Effect Of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown Research Articles

Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Emergency Medical Service Utilisation, and Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Volume—An Australian Perspective

Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) admissions and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) volume declined during periods of COVID-19 lockdown internationally in 2020. The effect of lockdown on emergency medical service (EMS) utilisation, and PCI volume during the initial phase of the pandemic in Australia has not been well described. We analysed data from the Victorian Cardiac Outcomes Registry (VCOR), a state-wide PCI registry, linked with the Ambulance Victoria EMS registry. PCI volume, 30-day major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCE; composite of mortality, myocardial infarction, stent thrombosis, unplanned revascularisation, and stroke), and EMS utilisation were compared over four time periods: lockdown (26 Mar 2020-12 May 2020); pre-lockdown (26 Feb 2020-25 Mar 2020); post-lockdown (13 May 2020-10 Jul 2020); and the year prior (26 Mar 2019-12 May 2019). Interrupted time series analysis was performed to assess PCI trends within and between consecutive periods. The EMS utilisation for ACS during lockdown was higher compared with other periods: lockdown 39.4% vs pre-lockdown 29.7%; vs post-lockdown 33.6%; vs year prior 27.1%; all p<0.01. Median daily PCI cases were similar: 31 (IQR 10, 38) during lockdown; 39 (15, 49) pre-lockdown; 39.5 (11, 44) post-lockdown; and, 42 (10, 49) the year prior; all p>0.05. Median door-to-procedure time for ACS indication during lockdown was shorter at 3 hours (1.2, 20.6) vs pre-lockdown 3.9 (1.7, 21); vs post-lockdown 3.5 (1.5, 21.26); and, the year prior 3.5 (1.5, 23.7); all p<0.05. Lockdown period was associated with lower odds for 30-day MACCE compared to pre-lockdown (odds ratio [OR] 0.55 [0.33-0.93]; p=0.026); post-lockdown (OR 0.66; [0.40-1.06]; p=0.087); and the year prior (OR 0.55 [0.33-0.93]; p=0.026). Contrary to international trends, EMS utilisation for ACS increased during lockdown but PCI volumes remained similar throughout the initial stages of the pandemic in Victoria, with no observed adverse effect on 30-day MACCE during lockdown. These data suggest that the public health response in Victoria was not associated with poorer quality cardiovascular care in patients receiving PCI.

Quantifying the effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown among the summer crop growers of Uttar Pradesh

Telephonic survey was done with randomly sampled 570 farmers spread across 57 districts representing eastern (16 districts), western (17 districts), central (16 districts) and Bundelkhand (7 districts) zones of Uttar Pradesh during the period of 20 April–25 June, 2020 to ascertain the effect of COVID-19 lockdown on the investment and profitability of the summer crops grown by them. Farmers’ responses were compared with their observations on the same variable during the same period of previous year, i.e. 2019. Suitable descriptive and inferential statistical treatments were given to collected data. Results established that there was maximum increase in all cost components for summer maize (8.74–16.21%) followed by okra (7.40–16.24%) and bottle gourd (7–16%). Summer greengram also had similar trends of cost increase (8–17%). Summer groundnut (3.55–5.54%) witnessed a relatively lesser increase for all costsexcept the plant protection cost (20.19%). Thus, compared to last year (2019), the cost components significantly increased for all the cultivated crops in summer. However, the government facilitation coupled with favourable climatic conditions helped the summer crop growers to harvest better yield advantage (4–10%) and accordingly the enhanced market price (5.02–8.52% more) increased profitability index (1.02–14.44%). The parameters like per unit production and plant protection cost emerged as the most prominent determinants of the net return of most of the summer crops during COVID-19 lockdown.

Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Emergency Medical Service Utilisation, and Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) Volume—An Australian Perspective

Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Emergency Medical Service Utilisation, and Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) Volume—An Australian Perspective

Assessment of the Effect of Covid-19 Pandemic Lockdown Dietary Diversity among Urban Households in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria

Dietary diversity became a global concern in improving health conditions through the habit of food group consumption by adding health dimension to the issue of food calorie consumption. Access to nutritionally adequate and good quality diet is essential to human health, productivity and work output. However, despite the various concerns by governments all over the world on ensuring that every household can at least provide three square meals per day, food insecurity continues to be a major development problem across the globe. This study assessed the effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on households’ dietary diversity in Jos Metropolis, Plateau State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 265 households. Data was collected using well-structured questionnaire. The analytical techniques were; Descriptive statistics, Dietary Diversity index and Z-Statistics Test. Gender, age, household size, education, marital status, cooperative membership and access to credit were the socioeconomic characteristics described. Result indicate that 86% of the households had low food dietary diversity while 14% of the households had high food dietary diversity before and after the pandemic lockdown. Similarly, 18% of the households had low calorie consumption while 82% of the households had high dietary diversity before and after the pandemic lockdown. Cereals, legumes/grains, oils/fat, roots and tubers, sugar and honey and meats were the most common food consumed by the households daily before and after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Result further indicate that the pandemic lockdown had effect on the dietary diversity and food consumption patterns of the urban households. It can be concluded that the understanding of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on dietary diversity and food consumption patterns of households is important in developing policy measures such as social safety nets, home feeding programmes, the school feeding programme, conditional cash transfers schemes and improved marketing channels that will help mitigate against households falling into food insecurity during similar pandemic in the future.

