Hardest Hit Research Articles

Artist's Statement: Zoom Medical School.

After 2 years of predominantly virtual medical school during the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel apprehensive about entering clinical rotations and translating my hands-off medical education into real-world patient care. Though terrifying, this transition to clinical work is at least accompanied by excitement over the prospect of trading recorded lectures full of cartoon diagrams for real experiences. The first half of medical school felt directionless and discouraging with endless hours alone in an on-campus dormitory, watching the product of my tuition money through a webcam. My artwork Zoom Medical School, on the cover of this issue, reflects on the melancholic boredom that pervaded my experience, and the experiences of those around me, during the first half of medical school. Colorless, fractured, and stuffed into rectangular boxes, too small for comfort, the figure in this repeating linoleum print expresses the same tired resignation I felt. Though the medical student population was far from the hardest hit by the pandemic, for my cohort, it was a heavy weight on our collective morale. With the demanding nature of the next stage of training and the burden posed by burnout under normal circumstances, I am especially concerned with the long-term consequences of the past 2 years. Looking forward, I am hopeful a return to in-person interactions will breathe some much-needed life and motivation into my class of aspiring physicians. Still, this transition will undoubtedly require exceptional fortitude and patience from us and those training us.Zoom Medical School

Market Statistics Analysis of the Tourism Industry in the Context of COVID-19

The COVID-19 epidemic has made a great influence on the international overall economic environment, and the tertiary industry represented by tourism has been a hard hit in these three years. This essay uses the Chinese tourism sector as its research subject. In this article, statistics on the tourism business before and after the COVID-19 epidemic are sorted and compared to examine its development features, causes of the phenomena, and current position. In accordance with the data research, it is found that the development of tourism is highly sensitive to the COVID policy and the economic situation, and there is also a large gap between regions and urban-rural areas in tourism development. At present, it still needs more time and measures to promote the industry to recover to pre-epidemic levels. At the end of the paper, the relevant feasibility recommendations will also be given based on the results of the study.

Vulnerability, Business Resilience, Mechanisms, and Challenges of Village (Barangay) Micro Business Enterprises in the New Normal

Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and their employees have been particularly hard hit by the recession because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study assesses the level of vulnerability and business resilience of two hundred seven (207) Village (Barangay) Micro Business Enterprises (BMBEs) in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines. Likewise, it identifies the mechanisms, opportunities, and challenges of BMBEs in the new normal. Respondents of this study are from the wholesale and retail trade and food and beverage service sectors in Bacolod City who were selected using stratified random sampling. The descriptive-comparative research was used in the study and utilized both researcher-made and adapted questionnaires to gather data. Results showed that BMBEs had a moderate level of vulnerability and a high level of business resilience during the COVID-19 crisis. In terms of mechanisms and challenges, most BMBEs adopt technology for promotion purposes and have experienced insufficiency of cash flows to maintain operations. It can be concluded that the businesses were highly resilient during the COVID-19 crisis, as there is only a moderate extent of vulnerabilities from the BMBEs' internal operations. Businesses were able to absorb both internal and external shocks by adjusting to change and seizing opportunities.

Dynamic capabilities and employment during COVID-19: The moderating effect of government support

Although small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were particularly hard hit by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, some performed relatively well, maintaining or increasing employment growth. We study these differences in performance through the lens of dynamic capabilities (DCs) theory, which we extend by incorporating the moderating effect of government support during COVID-19. We analyse responses from 1421 UK SMEs and find that government support and DCs positively impact employment. We also show that government support moderates the link between DCs and employment with a negative effect after the first COVID-19 lockdown. The findings highlight the role of government policy intervention in discouraging SMEs from effectively exercising DCs during a crisis and the general importance of DCs and government support in enabling SMEs to cope with shocks.

Conditional on the Environment? The Contextual Embeddedness of Age, Health, and Socioeconomic Status as Predictors of Remote Work among Older Europeans through the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 era lockdown measures resulted in many workers performing their employment tasks remotely. While identifying individual-level predictors of COVID-19 era remote work, scholarship has neglected heterogeneity based on contextual characteristics. Using the first COVID-19 module (2020) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe ( N = 8,121) and multinomial logistic regression analyses, this study examined how country-level digitalization, stringency of government COVID-19 containment measures, and COVID-19 era excess mortality moderated how individual-level age, health, education, and income affected working partly or fully remotely among older Europeans (50-89 years) continuing to work through the pandemic. The central findings are that higher societal digitalization reduced the positive association between education and fully remote work, and greater country-level excess mortality accentuated how more education and poorer health increased the probability of fully remote work. These findings are interpreted through the fundamental cause theory of health and the health belief model. They further lead to recommendations that during future epidemics, policies and programs should address the remote working capabilities of older persons with fewer years of education, with fewer skills with modern digital technologies, and in worse health, especially within nations that are less digitally developed and harder hit by the epidemic in question.

