Lock Downs Research Articles

Impact of improved air quality during complete and partial lockdowns on surface energetics and atmospheric boundary layer.

Impact of improved air quality during complete and partial lockdowns on surface energetics and atmospheric boundary layer.

Defining and Redefining Policies to Incentivize Cinema Business

This case is based on the impact of technological development and changing preferences of consumers (audience) on cinema business. The case also channelized the vulnerabilities of leisure industry due to its too much dependence on availability of disposable income. The case also highlighted the dynamic nature of business environment due to which governments and businesses need to reframe their policies in order to be relevant and competitive which speci􀏐ically in this case is ‘ease of doing business.’ Harsh Sharma, the leading exponent, was a second-generation cinema hall owner in Hapur, Uttar Pradesh. He joined his family business in 2015 with a vision to grow it further by adding more cinema halls. SARS-CoV-2 hit in 2019 resulting in a series of lock downs and severe setbacks to businesses globally. This resulted in a steep fall in the income of Harsh too and forced him to explore diversi􀏐ication options. He also realized, that post Covid, fewer people were coming to cinema halls to watch movies. This gave him a thought that there was a need of a new 􀏐ilm policy by the state and union governments to support different stake holders in cinema business 􀏐inancially, technologically and through skill development programs. Harsh approached Chief Minister Of􀏐ice (CMO) with a request to come up with a conducive policy to make state an attractive location for the cinema hall/ multiplexes owners, attracting film production houses for shooting and post production processing and for even distribution of films.

The Feasibility of Remote Teaching and Training of Hotel Management

Whenever the world faces any unforeseen situation the first area that gets impacted is the academics; due to its nature and stakeholders involved. Generally immediate shutting of academic institutions is called for as a precautionary measure. The situation can be political, social, religious, geographical or biological. The Covid - 19 easily turned into a pandemic from being an outbreak in Wuhan, China. It spread rapidly causing disruptions in all areas of human personal and professional domains. Suddenly situation that we had no clue of was thrown at us. We can’t give in to circumstances; instead we need to plan strategies to handle them. It is not a two – three days affair but something that is going to have a long term impact. Cities went into lock downs, countries sealed their borders. Within cities combat mechanism was being used by the local governments and organisations in turn planned their survival as well as operational strategies. Many people moved temporarily though; from being on site or office workers to remote workers owing to the circumstances of the pandemic. The hotel industry which has traditionally been people - centric had to opt for Work From Home. Covid 19 pandemic has exposed us to many challenges and to deal with them we all are required to exercise safety protocols. As a precaution it became the need of the hour. Like other courses the Hotel Management academics and training are also facing the need to venture into remote teaching and becoming the new entrants into academic cyberspace. All those who didn’t think much of remote teaching - learning earlier suddenly were forced to embrace it, there being no other way. The recent happenings have led to transforming of teaching, learning and training. All academicians have had to innovate and find sustainable practices as students are available and are willing to learn; they may be at different geographical locations though. That missing parameter can be substituted with virtual options using technology; these have been tested and are being used in the last two years with some success. It has shown the possibility and a lot more can be done in this domain. Best available remote teaching and training models were studied and the most suitable for Hotel Management has been recommended. This paper encourages the hospitality educators re - evaluate hospitality education and training needs.

Different contributions of meteorological conditions and emission reductions to the ozone pollution during Shanghai’s COVID-19 lockdowns in winter and spring

Different contributions of meteorological conditions and emission reductions to the ozone pollution during Shanghai’s COVID-19 lockdowns in winter and spring

X-Raying Post COVID-19 in Relation to Socio-Economy Development in Nigeria: A Review

It is on record that mobility restriction measures taken to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, in the form of local and global lock downs, travel restrictions and cancelation etc., did directly and indirectly strain and retards the global economy. In addition, for the very first time, Nigeria government removed fuel (petroleum) subsidy in 2023 which resulted to decline in number of vehicle on the Nigerian road while small, and middle scales businesses operator that utilized petroleum to fuel their generator resort to use solar energy, however this development lead to decrease in greenhouse emission into atmosphere thereby providing relatively clean atmosphere. Consequently, the Nigerian also witness increase in poverty rate due to COVID-19 episode couple with bad governance in the country, this development give birth to raise in crime rate as well as resulted into mass killing of innocent citizen of the country.