Evaluation of the Effect of Covid-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Food Security Among Urban Households in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria

Food security is one of the targets of Sustainable Development Goals where it focuses explicitly on food by seeking to end hunger, achieve food security, improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. However, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown distorted the food system and affected households’ capacity to meet its nutritional needs. This study evaluated the effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on households in Jos Metropolis, Plateau State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 265 households. Data was collected using well-structured questionnaire. The analytical techniques were; Descriptive statistics, FDT Food security index and Z-Statistics Test. The findings indicated that 53% of the household heads were female while 47% were male. The mean age of the respondents was 34 years; the mean Household size was 4 persons. Most of the household heads (68%) were not members of cooperative societies. The result indicated that cereals, legumes/grains, oils/fat, roots and tubers, sugar and honey and meats were the most common food consumed by the households daily before and after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Result of food security status indicated that households consumed an average daily calorie intake of 5860.52 which is higher than the estimate of 1707.88 calorie consumed by the food insecure households. Covid-19 pandemic had effect (p<0.001) on the food security status of households. Food secure households showed higher sensitivity to Covid-19 pandemic compared to 0.807 in food insecure households. The minimum and maximum daily calorie intake of 679.67kcal and 2246.79kcal for food insecure in this study is above the minimum and maximum recommended threshold of 587.58 and 2200 kilocalories for households. The study concludes that the understanding of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on food security status of households is important in developing policy measures such as social safety nets, home feeding program, the school feeding program, conditional cash transfers schemes and improved marketing channels that will help mitigate against households falling into food insecurity during similar pandemic in the future.

Analyzing the Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Students' Retention Ability in Selected Science Subjects

This research was aimed at determining the retention ability of students in science subjects in secondary schools during the COVID-19 lockdown. Three hypotheses were tested. Descriptive research design was used in this study. The population of the study comprised senior secondary school mathematics students in SS 3 in some selected secondary schools in Delta and Lagos States. The sample used for this study was 125 science students from selected secondary schools, who were willing to take part in the study. The instrument used for this study is the Science Retention Test (SRT). Data obtained were analyzed using SPPS version 25. The Bayesian Statistics was used to test the hypotheses stated for the study. Results obtained showed that the mean and standard deviation of student scores in mathematics, biology and chemistry before the COVID-19 lockdown was 69.50±17.40, while at resumption, their mean and standard deviation score stood at 53.29±17.46, with Bayes value of 4.0, which indicated that the student's scores before COVID-19 lockdown were higher than their retention scores and significantly differed. There was however no significant difference in the retention scores of male and female students in the study area. The mean and standard deviation of the retention score for private school students was 55.4±11.38, while that of the public school students was 51.93±20.41, with Bayes Factor of 4.03 approximately 4.0, which indicated a moderate evidence for the null hypothesis, which stated that there was no significant difference in the retention score of students from public and private secondary schools. Although the lockdown was inevitable, it is recommended that measures be taken to remedy the situation by providing necessary internet devices for the students, so that those from less financially capable homes will be afforded the opportunity to study online in order to help in their retention ability.

The effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on academic performance of pre university science students

The effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on academic performance of pre university science students

Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on the Mental Health of Medical Students in Gujarat, India

Background: Following the COVID-19 pandemic, a nationwide lockdown was announced in India in March 2020; wherein medical institutes throughout the country were closed. Various factors like physical inactivity, lack of social interaction, media news, uncertainty regarding examinations and course completion were expected to affect the mental health of medical students. This study was undertaken to understand the effect of COVID-19 lockdown on the mental health of medical students in Gujarat, India.Settings and Design: This was an analytical cross-sectional study conducted over 26 medical colleges in Gujarat.Method: An online survey was carried out over a period of ten days through Google Forms which included demographic details and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). MedCalc software was used as a statistical software for data analysis.Results: 2021 students (1107 males and 914 females) across 26 medical colleges participated in the survey. More than two-thirds (68.1%) of total students reported being physically less active during the lockdown. Around half of the participants reported some severity of depression (50.27%), anxiety (51.46%) and stress (41.61%). Significant difference was found in terms of gender, physical exercise, meditation for the severity of depression, anxiety and stress. Females reported more severe depression and stress. Physical exercise and meditation were found to be having a positive impact on the mental health of the students.Conclusion:The lockdown has negatively affected the mental health of medical students in terms of increased depression, anxiety, stress among them.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Oral Hygiene Practices and Willingness to utilize Dental Services among Patient Attendees of a Primary Oral Health Care Clinic in Ibadan, Nigeria

