Travel Restrictions Research Articles

Feasibility of clinical newborn metabolic screening in a high-volume maternity center in Nepal

BackgroundStrategic action plans around newborn health evaluation are needed, to address the high neonatal mortality rate in Nepal. Surveillance systems, like Newborn Metabolic Screening (NBS), could reveal unrecognized drivers of neonatal death. NBS is not routinely performed in Nepal. Our objective was to determine the feasibility of establishing NBS, and its acceptability among healthcare providers and parents, in Nepal.MethodsThis prospective cohort study was conducted between November 2021 and May 2022 in term/late preterm infants born at Paropakar Maternity Hospital, Kathmandu, screening for 6 disorders that can be confirmed and managed locally. Staff were trained on dried-blood spot collection and transport protocols, performance metrics were established, and assays were performed at an accredited laboratory in Bangalore, India. Surveys were developed to determine acceptability among health-care providers and parents.ResultsOf 835 parents approached for the study, 825 (98.8%) consented. Parental surveys showed that 92% considered “no cost” option most important in choosing to participate in the study. Samples were transported to laboratories in Kathmandu and Bangalore in 36 ± 24 h, and 4.75 ± 1 days, which exceeded expected metrics of 24 and 48 h, respectively. Results were communicated to parents by 9.5 ± 2 days, which was within the expected metric window of 14 days. Abnormalities were reported in 13 infants and included 5 hemoglobinopathy traits (4 Hb E and 1 Hb D), 3 congenital hypothyroidism, 2 glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, 1 congenital adrenal hyperplasia, 1 elevated acylcarnitine, and 1 biotinidase deficiency. Healthcare providers surveyed (n = 116) showed that 67% reported a moderate understanding of NBS; all indicated that screening would be beneficial. Most cited early diagnosis and treatment, as well as, providing risk to future pregnancies as significant benefits. 90% thought screening should be routinely performed.ConclusionsWe demonstrate that it is feasible to introduce NBS in Nepal. Transport metrics were longer than expected due to COVID pandemic travel restrictions; however, it was possible to deliver results to families within 2 weeks of birth. Parents overwhelmingly considered “no cost” option as the most important in choosing to screen. A government-sponsored program will be a key factor in establishing NBS in Nepal.

Positive and negative emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal survey study of the UK population.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on society; it changed the way we work, learn, socialise, and move throughout the world. In the United Kingdom, policies such as business closures, travel restrictions, and social distance mandates were implemented to slow the spread of COVID-19 and implemented and relaxed intermittently throughout the response period. While negative emotions and feelings such as distress and anxiety during this time of crisis were to be expected, we also see the signs of human resilience, including positive feelings like determination, pride, and strength. A longitudinal study using online survey tools was conducted to assess people's changing moods during the pandemic in the UK. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) was used to measure self-reported feelings and emotions throughout six periods (phases) of the study from March 2020 to July 2021. A total of 4,222 respondents participated in the survey, while a sub-group participated in each of the six study phases (n = 167). The results were analysed using a cross-sectional study design for the full group across each study phase, while prospective cohort analysis was used to assess the subset of participants who voluntarily answered the survey in each of the six study phases (n = 167). Gender, age and employment status were found to be most significant to PANAS score, with older people, retirees, and women generally reporting more positive moods, while young people and unemployed people generally reported lower positive scores and higher negative scores, indicating more negative emotions. Additionally, it was found that people generally reported higher positive feelings in the summer of 2021, which may be related to the relaxation of COVID-19-related policies in the UK as well as the introduction of vaccines for the general population. This study is an important investigation into what allows for positivity during a crisis and gives insights into periods or groups that may be vulnerable to increased negative states of emotions and feelings.

Tourism industry shrinkage and the economic loss of China in the COVID pandemic years

ABSTRACT Tourism industry represents one of the industry sectors which are ravaged mostly by the COVID pandemic. This study attempts to systematically quantify the economic loss to China triggered by the shrinkage of tourism industry during two pandemic years, 2020 and 2021. For this purpose, we develop a double-sided spatial shrinking (DSSS) model to calculate the loss of regional domestic tourism income in China due to travel restrictions. Then the multi-regional input-output model (MRIO) and the computable general equilibrium (CGE) model are employed to estimate the aggregate loss to Chinese economies in both the short and long terms. Besides significant theoretical contributions, we suggest practical approaches to how to respond effectively to the pandemic shock.

What COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Disparity Reveals About Solidarity

What COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Disparity Reveals About Solidarity

Wpływ pandemii COVID-19 na zmiany podejścia do zarządzania miastami historycznymi na przykładzie Florencji

Miasta historyczne zyskały w ostatnich latach na atrakcyjności w oczach turystów dzięki modzie na krótkie podróże miejskie (tzw. city breaks) i dostrzeżenie uroków korzystania z przestrzeni historycznych dzielnic. Wzrost liczby turystów w historycznych przestrzeniach miast przyniósł zarówno pozytywne skutki (np. korzyści ekonomiczne, przyśpieszenie procesów rewitalizacji), jak i negatywne (np. pogorszenie jakości życia, rosnące zatłoczenie i ceny nieruchomości mieszkalnych) dla miast i ich mieszkańców. Kryzys wywołany pandemią COVID-19 i związane z nim ograniczenia możliwości podróżowania rozpoczęły dyskusję na temat przyszłości historycznych dzielnic i zmian, jakie powinny zostać wprowadzone, aby ograniczyć niepożądane przez społeczności lokalne oddziaływanie turystyki na śródmieścia miast. Korzystając z opracowań naukowych, danych zastanych i informacji pozyskanych z wywiadów pogłębionych przeprowadzonych przez autora w 2022 r., analizie z tej perspektywy zostały poddane przemiany oraz polityka miejska wobec historycznej dzielnicy śródmiejskiej Florencji, miasta wpisanego na Listę Światowego Dziedzictwa UNESCO. We Florencji w trakcie trwania pandemii była kontynuowana debata dotycząca pożądanych kierunków zmian w podejściu władz miasta do jego historycznego centrum, czego efektem było m.in. wypracowanie wspólnie z mieszkańcami nowego planu zarządzania obszarem UNESCO. Problemy funkcjonowania zabytkowej dzielnicy wyeksponowane przez pandemię stały się motorem napędowym do zainicjowania procesu zmian. Część proponowanych rozwiązań jest już obecna w lokalnych dokumentach miejskich i jest sukcesywnie wdrażana. Kwestią dyskusyjną pozostaje jednak skuteczność wprowadzonych przez władze lokalne instrumentów zarządzania dzielnicą śródmiejską i możliwość ich rzeczywistego wpływu na sposób funkcjonowania historycznego centrum miasta w postpandemicznych warunkach.

The economic impact of international travel measures used during the COVID-19 pandemic: a scoping review

IntroductionAssessment of the use of travel measures during COVID-19 has focused on their effectiveness in achieving public health objectives. However, the prolonged use of highly varied and frequently changing measures...

Dynamic effects of tourism shocks on innovation in an open-economy Schumpeterian growth model

International travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic drastically reduced the number of tourists. This study explores the dynamic effects of tourism shocks in an open-economy Schumpeterian model with endogenous market structure. A tourism shock affects the economy via a reallocation effect and an employment effect. A positive tourism shock increases employment, which raises production and innovation in the short run. However, a positive tourism shock also reallocates labor from production to service for tourists, which reduces production and innovation. If leisure preference is weak, the reallocation effect dominates, and the short-run effect of positive tourism shocks on innovation is monotonically negative. If leisure preference is strong, the employment effect dominates initially, and the short-run effect of tourism shocks on innovation becomes inverted-U, which is consistent with the stylized facts that we document using cross-country data. Finally, permanent tourism shocks do not affect the steady-state innovation rate in our scale-invariant model.

Crisis classifications in mobility: Reporting the first COVID death in Taiwan

Crisis classifications are integral to COVID-19 press conferences. During the initial outbreak of the pandemic, public health officials classified the crisis status of the community. Depending on the status assigned, the community faced various consequences such as lockdowns and travel restrictions. This study traces Taiwanese health officials’ classification practices across temporal orders and participation frameworks. I call this successive link of discursive practices ‘crisis classifications in mobility’ to elucidate the processes of category production and dissemination. The mobility moved from uncertainty to certainty as health officials and journalists negotiated whether the first death of COVID-19 constituted a sign of community infection or community spread. Officials deployed metadiscourse to render some categories mobile and others immobile. Journalists used metadiscourse to push forward candidate categories and animate conflicting accounts given by local experts and a global superpower. Classifications in mobility capture these challenges of deconstructing and reconstructing categories in building public consensus.

