantly more than the BRI exit. Contrary to existing studies, this analysis suggests that Italy’s withdrawal will not fundamentally disrupt bilateral economic relations. Instead, the withdrawal provides an opportunity for Italy to reassess its long-term strategy vis-à-vis China, working toward a more balanced and sustainable relationship driven by market forces rather than political commitments.