Objective: To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on oral hygiene practices and willingness to utilize dental care services among patients who attended a Primary Oral Health Care Clinic in Ibadan, Nigeria.&#x0D; Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 105 dental patients who had attended the Primary Oral Health Care Centre, Idikan, Ibadan, between July 2019 and March 2020. Data were obtained on the effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on oral hygiene practices and willingness to utilise dental care services during the lockdown was obtained using semistructured questions. The questionnaire was administered through mobile telephone interviews by trained dentists. Data was analysed with SPSS version 25.&#x0D; Results: The mean age of the participants was 38.2 (±19.4) years, and 60 (57.1%) were females. During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, 19 (18.1%) of the participants reported a change in their oral hygiene habits, out of which 15 (14.3%) increased the frequency and duration of tooth cleaning while it reduced for 4 (3.8%) participants. Twenty-eight (26.7%) of the participantswould not have considered visiting the dental clinic for routine check-ups during the period. Fear of contracting COVID-19 infection was the main reason for the unwillingness to utilize dental services for: routine check-up (15.7%) and oral prophylaxis (8.6%). There was no significant association between sociodemographic characteristics of the participants and change inoral health practices during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown (p &gt; 0.005).&#x0D; Conclusion: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was minimal on the oral hygiene practices of the study participants, with many having no change in their oral hygiene practices. The change in oral hygiene practices was in terms of frequency and duration of teeth cleaning. While some had a positive change, few others had negative changes.&#x0D;

The effect of Covid-19 pandemic lockdown on the blood glucose regulation of diabetic patients; one center experience

Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology ISSN 1470-3947 (print) | ISSN 1479-6848 (online)

Evaluating the influence of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on Jordan Badia rangelands

To explore the effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on vegetation cover changes in Northern, Middle, and Eastern Jordan Badia rangelands, Landsat-8 (Operational Land Imager [OLI]) images were downloaded and processed to attain surface reflectance data for March and July 2018–2020. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was then derived from OLI-images, where the total area covered with water, bare soil, scattered vegetation, dense grasses and shrubs, and dense forests were estimated. Across the study period, 2019 had the highest rainfall (195 mm) and temperature (21.7 °C), while the lowest rainfall was recorded in 2018 (154 mm). The Northern Badia showed a consistently larger area of dense vegetation on average (407.4 km2) compared to the Eastern (149.3km2), and Middle (55.2 km2) Badia. The total area covered with scattered vegetation in 2020 was higher than in 2019 and 2018 across the years and studied area, except in Middle Badia. Vegetation cover classes were inconsistent for Middle Badia in March, scattered vegetation was higher in 2019 compared to 2020. However, the total area covered with vegetation in July was lower than in March across the years and studied area. The curfew allowed the regeneration of shrubs and grasses in the study area, which helped in restoring the rangeland vegetation. COVID-19 lockdown served as a conservation grazing technique and provided a real case of restoring the degraded rangeland cover through managed grazing.

Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Fibromyalgia Symptoms.

Batres-Marroquín, Ana-Beatriz MD∗; Medina-García, Ana-Cristina MD∗; Vargas Guerrero, Angélica MD∗; Barrera-Villalpando, María-Isabel PhD†; Martínez-Lavín, Manuel MD∗; Martínez-Martínez, Laura-Aline MSc∗ Author Information

Evaluating the Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Long-Term Care Residents’ Mental Health: A Data-Driven Approach in New Brunswick

Long-term care (LTC) residents, isolated because of the COVID-19 pandemic, are at increased risk for negative mental health outcomes. The purpose of our article is to demonstrate how the interRAI LTC facility (LTCF) assessment can inform clinical care and evaluate the effect of strategies to mitigate worsening mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. We present a supporting analysis of the effects of lockdown in homes without COVID-19 outbreaks on depression, delirium, and behavior problems in a network of 7 LTC homes in New Brunswick, Canada, where mitigative strategies were deployed to minimize poor mental health outcomes (eg, virtual visits and increased student volunteers). This network meets regularly to review performance on risk-adjusted quality of care indicators from the interRAI LTCF and share learning through a community of practice model. We included 4209 assessments from 765 LTC residents between January 2017 to June 2020 and modeled the change within and between residents for depression, delirium, and behavioral problems over time with longitudinal generalized estimating equations. Though the number of residents who had in-person visits with family decreased from 73.2% before to 17.9% during lockdown (chi square, P < .001), the number of residents experiencing delirium (4.5%-3.5%, P = .51) and behavioral problems (35.5%-30.2%, P = .19) did not change. The proportion of residents with indications of depression decreased from 19.9% before to 11.5% during lockdown (P < .002). The final multivariate models indicate that the effect of lockdown was not statistically significant on depression, delirium, or behavioral problems. Our analyses demonstrate that poor mental health outcomes associated with lockdown can be mitigated with thoughtful intervention and ongoing evaluation with clinical information systems. Policy makers can use outputs to guide resource deployment, and researchers can examine the data to identify better management strategies for when pandemic strikes again.