Predictive Healthcare Analysis of Pakistan’s COVID-19 Pandemic Using Data Mining and Time Series Modelling

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has significantly spread worldwide and has come up with new challenges to the research community. This forced many affected countries to take stringent measures such as complete lockdown, shutting down businesses and trade, and travel restrictions, which has had a tremendous economic impact. Pakistan has also faced five waves of the deadly coronavirus. Therefore, having knowledge and foresight about how a country can contain the spread of COVID-19 will be of paramount importance to the government, policymakers, business partners, and entrepreneurs. In order to forecast the COVID-19 pandemic's spread, we apply AI-based forecasting models such as time series ARIMA, LSTM, fb Prophet, and VAR. These methods aid in informing public health authorities and policymakers' decisions about how to combat the pandemic. This paper demonstrates the promising potential of the time series model in forecasting COVID-19 cases and highlights the superior performance of the time series compared to the LSTM.

The Rock Garden: a preliminary assessment of how campus-based field skills training impacts student confidence in real-world fieldwork

Abstract. The Rock Garden is a new on-campus field skills training resource at Ghent University that was developed to increase the accessibility of geological field skills training and to provide students with more opportunities for such training. Developing specific field skills is integral to geoscience education and is typically concentrated into whole-day or longer field courses. These field courses have exceptional educational value, as they draw together multiple strands of classroom theory and practical laboratory learning. However, field courses are expensive and time-intensive to run, and they can present physical, financial, and cultural barriers to accessing geoscience education. Moreover, the relative infrequency of field courses over a degree programme means that key skills go unused for long intervals and that students can lose confidence in their application of these skills. To tackle the inaccessibility of field skills training, made more pronounced in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we built the Rock Garden: an artificial geological mapping training area that emulates a real-world mapping exercise in Belgium. We have integrated the Rock Garden into our geological mapping training courses and have used it to partially mitigate the disadvantages related to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Using the Rock Garden as a refresher exercise before a real-world geological mapping exercise increased students' confidence in their field skills, and students whose education was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic produced work of a similar quality to students from pre-pandemic cohorts. Developing a campus-based resource makes field training locally accessible, giving students more opportunities to practise their field skills and, consequently, more confidence in their abilities.

More than neighbours: Assessing crisis narratives of Nordic-Baltic elites in the context of European Union’s eastern border

Over the last decade, the European Union has faced multiple crises that have affected the direction and the nature of the integration process. This study focuses on the challenges posed by the Belarusian-EU border crisis (2021) and the proposed travel restrictions towards Russian citizens (2022) in the context of the Nordic-Baltic EU member states. The study addresses their impact through the double prisms of regionality and level of governance. The study looks at how national elite narratives on borders and the movement of people travel to the supranational context, in this case the European Parliament. While the Parliament is often overlooked in favour of the Council or the Commission, this study regards it as an effective analytical bridge between domestic and supranational decision-making levels. To achieve its empirical goals the study relies on governments’ official communiques, while the parliamentary analysis is based on pre-vote debates and Parliament’s roll-call votes. The article finds that, while the national narratives highlight a growing convergence of governmental narratives in adopting or justifying restrictive bordering measures, the EP debates and votes highlight the relevance of ideology and partisanship when it comes to the issue and the growing significance of the gap between mainstream and non-mainstream forces.

Health packages and affective infrastructures: promises of (Im)mobility in pandemic times

ABSTRACT In spring 2020, during the peak of the first wave of the coronavirus outbreak across Europe, special COVID-19 health packages started to reach tens of thousands of overseas Chinese students. Ordered and distributed by Chinese Consulates and affiliated student and scholar associations, these health packages were delivered with a special message attached – “the homeland is always by your side”. Meanwhile, Chinese students found themselves stranded in various pandemic hotspots due to prolonged national lockdowns mandated by China’s stringent zero-Covid policies and persistent international travel restrictions. How did Chinese students continue to celebrate a sense of being cared for by the state when millions were forcibly stopped by heightened infrastructural barriers and denied the possibility of returning home? Focusing on Covid health packages, this paper explores the many layers of infrastructural processes at play – logistical, socio-cultural, technological, and emotional. Affective attachments are activated as patchwork remedies for halted physical infrastructures, serving to align and redirect individual hope while normalising rejections, failures, and neglect. Covid health packages offer insight into how nationalist affect is made infrastructural to stabilize and uphold a tightly controlled (im)mobility regime during troubled times. Overseas students are drawn towards specific Chinese attachments infused with state promises of provision and care, with which many find special meanings in their own immobility and prolonged isolation.