The distribution and current state of biobanking in Indonesian wildlife: a systematic review

AbstractThe Indonesian archipelago, where the tropical rainforest ecosystem is home to 15% of the world's vertebrate species, has been the hardest hit by deforestation in Southeast Asia for the last decade. This situation makes ex situ conservation strategies, particularly biobanks, more important than ever to supplement in situ efforts which are becoming increasingly difficult. This study examines the status and future of biobanking implementation in Indonesian wildlife. The results show that current biobanking efforts in Indonesian wildlife are still limited, with a non‐uniform distribution among taxa, sex and geographical origin. Current work is largely focused on mammals, while avifauna, reptiles and amphibians, particularly from the eastern region, are generally neglected. Cryopreservation is primarily used as a low‐cost preservation method, but success rates are strongly influenced by intra‐ and interspecific characteristics, making the development of species‐specific protocols essential. This report identifies the challenges and suggests ways to establish a national biobanking facility and collaborate with stakeholders to promote sustainable biobanking in Indonesia.

Earthquake and Tourism Destination Resilience from the Perspective of Regional Economic Resilience

With the increasing uncertainty and complexity of disasters, the tourism industry in disaster-stricken areas is often hard hit, so it is urgent to improve the resilience of the tourism industry. Based on the perspective of regional economic resilience, this study takes Wenchuan earthquake as an example to explore the theoretical framework, research ideas and methods of tourist destination resilience. The industry policy should be included in the resilience construction to theoretically respond to the reasons for the improvement of the resilience and sustainability of tourism industry in the post-disaster recovery. Taking Sichuan tourism as the research object, this paper estimated the impact of Wenchuan earthquake on Sichuan tourism and the effect of industrial policies on the resilience of the tourism industry in the post-disaster recovery. The results show that the total revenue loss of Sichuan tourism industry brought by Wenchuan earthquake is 87.298 billion yuan, and the post-disaster recovery window period is 7 years (2008–2014). After the earthquake, the industrial policy measures taken have effectively improved the resilience of Sichuan’s tourism industry, making it reach the level that it would have been before the earthquake and assuming that there had been no earthquake.

“The rulers are the causes of the war […] They are the reason there is no bread in our town:” women’s food riots in the Hungarian countryside, 1917–1918

ABSTRACT The essay discusses women’s food riots in the Hungarian territories of the Habsburg Empire during World War I between spring 1917 and summer 1918. While the existing literature has primarily focused on urban contexts in a variety of European countries, this essay analyses the Hungarian countryside with a focus on small towns and villages where and around which inhabitants were mostly agrarian workers. The agrarian population was especially hard hit by the increasingly coercive wartime economic measures, and especially by the high cost of living and the break-down in food supply. Using archival sources and news reports, the article approaches food riots as a form of labour activism signalling (agrarian) women’s efforts to improve their desperate living and working conditions and, thus, as a local political response to the international and national political and economic crisis that unfolded in the Dual Monarchy shortly before its disintegration during the second phase of the Great War. It pays particular attention to participants’ social/ethnic background, agendas, and repertoires of action, including the antisemitic character of some of the riots and authorities’ reaction to these uprisings. The essay, thus, also examines the interactions between members of local-level (un)organized activism and regional and national governance.

Socio-economic outcomes of COVID-19 on the marginalised: Who have taken the hardest hit?

This article aims to examine the socioeconomic outcomes of COVID-19 for socially marginalised people who are clients of social care organisations (e.g. people experiencing homelessness), and the factors influencing these outcomes. We tested the role of individual and socio-structural variables in determining socioeconomic outcomes based on a cross-sectional survey with 273 participants from eight European countries and 32 interviews and five workshops with managers and staff of social care organisations in ten European countries. 39% of the respondents agreed that the pandemic has had a negative effect on their income and access to shelter and food. The most common negative socio-economic outcome of the pandemic was loss of work (65% of respondents). According to multivariate regression analysis, variables such as being of a young age, being an immigrant/asylum seeker or residing in the country without documentation, living in your own home, and having (in)formal paid work as the main source of income are related to negative socio-economic outcomes following the COVID-19 pandemic. Factors such as individual psychological resilience and receiving social benefits as the main source of income tend to “protect” respondents from negative impacts. Qualitative results indicate that care organisations have been an important source of economic and psycho-social support, particularly significant in times of a huge surge in demand for services during the long-term crises of pandemic.

Leading a Hospital Incident Command System during a global pandemic.

Responding to a healthcare crisis such as COVID-19 requires a practiced, nimble incident command structure. Our medical center is in one of the areas in the US that was hardest hit by the initial wave. Effective leadership of incident command was critical in our response.