Bringing Medical Workers to Disciplinary Responsibility: Current Problems in context of Introduction of Digital Technologies in Medical Activities

Digital technologies have become an integral part of modern life. Digital medical services is one of the forms of activity of almost any medical organization. For this reason, the problems of implementation of the work function of medical personnel are relevant. When a medical worker is performing a medical intervention using digital medical technologies, other criteria for evaluating the proper performance of their work function should be taken into account. The specifics of these criteria have an impact on the establishment of grounds for bringing a medical professional to disciplinary responsibility. The work of medical workers is of special social significance. Nowadays, almost no medical intervention is performed without the use of artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence technologies, robots, applications, bots, etc. They became widespread during the introduction of remote labor formats and lock downs, when various software tools were used for remote provision of medical services.The labor legislation establishes general grounds for bringing medical workers to disciplinary responsibility, as well as traditional disciplinary measures. We believe that bringing medical workers to disciplinary responsibility has a strongly pronounced specificity. This is especially evident in the context of introduction of digital technologies in medical activities.Based on the analysis of modern legislation and law enforcement practice, we have identified special grounds for bringing medical workers to disciplinary responsibility, analyzed typical cases of labor discipline violations by medical workers, and developed recommendations on the tactics of conducting a disciplinary internal investigation by an employer (medical organization). The author provides recommendations for fixing certain conditions in the explanatory note of a medical worker.

Clinical Study and Assessment of Efficacy of Polyherbal Combination (KNDBHU) in COVID 19 Patients

Even three years after the COVID-19 pandemic initially appeared in December of the year 2019, it is still raging over the globe. There have been numerous attempts to use well-known medications in new ways to treat COVID-19 infection. Many nations, including India, implemented a series of lock downs in an effort to limit the pandemic. Sanitation practices, social seclusion, routine mask wearing, testing, and quarantining of suspected carriers were among the recommended methods for limiting the illness. Numerous treatment strategies have also been used to prevent and treat the illness, but no formal studies using well-known Ayurvedic formulations or any polyherbal combinations have been conducted. A clinical study was planned to test the noble polyherbal combination containing Withania somnifera, Tinospora cordifolia, Moringa oleifera, Adhatoda vasica, Piper longum, Glycyrrhiza glabra, Ocimum sanctum and Curcuma longa. The study checked the rate of symptom remission in individuals receiving the polyherbal combination in addition to standard of care (SoC) to that in patients with mild and moderate symptoms of COVID-19 infections receiving SoC alone. A prospective randomized interventional clinical study was planned comparing outcomes in 2 cohorts with mild to moderate COVID-19 as under. Cohort-1 was trialled with conventional treatment as per government advisory. Cohort-2 was trialled with polyherbal combination and with conventional treatment as per government advisory. With the current add-on Polyherbal regimen, an early clinical improvement in breathlessness was seen along with early ageusia and cough reduction when compared with conventional treatment. The polyherbal combination (KNDBHU) enhanced recovery in COVID-19 Patients. Given the lack of hospital beds in India, the median length of hospital stays was shortened; this development is significant. Keywords: Covid­19, Add on polyherbal combinationregimen for Corona virus, Early Clinical Improvement, Shortened hospital stays

THU144 Highs And Lows: Trends In The Incidence Of Pediatric Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Related To The COVID 19 Pandemic

Abstract Disclosure: J. Goroff: None. P. Hanley: None. A. Gannon: None. T. Grunwald: None. The COVID 19 pandemic and associated lock downs resulted in a definitive change in lifestyle that has had multiple associated outcomes for child health. There has been report of dramatic increases in the incidence of Type 2 Diabetes in the months and years immediately following the start of the pandemic. However, whether this demonstrates an overall upward trend in disease burden, or a discrete spike has yet to be described. In this retrospective cohort study patients younger than 21 years old diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes from January 2017 to December 2022 at a large stand-alone children’s hospital were compared. Chart review was conducted at participants’ first endocrinology office visit or inpatient hospital stay for new onset Type 2 Diabetes. Diagnosis was confirmed with anti-body status for each participant. Statistical significance between incidences was determined using standard descriptive statistics. A total of 213 new onset Type 2 Diabetes cases were included. The average incidence of Type 2 Diabetes from 2017 to 2019 was 19 cases per year; compared to 65.5 cases per year from 2020 to 2021 representing a statistically significant increase in the incidence of Type 2 Diabetes (p<0.001). 2022 saw a fall in incidence to 25 cases per year. This was a significantly lower incidence rate than 2020 to 2021 (p=0.01). There was no difference in incidence rate of Type 2 Diabetes from 2017 to 2019 and 2022 (p=0.39). These results support a significant increase in Type 2 Diabetes diagnoses with the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic. This may be secondary to sedentary lifestyle, increased mental health and psychosocial stressors or increased BMI. However, we demonstrate that two years after the onset of the pandemic there was a return to pre-pandemic incidences of Type 2 Diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes continues to pose a significant health threat to the pediatric population and burden for the medical system as they age. Nevertheless, if this trend continues and is reflected across other institutions, it is reassuring and may offer insight into modifiable risk factors yet to be investigated. Presentation: Thursday, June 15, 2023