1937 The future of research: Participant perspectives on remote trial delivery

Abstract Introduction The PROMOTe trial was conducted entirely remotely, which aimed to enable a wider recruitment of participants, minimised risk of Covid-19 exposure and adhere to former travel restrictions. Participant experiences with remote clinical trials are not well understood. This work aimed to characterise participant perspectives on the remote delivery of the PROMOTe trial. Methods The trial involved remote measurement of short physical performance battery and grip strength, and remote collection of stool, urine, saliva, and capillary blood. Equipment including a dynamometer was posted to participants. Participants returned biological samples by post. A mixed methods approach was used, whereby participants were invited to complete an online questionnaire consisting of Likert, multiple-choice and open-ended questions upon trial completion. Results Of 72 trial participants, mean age 73.1, 80.6% (n = 58) completed the questionnaire. 53.5% (n = 31) had no preference between remote or in-person participation. Of those who preferred to take part remotely, 57.1% (n = 4) stated this was because there was no need to travel. 57.1% (n = 12) of those who preferred to take part in-person stated this was because they preferred to talk to the staff and ask questions face-to-face. Participants found that taking 5 out of the 8 physical measures were of similar difficulty over video teleconferencing compared to in-person. 100.0% (n = 58) of participants found it “easy” or “average” to collect stool, urine, and saliva, while 63.2% (n = 36) of participants thought it was “easy” or “average” to collect capillary blood. All participants found packaging and returning all four sample types of “easy” or “average” difficulty. Conclusion These findings suggest that the majority of participants found remote trial delivery, including handling equipment and collecting biological samples, both acceptable and manageable. Remote trial delivery has potential for increasing access of older people to trial participation.

EHealth interventions for psychiatry in Switzerland and Russia: a comparative study.

During the past decade, the use of digital technology to promote mental health has increased dramatically. Additionally, the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as travel restrictions and the disruption of face-to-face interactions, have led to an increase in the use of digital technologies. A wide variety of technologies have been developed, including messaging chatbots, virtual reality technologies, direct-to-consumer apps, and even technologies that are fully integrated into clinical care tools. The following qualitative study is based on the opinions of mental health specialists in both countries regarding the use of digital health technologies in psychiatry in Switzerland and Russia in 2019-2020. We investigate the state of adoption of digital technologies in the field of mental health, the meaning of such technologies, and the crucial factors in the use of such technologies in psychiatry. Health care professionals in both Russia and Switzerland are well aware of these technologies. However, the use of digital technology to promote mental health has taken different paths in these two health care settings.

The perturbation of PAHs on mosses in Aberdeen, Scotland, as a consequence of social restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic

Air quality and the concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in urban environments are increasingly becoming a concern. Measuring air quality and PAHs, and linking these to specific activities, requires deploying and recovering sampling devices to capture and measure any changes. From May 2020 to June 2021, during the “lockdown” period of the COVID-19 pandemic, acrocarpous and pleurocarpous mosses were collected from five types of site in Aberdeen, United Kingdom, and the concentration of PAHs measured to track changes in PAHs as travel-related activities changed. The predominant types of PAHs found on mosses were of the four- and five-ring varieties, with the four-ring variety of PAH (medium molecular weight) becoming more dominant as the lockdown was lifted. However, for most sites, the concentration of PAHs was evidently perturbed by the transient lifting, reimposing, and then lifting of lockdown conditions, which either directly limited travel or changed people’s motivations to travel by car. Molecular diagnostic ratios or molecular marker parameters used to infer the source of PAHs varied little and were nearly always consistent with PAHs deriving from combustion in vehicle engines. Thus, even when travel was limited, PAHs were still derived from vehicle usage, although the overall concentrations on mosses were much lower. On average, the lowest PAH concentrations were found on mosses collected from a recreational park located the furthest from traffic. The highest PAH concentrations were observed on mosses collected from residential car parks during periods when the lockdown had been lifted. However, mosses from the same residential car parks had very low PAH concentrations during periods of travel restrictions, strongly suggesting that, for mosses, local factors and patterns of vehicle usage strongly determine their exposure to PAHs. Therefore, mosses within urban environments can be used for monthly monitoring of PAHs as they are able to detect changes induced by human behaviour.