Competition and firm recovery post-COVID-19.

This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the reallocation of economic activity across firms and whether this reallocation depends on the competition environment. The paper uses the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys COVID-19 Follow-up Surveys for about 8000 firms, including both small and large firms, in 23 emerging and developing countries in Europe and Central Asia, matched with 2019 Enterprise Surveys data. It finds that during the COVID-19 crisis, smaller firms were hit harder, and economic activity was reallocated toward firms with higher pre-crisis labor productivity. Countries with a strong competition environment experienced more reallocation from less productive to more productive firms than countries with a weak competition environment. The evidence also suggests that reallocation from low- to high-productivity firms during the COVID-19 crisis was stronger compared with pre-crisis times. Finally, the analysis shows that government support measures implemented in response to the crisis may have adverse effects on competition and productivity growth since support went to less productive and larger firms, regardless of their pre-crisis innovation.

Diabetes in the cost‐of‐living crisis

Diabetes in the cost‐of‐living crisis

The impact of COVID-19 on the European short-term rental market.

The diffusion of COVID-19 and related containment measures practically halted tourism flows, which in many countries generate a significant share of GDP. By leveraging Airbnb data covering the main touristic destinations in Europe, we investigate the impact of the pandemic on the market for short-term rentals up to early 2021. We find that the epidemic reduced dramatically both the supply of apartments available for rents and customers' demand, with travellers cancelling many reservations and reducing new bookings even many months in advance. Accommodations relying relatively more on foreign tourism were the hardest hit and reacted by cutting prices. By exploiting the different timing of the epidemic spread across Europe and the timelines and intensity of the measures adopted to contain it, we show that government mandated restrictions had a stronger impact than the spread of the infection itself. All in all, our results point to a persistent and heterogeneous impact of COVID-19 on the accommodation industry.

WOMEN’S NEEDS VS. ECONOMIC SURVIVAL DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: NAVIGATING THIS TENSION USING CARE AND JUSTICE

Women are among the many vulnerable groups that are severely affected by the pandemic: All over the world, women have been hit harder by the pandemic, leading some to call the global recession a “shecession”. “Shecession” refers to “the disproportionate impact of a pandemic recession on working women”, which leads to greater gender inequality. Working women have been gravely affected by the pandemic, but their situation is often justified as “necessary” in helping businesses survive. We argue for a caring justice framework, using Fratelli Tutti and care ethics in navigating the tensions between the individual and the community, analysing and transforming the way in which work is structured in the Philippines at present.

Occurrence of Disaster Events and their Impact in Nepal: Role of Government and Civil Society Organizations to Reduce the Disaster Risks

Nepal is highly vulnerable to multiple geological, hydro and meteorological hazards in which floods, landslides, fires, avalanches, glacial lakes outburst floods, droughts and earthquakes are predominant. Nepal has also been experiencing outbreak of epidemics and pandemic having high morbidity and mortality. Every day, on an average, 2 people die due to recurrent disasters. Situated in seismic zone, Nepal is prone to earthquake, and it had experienced several episodes of earthquake having losses of human lives and physical infrastructure. Climate change attributing significantly in extreme weather conditions resulting heavy rainfall, drought, fire, and glacial lake outburst floods. The disasters events have severe impact in socio-economic and health of community people creating problem in access, disrupting supply chain, damage, and destruction of service delivery outlets. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the disaster situation in country, their impact and assess the role of government of Nepal and civil society organizations in reducing the disaster risks. This paper has been prepared by reviewing the secondary data mainly government, UN and I/NGOs reports and research articles. Marginalized groups of the society are hardest hit by the disasters. Investing resources in preparedness and risk reduction pays off in saving lives and properties, investing 1 NPR in DRR is equivalent to 18 NPR during post disaster situation. A whole of society approach where preparedness, risk reduction, response, recovery, and reconstruction go simultaneously in building resilience nations to disasters. Development work should mandatorily apply environmental impact assessment and do no harm principles. The government of Nepal has developed DRM Act, policy, and strategic plan. Accountability framework, risk governance and risk education play a critical role to achieve outcomes stipulated in the strategic plan.