MOUTAI Stock Price Prediction Based on ARIMA Model

Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models are effectively utilized in time series analysis and forecasts. With the focus on MOUTAI, one of the brands in liquor industry that has absorbed great public interest and wide acceptance, this paper studies the pattern of the closing price of MOUTAI stock, fits the data using ARIMA model, and eventually forecasts over the future horizon. Based on daily closing price of the specific stock, a few transformations of the data are carried out, making the fitting process of ARIMA model more accurate. The best-fit ARIMA model is studied and the forecast re-sults are analyzed. According to the increasing trend throughout the interval studied and the unforeseen peak at the beginning of 2021, the causation is discussed: the consumer trend. That is, people are inclined to consume more liquor products during mood swings, which is likely to happen during lock downs and the deteriorated epidemic worldwide. This study provides more insights to the potential investors and buyers of MOUTAI stock and products, and furthermore the liquor industry, giving an overview of the patterns shown in the stocks closing price and the causation of the forecast results.

An analysis of day and night bicyclist injury severities in vehicle/bicycle crashes: A comparison of unconstrained and partially constrained temporal modeling approaches

An analysis of day and night bicyclist injury severities in vehicle/bicycle crashes: A comparison of unconstrained and partially constrained temporal modeling approaches

Conveying strength in emerging adulthood and during a pandemic

Conveying strength in emerging adulthood and during a pandemic

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health care and daily life of patients with rare diseases from the perspective of patient organizations – a qualitative interview study

BackgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic people affected by rare diseases (RD) or caregiver of affected children have faced additional challenges. The pandemic has affected physical and mental health, social life and has led to financial consequences. Our objectives were to identify the impact of COVID-19 (1) on health care and (2) on daily life and participation of patients with RDs or caregivers from the perspective of representatives of patient organizations. Moreover, we explored their perspective on experiences of pandemic stress and resources during the pandemic.ResultsWe conducted 18 semi-structured interviews with representatives of patient organizations (e.g. chairperson, members of the steering committee), who were asked about the experiences of their members. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using the framework approach. We contextualized our findings on the basis of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) model and adapted it according to identified subthemes. Patients and caregivers were confronted with aspects of pandemic stress such as lack of information, access and information regarding vaccination and being a risk group for COVID-19 infection. Physical and mental functioning was reported to be negatively impacted. Lock downs and contact restrictions led, e.g., to increasing lack of nursing services or lack of necessary informal support. Participation e.g. in social life and work was reduced. Health care services including medical care and supportive care as well as additional therapies were disrupted and greater effort was necessary to organize care. According to participants, central resources were informal support networks, digitalization, patient organizations and individual characteristics.ConclusionsOur study highlights the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the situation of people affected by RDs and caregivers. Contextualization of the results into the biopsychosocial model reinforces the impact of the pandemic on health care as well as daily life and participation. Major challenges and difficulties were experienced during lockdowns and contact restrictions. Depending on the risk of an infection with COVID-19, certain patient groups were still isolated and reduced social contacts or still followed strict hygienic measures (e.g., wearing medical masks). Future pandemic control measures, e.g. on lockdowns and closing facilities, should consider the challenges of people with RDs and caregivers of affected children.