The double burden of COVID-19 and cancer at the Uganda Cancer Institute

Background Cancer is increasingly diagnosed in Africa, with more than one million new diagnoses annually. In Uganda, the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) is the primary cancer care facility, with patients travelling long distances to this facility to receive care. During the COVID-19 pandemic, cancer care was disrupted on several levels, including prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up. National lockdowns impeded patient access to UCI and halted cancer screening. Methods This study used qualitative interviews to obtain primary data from professionals working at UCI. Interviews were conducted from April 2022 to January 2023. KI (key informants) ’s were purposively selected, identified by colleagues at UCI and recruited through email and WhatsApp messaging. Verbal consent was obtained. Thirty to 60-minute open-ended interviews conducted virtually and in person were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were coded via MAXQDA software and analyzed to identify themes. Results Thematic analysis revealed three major challenges to cancer care during COVID-19. First, UCI experienced logistical barriers such as travel restrictions, staff shortages, and insufficient protective gear. Second, staff adapted to the inflexible national lockdown policy for chronic health care with modifications to treatment regimens. Third, KI reported a significant mental health burden and reflected on how care should be improved. Conclusions As colleagues got infected, UCI staff organized their training, discussed treatment plans with colleagues, and continued to care for patients at personal risk. Resilience characterized UCI’s response to COVID-19. They adapted treatment protocols to their setting, many of which remain the standard of care today. At the same time, there is a need for capacity building tailored to the Ugandan context to provide cancer care effectively in case of another pandemic.

Understanding compensatory travel

Resources to which people expect to represent their social and personal status influence important traveler decisions. Yet we know little about the antecedents and consequences of travelers' behavior under resource fluctuation. Three studies examined how resource status affects travelers' spending propensities in crisis times from the life-history framework. Results presented that travelers with lower childhood backgrounds increased their willingness to pay for international flights to compensate for their resource deficit when their current income is relatively low and travel restriction is severe. Without resource-scarce cues, travel intentions were associated with travelers' childhood travel habits. The research suggests potential customer relationship strategies by showing how and why travelers' life histories affect compensatory behavior that companies may adopt during the industrial crisis.

Affinity and Usage of Technology in General, and Telehealth in Particular amongst Michigan Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions imposed by many states led people to resort to technology for many of their daily needs which put older adults (aged 65 years and over) at a particular disadvantage as it is known that they are slow to adopt technology on a wide scale. Increasing the adoption and usage of technology for all purposes, especially healthcare appointments, would particularly benefit this population segment. Primary data was collected through online surveys targeted at older adults, aged 65 and over, living in Michigan, through a Qualtrics panel. Results indicate that, since this survey was an online survey, there is a bias in the use of technology as more than half the respondents had used zoom/skype or a similar medium to connect with friends and family during the period of travel restrictions. However, a substantial portion had not used telehealth services. Barriers to using telehealth services and factors that would encourage them to use them more are discussed. The study points to an emerging need for older adults to take advantage of technology more in order to overcome some of the barriers to accessing telehealth for their healthcare needs. Although technology cannot replace having real contact with people and being able to move about in the community, it helps, to a certain degree, to elevate overall wellbeing.

Muslim Ban during Trump’s Presidency through the Target Population Framework

One of the controversies that defined Donald Trump’s presidency was his travel ban policy, which targeted immigrants from many Muslim-majority countries in 2017. While researchers have analyzed the rhetoric, discourse, and indirect speech acts of President Trump and American politicians to fully understand the enforcement of the travel ban, the number of studies investigating how politicians utilize the social construction of immigrants to support or oppose the travel ban is limited. Hence, it is crucial to thoroughly study how political actors socially construct immigrants to justify their policy positions on the travel ban. In this article, we contextualize the travel ban policy within the literature on the social construction of target populations, one of the prominent theories of policy processes. To that end, we examine four types of data sources: legal documents, relevant tweets posted by politicians, think tank publications (op-eds, releases, and commentaries), and news articles published during the travel ban debates. In light of our analysis, we find that not only policymakers but also members of the judicial system, news media sources, and think tanks construct immigrant identities in a way that justifies their policy positions on the travel ban. Our findings underscore the need for a nuanced and well-rounded debate on travel restrictions concerning the reconstruction and reimagination of immigrant identities by various actors. We also contend that future research could greatly benefit from analyzing the social construction of immigrants by different policy actors in a comparative fashion.

Revenge outbound travel in the post-pandemic era: evidence from an extended TPB model

ABSTRACT Revenge travel has become a hot topic in the global tourism industry since the lifting of pandemic-based travel restrictions. This research aims to thoroughly investigate the factors motivating revenge outbound tourism. Using an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) model, this research considers factors such as social and environmental information, psychological stimulation, and rational control. The results of the structural equation model (SEM) analysis of questionnaire responses from 561 Chinese residents confirm that environmental and social information and psychological stimulation jointly influence travelers’ attitudes toward revenge tourism, along with perceived behavioral control (PBC). These factors significantly facilitate intention and, in turn, promote retaliatory tourism behavior. The results of this research provide valuable contributions to the theoretical analysis of revenge tourism and the TPB model. This study also offers practical guidance on the recovery and growth planning of the tourism industry after the relaxation of travel restrictions.