Understanding changing public transit travel patterns of urban visitors during COVID-19: A multi-stage study

COVID-19 has caused huge disruptions to urban travel and mobility. As a critical transportation mode in cities, public transit was hit hardest. In this study, we analyze public transit usage of urban visitors with a nearly two-year smart card dataset collected in Jeju, South Korea – a major tourism city in the Asia Pacific. The dataset captures transit usage behavior of millions of domestic visitors who traveled to Jeju between January 1, 2019 and September 30, 2020. By identifying a few key pandemic stages based on COVID-19 timeline, we employ ridge regression models to investigate the impact of pandemic severity on transit ridership. We then derive a set of mobility indicators – from perspectives of trip frequency, spatial diversity, and travel range – to quantify how individual visitors used the transit system during their stay in Jeju. By further employing time series decomposition, we extract the trend component for each mobility indicator to study long-term dynamics of visitors’ mobility behavior. According to the regression analysis, the pandemic had a dampening effect on public transit ridership. The overall ridership was jointly affected by national and local pandemic situations. The time series decomposition result reveals a long-term decay of individual transit usage, hinting that visitors in Jeju tended to use the transit system more conservatively as the pandemic endured. The study provides critical insights into urban visitors’ transit usage behavior during the pandemic and sheds light on how to restore tourism, public transit usage, and overall urban vibrancy with some policy suggestions.

Adult Protective Services Perspectives on Responding to Elder Abuse and Serving Clients During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The initial COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent public health measures dramatically impacted Adult Protective Services (APS), requiring rapid adjustments. Our goal was to describe challenges for APS and strategies developed to respond. We conducted six focus groups and seven interviews during March-April 2021 using a semi-structured topic guide, with 31 participants from APS leadership, supervisors, and caseworkers in New York City, a community hard hit by the initial COVID surge. Data from transcripts were analyzed to identify themes. Participants identified challenges faced by APS (e.g., clients less willing to engage with APS, inability to perform necessary job tasks remotely, and low staffing levels) as well as strategies APS used in response (e.g., increasing collaboration with other community-based programs and service providers, enabling remote court hearings through technology and in-person facilitation, and ensuring staff had access to personal protective equipment). These findings may inform APS planning for future large-scale societal disruptions.

Between here and there: comparing the worry about the pandemic between older Italian international migrants and natives in Switzerland

Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, people have been worried about COVID-19. As one of the risk groups, persons aged 65 and older are especially vulnerable. Additionally, minorities and migrants are hit harder by the pandemic than natives. Using data from the TransAge survey, a study including over 3000 older persons (65+) living in Switzerland and Italy, we show that the levels of worry about the pandemic are significantly higher among Italian international migrants living in Switzerland than among Swiss natives. We are not able to fully explain the difference using sociodemographic variables, the COVID-19 situation at the time of the interview, and international migrants’ transnationalism behavior. Nevertheless, transnationalism explains a large part of the difference in worry between the two groups and our study sheds light on the importance of two specific transnational aspects, having Swiss nationality and voting behavior, for the prevention of elevated levels of worry of international migrants.

Farm households’ vulnerability to climate change in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam: An advanced livelihood vulnerability indexing approach

Southeast Asia is considered one of the world’s climate hotspots as the countries in the Mekong region, in particular, will be the hardest hit by the impacts of climate change if the global temperature continues to rise. This study aims to evaluate the differences in climate change-induced vulnerability of farm households in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar. The total sample size was 999 farm respondents, of which 304 were from Myanmar, 350 from Vietnam, and 345 from Cambodia. The farm households’ vulnerability was measured using an advanced indicator or indexing method with balanced or equal weighting. A total of 36 indicators were selected based on an extensive literature review and expert judgment. Each major component was comprised of sub-components and indicators, which were standardized using a balanced weighted average approach. The findings reveal that Myanmar was high in all components of climate change vulnerability, whereas Vietnam was the second most vulnerable country, followed by Cambodia. Based on the findings, we suggest implementing policy measures that aim to reduce the sensitivity dimension of farm households, such as by improving early warning systems, increasing public funding investment in infrastructure development, and creating embankments to prevent saltwater incursion, while empowering the adaptive capacity of farm households. Furthermore, we also recommend establishing the necessary healthcare facilities, strengthening the public-private partnership, increasing outreach and healthcare services, and improving access to the formal credit system.

Segmentation and factors associated with the resilience of touristic SMEs: Results from Colombia

Organizational resilience refers to the ability of organizations to sustain and recover from adversity. The Covid-19 pandemic was an unexpected event of enormous magnitude that affected the stability and continuity of many organizations around the world. The tourism sector was among the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. In this sense and facing the Covid-19 pandemic, the objective of this study was to explore factors associated with greater resilience by the SMEs in the tourism sector in a destination of Colombia. The information used came from conducting 60 surveys directed to various SMEs, including adventure tourism service providers, overnight stay places and restaurants. In order to identify segments of touristic SMEs according to their resilience, a cluster analysis was carried out. Two segments of SMEs were found, one with greater resilience and another with less resilience. The incorporation of technology, the development of new products and the access to new market segments as actions to cope with the crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic are key factors that characterize the most resilient segment of touristic SMEs. Also, the size of the company and the gender and academic level of the managers are associated with resilience of the SMEs that took part in the study.