What’s it going to take? Lessons learned from COVID-19 and worker mental health in the Australian construction industry

In Australia, rates of suicide and poor mental health among construction workers were high before the COVID-19 pandemic. “Lock downs”, “restrictions”, “social distancing” and legislative changes responding to the pandemic have likely exacerbated the working conditions that foster poor mental health. This study analyses the way in which workplace health and safety (WHS) is regulated in Australia against the backdrop of existing research relating to the development of Australia’s WHS laws, and the state of mental health of those working in Australia’s construction industry. This study was conducted using a doctrinal research methodology and utilising legal theory. This study assesses the capacity of the Australian WHS regulatory system to protect construction workers’ mental health by examining and interpreting key provisions in Australia’s WHS laws. It then uses a regulatory theory, responsive regulation, to explain the inconsistency between the capacity of those laws to safeguard mental health and the very poor state of mental health of Australia’s construction workers. The conclusion reached is that there is scope to improve current WHS laws to better protect construction workers’ mental health. A recommendation is made, that current WHS laws are changed to prescribe minimum standards of worker mental health, and mandate control measures to minimise and/or eliminate psychosocial risks. It is submitted that these changes in the law will contribute to a changed culture in Australia’s construction sector, which is supportive of mentally healthy workplaces and workers.

The hammer and the jab: Are COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccinations complements or substitutes?

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated lives and economies around the world. Initially a primary response was locking down parts of the economy to reduce social interactions and, hence, the virus’ spread. After vaccines have been developed and produced in sufficient quantity, they can largely replace broad lock downs. This paper explores how lockdown policies should be varied during the year or so gap between when a vaccine is approved and when all who wish have been vaccinated. Are vaccines and lockdowns substitutes during that crucial time, in the sense that lockdowns should be reduced as vaccination rates rise? Or might they be complementary with the prospect of imminent vaccination increasing the value of stricter lockdowns, since hospitalization and death averted then may be permanently prevented, not just delayed? We investigate this question with a simple dynamic optimization model that captures both epidemiological and economic considerations. In this model, increasing the rate of vaccine deployment may increase or reduce the optimal total lockdown intensity and duration, depending on the values of other model parameters. That vaccines and lockdowns can act as either substitutes or complements even in a relatively simple model casts doubt on whether in more complicated models or the real world one should expect them to always be just one or the other. Within our model, for parameter values reflecting conditions in developed countries, the typical finding is to ease lockdown intensity gradually after substantial shares of the population have been vaccinated, but other strategies can be optimal for other parameter values. Reserving vaccines for those who have not yet been infected barely outperforms simpler strategies that ignore prior infection status. For certain parameter combinations, there are instances in which two quite different policies can perform equally well, and sometimes very small increases in vaccine capacity can tip the optimal solution to one that involves much longer and more intense lockdowns.

Shift, scale and restart smaller models to estimate larger ones: Agent based simulators in epidemiology

Agent-based simulators (ABS) are a popular epidemiological modelling tool to study the impact of non medical interventions in managing epidemics [1], [2]. They accurately model a heterogeneous population with time and location varying, person specific interactions. Government policies such as partial and location specific lock downs, case isolation, home quarantine, school closures, partially opened workplaces, etc. are easily modelled and ABS allow flexibility to incorporate important pandemic developments over time including variants and vaccines. For accuracy, each person is modelled separately. This however may make computational time prohibitive when the city population and the simulated time are large. We observe that simply considering a smaller representative model and scaling up the output leads to inaccuracies. In this note we focus on the COVID- 19 pandemic and dig deeper into the underlying probabilistic structure of generic ABS to arrive at modifications that allow smaller models to give accurate statistics for larger ones. We exploit the observation that in the initial disease spread phase, the starting infections create a family tree of infected individuals more-or-less independent of the other trees and are modelled well as a multi-type super-critical branching process whose relative proportions across infected population types stabilize soon and thereafter are invariant to shifts in time. Further, for large city population, once enough people have been infected, the future evolution of the pandemic is closely approximated by its mean field limit with a random starting state. We build upon these insights to develop a shifted, scaled and restart based algorithm that accurately evaluates the ABS's performance using a much smaller model while carefully reducing the bias that may arise from just scaling. Our key contributions are: 1) we develop an algorithm by carefully exploiting the closeness of the underlying exposed/infected process (process of number exposed/infected of each type at each time) initially to a branching process, and then the normalised infection process (infection process divided by the city population) to its mean field limit, so that the output from the smaller model accurately matches the output from the larger model in a realistic city setting. 2) we provide theoretical support for the proposed approach through an asymptotic analysis where the population increases to infinity. For brevity, we conduct the analysis in a simpler and yet practically useful setting.

Impacts of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic on Sleep Pattern

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the third global crisis after two epidemics of severe acute respiratory syndromes. It has affected general public besides health care systems and governments. Confinements and lock downs have changed waking up time and going to bed time, ultimately affecting circadian clocks that can disturb sleep quality which can lead to anxiety, stress, and depression. This puts the most susceptible group -young adults and females- at risk of psychological disorders and even inflammatory events. Several kinds of sleep disorders due to COVID-19 including insomnia, sleep apnea, sleepiness during daytime, post-traumatic-like sleep dysfunction, abnormal dreams, and restless legs syndrome have been reported. As sleep deprivation can alter circadian clock and weaken immunity which makes human more susceptible to pulmonary inflammatory process of COVID-19 and even enhance its manifestations, it should be considered as an urgent complication that needs to be treated. Furthermore, longstanding effects of sleep disturbances during COVID-19 pandemic need to be elucidated.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Reported Incidence of Select Bacterial Enteric Diseases in Canada, 2020.

The aim of this study was to describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on reported cases and clusters of select enteric diseases in Canada, for the period of March 2020 to December 2020. Weekly counts of laboratory confirmed cases of Salmonella, Shigella, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), and Listeria monocytogenes were obtained from laboratory surveillance data. These data were supplemented with epidemiological information on the suspected source of illness, collected for cases identified within whole genome sequencing clusters. Incidence rate ratios were calculated for each pathogen. All data were compared with a prepandemic reference period. Decreases in the number of reported cases in 2020 compared with the previous 5-year period were noted for Salmonella, Shigella, Escherichia coli O157, and non-O157 STEC. Reported number of cases for L. monocytogenes in 2020 remained similar to those of the previous 5-year period. There was a considerable decline (59.9%) in the number of cases associated with international travel compared with a 10% decline in the number of domestic cases. Comparison of reported incidence rates of clustered versus sporadic cases for each pathogen showed little variation. This study represents the first formal assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on reported enteric diseases in Canada. Reported case counts across several pathogens saw notable declines in 2020 compared with prepandemic levels, with restrictions on international travel playing a key role. Additional research is needed to understand how limitations on social gatherings, lock downs, and other public health measures have impacted enteric diseases.

The meaning of post-pandemic soundscapes

Following the pandemic, current times classified as post-pandemic have to be seen from a multidisciplinary view point when it comes to soundscape research. During the pandemic, it was under duress, that worldwide daily life was changed and new habits had to be developed as for example according to home office, home schooling, family life in narrow space, lock downs. At the beginning, it was causing irritation and helplessness, but later it was changed to habits in regard to so called daily routines. Following, post-pandemic soundscape research must be related to daily life in its status and noticeable changes. Post-pandemic soundscapes will show changes for examples in regard to pioneering city-planning involving the concepts of smart growth and smart cities. Taking this into account, soundscape research in post pandemic times has to get new technologies under scrutiny as well as new approaches in soundscape methodologically also including virtual reality. Expected is a revised perception of the acoustic environment based on collected experiences and knowledge of people concerned. The review of the respective soundscape research will summarize the current situation in post-pandemic times.

Universities’ Capabilities and Effective Implementation of E-Learning in Public Universities in Kampala City, Uganda

The COVID-19 pandemic restricted access to campuses of universities owing to intermittent lock downs. Consequently, educational institutions were forced to adopt virtual teaching techniques to ensure continued teaching and learning. However, the effective implementation of online education in universities in Uganda faced capability challenges that hindered its effectiveness. Therefore, this study investigated the influence of universities’ capabilities on the effective implementation of e-learning in public universities in Kampala City, Uganda during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic period. Anchoring in resource-based theory (RBT), universities’ capabilities for effective implementation e-learning studied included experimentation, integration capability, and content management. Using the quantitative approach, cross-sectional data was collected from a sample of 312 academic staff from Kyambogo and Makerere Universities,the only two public universities located in Kampala City, Uganda. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics involved the calculation of means while inferential analysis involved structural equation models (SEM) using SmartPLS. The results revealed that content management and integration capability positively and significantly predicted e-learning implementation. However,experimentation negatively and insignificantly predicted e-learning implementation. The study concluded that content management and integration capability are vital for e-learning implementation. Nonetheless, experimentation is not a probable requirement for the effective implementation of e-learning. Therefore, it was recommended that university managers should develop integration capabilities, and should support lecturers to improve their content management, but experimentation should not be prioritised in the implementation of e-learning.

Effect of Austrian COVID-19 lockdowns on acute myocardial infarction frequency and long-term mortality: a multicentre observational study

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to find out if the decrease in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) admissions during the first COVID-19 lockdowns (LD), which was described by previous studies,...